Moving individual products to products with color variants options

[-DM]

We are looking into changing how our products are setup on Shopify, as currently each different product and each of its color variants are separate products. So even the products that are the same but different color variant are individual products and we do not use the variants through shopify at all. However, I would like to see what our store could look like if the products were minimized to where they included product color variants within the product. I was not sure how it would function and work, I was hoping to get feedback and opinions on if it is a good idea to change our products to where they have color variants within shopify itself, instead of using a third party color variant app to link our color variants together like we currently do. 

our current store link:  storacellnet.myshopify.com

[MatthewLeeHess]

Make it easy for the customer.

- Pick a battery type

- Pick a size

- Pick slimline or not

- Pick a color

One at a time, in that order.

Right now, the way your products and collections are configured, it bombards them with all of those decisions all at once. 

Would recommend having the navigation be limited to just the different battery types.

Then on each collection page, products with variants.

The product items should each have swatches underneath them.

They should be sorted by size, with the standard version first, and slimline immediately after it.

The main image for each product should be standardized to be the same color option, to provide a unified and cohesive design to the collection pages.

Would also strongly encourage a master collection page, that includes filters for Type, Size, Color, Slimline. 

[-DM]

Thanks for the tips! Would you recommend with the setup you mentioned, that our products be changed to include variant color options? Or should we be keeping each color option product as it’s own individual page?

[MatthewLeeHess]

I would definitely switch over to products with variant color options. 

[-DM]

Alright, just one more question, you mentioned that the product items should each have swatches underneath them. Are you meaning on the collection pages (example: AA collection page with all available sizes) Or did you mean on the product pages that should include swatches kind of like we have it now with the swatches. I am unsure of collection pages that includes product items with swatches shown and how to complete that, as we only know how to do variant swatches on product pages

[MatthewLeeHess]

I'm thinking of an idea like this:

However, that is entirely dependent on the theme that you are using. Some have that functionality, some don't. 

All themes are customizable by Shopify developers, and this is a task that could be done in an afternoon, in it's simplest version. If you have a budget for a redesign, that might be something worth considering.

[-DM]

I was thinking you meant something like that, we currently use the impulse theme and they have color swatches as a function. However I’m not sure how the swatches are shown on collection pages, as we have only been able to show them on the product pages. From your pic that seems like a collection page?

[MatthewLeeHess]

The official demo of the Impulse theme has a version of collection pages with the product swatches being shown:
https://themes.shopify.com/themes/impulse/styles/clean/preview

This is from the official documentation for your theme:
https://archetypethemes.co/blogs/impulse/how-do-i-set-up-color-swatches

[MRamzan]

You can try this solution without using any App: