What is the typical data structure for product variants in SFCC?

The typical data structure for product variants in Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC) is organized as a parent product with child variants. This hierarchical structure allows for efficient management of products that share common attributes, such as size or color, while varying in specific characteristics.

In this model, the parent product acts as the main entry that holds shared information, like the product name, description, and images. The child variants, which can be thought of as options or configurations of the parent, contain variant-specific details, such as SKU, price, inventory, and additional attributes. This structure enables easy navigation and a better user experience for customers as they can view and select from multiple options of a product without cluttering the catalog with separate entries for each variant.

This method is advantageous for both the retailer and the shopper, as it consolidates information under one product page and streamlines inventory management. The design also supports dynamic updates—if a certain variant runs out of stock, for example, this can be managed without affecting the parent product or other variants.

The other choices describe less efficient or practical methods for managing product variants. A flat list of products lacks the organization necessary for grouping related items, separate databases for different variants can create unnecessary complexity and fragmentation, and single