We have a website (edcleather.com) and we sell alot of digital patterns for holster makers. Currently we list the product, Pancake Holster, then the customer has a dropdown menu to choose the model of the holster. They choose the model and complete the purchase and download their file.
I cannot for the life of me figure out how to create these type of products on shopify
any direction you may have would be appreciated
George
HI @George19
I had to search a bit, manually, as your current WordPress site does not have a search feature.
In your admin product page, create a new product named " 752 Cake 8 Holster Pattern". Then, in variants, add “Holster model” under Option name. And then add all variant values below. You can add one by one, but it’s better to add all values separated by a comma in the first input value, like
BERETTA PX4 SUB, BERSA 45vPro, Canik TP9SF, CZ P10 compact, ........
Also, check the docs in general
https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/products/variants
Good luck
thank you so much, will get to work on this
No problem, and if you want, you can share you Shopify store link here, and password for frontend if you have it under development. So not admin password 
but one in Online store > Preferences.
Hey George!
Laza covered the variants setup perfectly. The missing piece is how to deliver the right PDF file to each customer based on which variant they bought.
For that you’ll need a digital delivery app. I work with Big Digital Downloads (full transparency, I’m on their team), and it handles exactly this: you upload a different file per variant and when someone buys “Canik TP9SF” they automatically get that specific PDF, not just a generic download link.
With 96 variants the initial file mapping will take some time to set up, but once it’s done it runs completely automatically. Their support team can help you if you get stuck during setup.
Good luck with the migration!
You can do this in Shopify, but with 96 choices I’d be careful about using a single product with one giant dropdown if the options are really different models. The cleanest setup is usually one product per pattern family, then use variants only where the choices are truly the same file with a different fit or model.
A few things I’d do this week:
Keep the product page simple. If shoppers are choosing from 96 holster models, split them into smaller groups first, like by firearm family or holster style. A huge dropdown is hard to scan and usually hurts conversion.
Use a variant app or a product options app if you need more than Shopify’s normal variant limits. Shopify’s native variants are fine for a lot of stores, but once you get into 96 highly specific choices, apps are often easier to manage and less painful for customers.
Make the model names match how your buyers actually search. If they think in terms like Glock 19, M&P Shield, 1911, etc., use those exact names in the option list. Don’t make them decode internal names.
For the download side, make sure the file delivered matches the variant they picked. The mistake I see a lot is people setting up the product options correctly, but then every buyer gets the same generic PDF.
I’ve run Shopify stores since 2016, and for products with a lot of configuration, the biggest win is usually reducing the number of decisions on one page.
Hello there George,
You can do this in Shopify with one product that has variants for the different holster models, and each variant can link to a different digital file using a digital downloads app. That lets checkout be easy, but the user can still pick exactly which pattern they want. If your catalog is so big that it can be considered infinite, you might want to take advantage of line item properties with a dropdown and a fulfillment app that automatically maps selections to files. This way is more scalable and you don’t have to make a lot of individual products. I hope this helps.
