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A lot of merchants use Shopify product variants in their e-commerce. This feature allows you to organize and bundle your items’ variations neatly. With it, users can choose colors, sizes, models, etc for products in one place instead of searching for individual variations. Large shops simply cannot give buyers a comfortable experience without this tool. However, too many SKUs for one item can cause an error that prevents the creation of more variants for it. Today, Mipler will tell you more about this error and how to fix it.
What triggers the “more than 100 SKUs” error?
Standard Shopify stores have certain limits. One of them is a limit on item variations per item. Let’s say you run a clothing shop. You have a T-shirt in your inventory with twenty different prints, a few sizes, and a gender option. Each combination of those parameters gives you an item variation. So, a male shirt of L size with an eagle is one of them. But with so many options in one item, you will quickly reach the limit – 100 variations for one product. If you try to add more than that – you will get the “Product Contains More Than 100 SKUs” error.
Why Shopify has this issue?
Shopify users often ask if the limitation may be lifted with more expensive payment plans or future updates. Unfortunately, the official answer was “no”. Shopify creators told merchants this limit cannot be changed due to the platform’s programming. Changing it requires restructuring the platform, which will likely cause more trouble than good. However, there is enough workaround for this issue.
Tips from Mipler to solve “more than 100 SKUs” error
There are a few ways to deal with an SKU limit. Keep in mind that none of these options will increase the limit straight up. They only bypass it with different techniques. Let’s discuss each in detail.
Third-party apps
Several third-party apps allow you to create more than 100 item variants. Mostly, they just create split items and combine them visually for users, redirecting when needed. The main benefit of this solution is its simplicity. You don’t need to learn programming or manually create split variants and redirections with apps. However, if you need to know what is happening “behind the curtain” and curate your shop at a more in-depth level, you may be better off without them.
Splitting items in the catalog
This is a “classical” way to deal with SKU limitation – you split one item into a few with different variations. Let’s get back to our clothing shop example. Say you have a T-shirt in your inventory with too many variations. You can split into two items – female and male models, each with print and size variations. If not enough – create an individual instance for each print with size and gender variants.
The main benefit of this option is minimal requirements. All you need to know to perform this trick is how to create item variants, which you likely already can do if you encounter an SKU error. No third-party tools, no coding. However, if you already have a big and diverse inventory, it can get messy and clogged with variations of the same items. In this case, we recommend using Shopify collections.
Merge variants with code
Finally, there are ways to merge or link split items to appear as one. This method starts exactly as the previous one – you create a few instances of the same item with different variations. From an SEO perspective, you can use custom metafields and tags to combine “parent” and “child” pages for better search performance. Users will still see split items. Or you can hire a programmer to edit your theme to merge split items visually for users. The main benefit of this way is looks and performance. It is the most effective option but also the most demanding. You need to learn programming and SEO or hire professionals.
Summary
The “Product Contains More Than 100 SKUs” error appears because of innate restrictions of the Shopify platform. It will not be fixed officially by Shopify. The limitation forbids merchants from creating more than 100 variations for one item.
However, there are a few ways to work around the restriction. You can split items into several instances, each with different variants. Some third-party apps allow you to create more variations and handle them for you behind the scenes. You may also combine split items into one by programming and reshaping your store’s theme. Splitting requires nothing but a skill to create item variants. Apps are carefree but do everything with minimal contribution from merchants. Programming is the most efficient option but requires some funds or additional knowledge.
