Merging Variable Products

  • Resolved rebeccaolson

    (@rebeccaolson)


    4 years, 3 months ago

    Hello! I am hoping someone might be able to point me in the right direction. We have a few variable products that I need to combine together – basically, we’re taking an entire category of products that used to only be available on the “back end” of the store and making them available online. These products are all variable (essential oils that are 2 oz and 8 oz.) It is simple enough to make these products visible in the online store, and I was all set to do that, when I hit a hiccup.

    We also sell 5 of those oils in smaller, “retail” sizes (5ml and 10ml) online, and have been for years. So for those 5 oils, they’ve been treated as two different products for the last few years (the retail product with the 5ml and 10ml size, and the bulk product with 2 oz and 8 oz size).

    Thus my question is: Is there any way to combine the two product versions (retail and bulk) and their variables together, so they become 1 product with all the variables (5ml, 10ml, 2oz and 8oz) and bring their sales history with them? I realize I can just add new variables to the dropdown options (eg. add 2oz and 8oz as options to the current retail 5ml and 10ml options), but that’ll mess up reporting, because the updated products wouldn’t pull any past information about the bulk sizes. I can do that if I have to, but I’d rather be able to save myself the work in the future, and see the same sales information for the different variables, but all under one product name.

    In addition, if I just added 2oz and 8oz options to the current retail oil, I don’t want the old “bulk” products existing as duplicates where someone could accidentally sell them (and mess up reporting further). So if there’s no way to actually merge them, and I have to just add one set of variable options to one of the current products my second question is: Is there a way to End Of Life a product so that it doesn’t show/isn’t sell-able even in the backend of Woocommerce, but isn’t deleted completely where the past sales data is lost? Thanks!

    • This topic was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by James Huff.
    • This topic was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by rebeccaolson.

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Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Luminus Alabi

    (@luminus)

    Automattic Happiness Engineer

    Hi @rebeccaolson,

    There’s no way to merge the products together. You’ll need to add the missing attributes to the existing products as you’ve described, so add the 2oz and 8oz variations to the product that’s currently publically sold.

    Is there a way to End Of Life a product so that it doesn’t show/isn’t sell-able even in the backend of Woocommerce, but isn’t deleted completely where the past sales data is lost?

    You mentioned that these products are only available on the backend, which means you’ve hidden them from the shop already and therefore customers aren’t able to purchase them.

    You’re already set here.

    Thread Starter rebeccaolson

    (@rebeccaolson)

    Luminus – thank you for your quick reply! I’m disappointed I can’t merge them, but was expecting that since I couldn’t find any information out there on how to do it.

    As for my second question: We have an online store, and a brick and mortar store, who both use our Woocommerce store as the sales platform (we have a point of sale plugin for the brick and mortar store). I’m not concerned about customers purchasing the products online – I’m concerned about one of us who work at the physical store accidentally selecting the old/dead product and selling it, since it will show up as an option in the search function. I need it to not show to us on the backend, but the data related to the products remain so our years of sales history aren’t lost.

    Rebecca

    Luminus Alabi

    (@luminus)

    Automattic Happiness Engineer

    @rebeccaolson,

    This is probably something you want to check with the developers of your Point of Sale plugin since that’s where the product is going to pop up.

    Ordinarily, setting the stock to 0 should prevent the product from being available for sale, but I can’t speak to how your POS plugin is handling that information, so checking with its developer will be crucial to ensuring that you’re doing the right thing.

    Plugin Support Missy a11n

    (@m155y5)

    Automattic Happiness Engineer

    We haven’t heard back from you in a while, so I’m going to go ahead and mark this thread as resolved. If you have any other questions please feel free to start a new thread.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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