Should I break products with variants apart by color?

[hstb]

I currently have a lot of products that have a "Color" variant (along with a "Size" variant and sometimes other variants.)

I'd like to break apart these products into separate products, each with their own color. The main reasons I'm thinking are 1) the user can then filter by color and get to the exact product they want more easily, 2) for Google Shopping ads, the user is taken to a more precise product and they know this before they click.

If I do this, I'd be changing the handles to include color so I'd have a redirect from the original handle to one of the new handles. I'm thinking I'd redirect to the most popular variant but would you do something differently with the redirect? Perhaps to a filtered collection that shows all the products/colors?

What are the downsides a) for users and b) for SEO? Is it worth doing this?

[PaulNewton · Accepted solution]

This is a flat model, or product families, or standalone variant products,  etc. Sometimes the result of ERP software not having a hierarchy system . Search the forums for those terms to find posts I and others have discussed. Note the terms/words used are loose with this type of product information architecture setup since shopify is variant centric so makes research hard for beginners.

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@hstb wrote:

I'd like to break apart these products into separate products, each with their own color. The main reasons I'm thinking are 1) the user can then filter by color and get to the exact product they want more easily

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Shopify has storefront filtering that can use variant options for online-store-2.0 compatible themes

https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/online-store/themes/customizing-themes/storefront-filters 

Or can be added to themes 

https://shopify.dev/themes/navigation-search/filtering 

2) for Google Shopping ads, the user is taken to a more precise product and they know this before they click.

This is one reason some businesses go through route singular specific urls either for marketing, web urls, or for use with channels like facebook/instagram etc.

Perhaps to a filtered collection that shows all the products/colors?

This is part of the catch once users are on your website they need to be able to easily navigate between that canonical products sub products. Putting them all into a collection that matches the title/handle of those products is one way.

I'd be changing the handles to include color so I'd have a redirect from the original handle to one of the new handles. I'm thinking I'd redirect to the most popular variant but would you do something differently with the redirect?

Or leave the canonical product as a jumping off point to the other sub product options. 

ala https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/online-store/themes/themes-by-shopify/vintage-themes/customizing-... 

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What are the downsides a) for users and b) for SEO? 

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Downside for users if you don't customize your theme right navigating between options is annoying.

As for SEO you want to avoid duplicate content so you may want to have 1 product be the canonical/prime product all others point too. Or not it's highly dependent on goals and each businesses setup , consult a SEO specialist.

Is it worth doing this?

If you have a legitimate business reason and the accompanying budget to validate all your assumptions that's the only way to prove worth.

[EmmanuelFlossie]

@PaulNewton has done a great job explaining all the points.

And I would like to shine in and say that creating 1 page per product variant is not a good idea. From an advertising perspective, a user that clicks on an ad will not always buy that specific product.

For example they might click on a blue t-shirt size medium, but end up buying a red t-shirt size large. Now if you have 1 page, with drop down or icon selection for different colors and sizes, the user can easily buy a different product, if you start separating everything, you make the buying journey way too hard.

You as a merchant, need to minimize the steps a user needs to take from the first click, to the checkout. This also means you need to understand how your customer behavior is.

[UkrForever]

There would be no downside for showing variants as products. You can choose to group variants by Color, Size or both and show as products using this app https://apps.shopify.com/ultimate-search-and-filter-1. You need to enable this feature by going to App settings => Premium => Variants as products