# Overview of products and variants

Products and variants are integral to Solidus. While the Spree::Product and Spree::Variant models depend on each other, it is important to understand how they are different:

• Spree::Products track the general information about a product. This includes the product description and the permalink where a customer would find the product listing on a store. If you sell a mug and a t-shirt, you would set up a separate product for each of them.
• Spree::Variants track the specific information about a variant of that product. For example, the variant provides the dimensions and weight. The variant provides the information required by orders and shipments. If you sell a red t-shirt and a green t-shirt, you could make each one a variant of your t-shirt product. Similarly, if all of your t-shirts come in small, medium, and large, then you would make additional variants for each of those: small green t-shirt, small red t-shirt, medium green t-shirt, medium red t-shirt, and so on.

The rest of this article introduces essential information for using products and variants in Solidus.

# Products

Spree::Products track unique products within your store. If you sell a mug and a t-shirt, you would set up a product for each of them.

If you have a number of items that are similar (like t-shirts that come in small, medium, and large sizes), you can create variants for a single product instead of creating three separate products.

You can categorize products using taxonomies and taxons. And, if you want to offer more extensive information about a single product, you can add custom product properties for any product.

# Variants

Spree::Variants track the unique properties of multiple similar products that you sell. For example, if you sell a red mug and a green mug that have many other properties in common, you could create a single product ("Mug") with two variants.

Here are a few key points to note about variants:

• If a product has more than one variant, all variants require an option type and option value. (For example, an option type of "Size" with the values "Small", "Medium", and "Large".)
• Every product has a master variant. When additional variants are created, they inherit properties from the master variant. The properties can be overridden by the variant's own unique values. See Master variants for more information.
• All product images are linked to a product's variants. Product images are either associated with a specific variant or can be used for all of the variants.

For more information about variants, see the Variants article.

# Taxonomies and taxons

You can create categories for products using Spree::Taxonomys and Spree::Taxons. The following taxonomies are common in ecommerce stores:

• Categories
• Brands

Where taxons act as subcategories to taxonomies:

Categories
|-- Luggage
|-- Clothing
    |-- T-shirts
    |-- Socks
|-- Shoes
Brands
|-- Adidas
|-- Bentley
|-- Calvin Klein

Taxons become associated with products via the Spree::Classification model.

For more detailed information about taxonomies and taxons, see the Taxonomies and taxons article.