Combining Simple Products into One Product with Variations

I think changing the parent product to a Grouped Product would do it:

https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/managing-products/

@seank123 I’m not sure a Grouped Product would work:

Grouped – a collection of related products that can be purchased individually and only consist of simple products. For example, a set of six drinking glasses.
https://woocommerce.com/videos/woocommerce-grouped-product-overview/

Variable – a product with variations, each of which may have a different SKU, price, stock option, etc. For example, a t-shirt available in different colors and/or sizes.
https://woocommerce.com/videos/woocommerce-variable-product-overview/

It seems very limiting that you can’t add an existing product to a variable product’s list of child products.

I should work – instead of a dropdown for the size you’s get with a variable product you’d have all the sizes visible with quantity box to select the size you want. This illustrates it a bit better – scroll down to the first picture:

https://www.sellwithwp.com/woocommerce-grouped-products/

Unfortunately, WooCommerce doesn’t work like Magento in this regard.

Sorry, I meant your solution won’t achieve the results I’m looking for (as opposed to not working at all).

I’m looking to add existing SKUs to a variable product dropdown – which, it would appear, it not possible. Unless anyone else has a clever plugin or something…?

Ah right – no, I don’t think you can do what you need!

Easiest option I think would be to create new products from a spreadsheet with the built in CSV importer – that’s how I add a lot of mine (we do teamwear for cricket clubs for example – all the clubs have the same garments and sizes so it’s easy to find/replace team names and SKU codes before importing them)

Obviously that would mean a fair bit of work setting it all up – although it’s quicker than adding them all manually!!

Fortunately, I’ve not got huge numbers of SKUS, so it won’t be an issue entering them manually. The issue is that I’ve imported all previous orders and sales figures from Magento when I migrated to WooCommerce. If I create new products, the previous orders for those SKUs won’t be included, will they?

If I create new products, the previous orders for those SKUs won’t be included, will they?

If I understand what you’re asking, about reports, is no, the reports are not done by SKU but by the product itself (the post_id the product is assigned).

Thanks @joelwills, that’s what I thought.

So there’s no way of turning existing (or imported) simple products into child products of a new parent variable product?

If the product is already created on your site you could update it to be a variable product, rather than a simple product, and add variations.

I’ve never actually tried this, but take a look at:

https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/product-csv-importer-exporter/

and download the sample data CSV. You could then export any existing products on your site and alter it, based on the dummy/sample data and change the exiting product to be a Variable one and add variations.

It’s best to test this on a test site and see how it works.

Thanks – but I want the variations to be existing products, linked to a variable product. For example:

Products already imported:
Green T-shirt, simple product, SKU 123
Red T-shirt, simple product, SKU 234
Blue T-shirt, simple product, SKU 345

I would like to set them up as follows:
T-shirt, variable product
Variations: Green (SKU 123), Red (SKU 234), Blue (SKU 345)

As far as I can tell, I would need to create new products for the variations, thereby losing the sales history of those products.
Is that right?

I was under the impression that the order history is in separate table independent of the products themselves – so, for example, you can change product prices in the store without it affecting the sales reports – if the reports were based on the current product information then they’ll be wrong if prices have changed, discounts were available etc!

Just checked on mine for products that I deleted years ago – sales still show in the order history and in reports.

That’s correct, you wouldn’t lose previous sales history, but new sales won’t be added to the old sales as the products would now be different.

So you’d have two Green t-shirt for example, one as it’s own product, and then going forward a new Green t-shirt with new sales history.

@joelwills

Thanks for getting back to me.
Of course, the other issue is now I will have to add duplicate products, with identical SKUs – one as it’s own product, and another as a variation of a variable product. Is that possible?

Hi there!

No, you can’t use the same SKU for two different products. I would suggest using variations so you know they’re connected but one is new and one is old.

So you are suggesting I change the SKU on the imported products to xxxxx-OLD (for example), and then use the correct SKU for the variation?