Brian Keary

Posted on Feb 19

How to Create a Custom Variant Selector in Shopify

#webdev #beginners #tutorial #learning

A well-designed product page is crucial for any Shopify store, and a custom variant selector can significantly enhance user experience, boost conversions, and create a seamless shopping journey. By default, Shopify provides basic variant selection options, but creating a custom variant selector allows you to tailor the design and functionality to better suit your store’s branding and customer needs.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the step-by-step process of creating a custom variant selector in Shopify, ensuring it’s optimized for usability, SEO, and performance.

Why Customize Your Variant Selector?

1. Improved User Experience

A custom variant selector makes product selection more intuitive, reducing frustration and increasing conversions.

2. Enhanced Visual Appeal

Customization allows you to match the variant selector with your store’s branding, making the product page look more polished and professional.

3. Mobile Optimization

A well-designed custom selector ensures a seamless shopping experience on all devices, improving engagement and retention.

4. SEO Benefits

A structured variant selection process can improve indexing, reducing duplicate content issues and improving rankings.

Step 1: Understand Shopify’s Variant Structure

Before diving into customizations, it’s important to understand how Shopify manages product variants:

Shopify allows up to three variant options per product (e.g., Size, Color, Material).
Variants are managed within the product object and retrieved via Shopify’s Liquid templating language.

Step 2: Create a Custom Variant Selector with Liquid

Shopify’s default variant selector uses dropdowns, but you can replace them with radio buttons, color swatches, or buttons.

Modify Your Product Template

Go to Online Store > Themes > Edit Code
Locate product.liquid (or product-template.liquid in some themes)
Find the default variant selector and replace it with the following Liquid code:

{% for option in product.options_with_values %}
  <div class="variant-option">
    <label>{{ option.name }}</label>
    <div>
      {% for value in option.values %}
        <input type="radio" name="{{ option.name | handle }}" value="{{ value }}" id="{{ value | handle }}">
        <label for="{{ value | handle }}">{{ value }}</label>
      {% endfor %}
    </div>
  </div>
{% endfor %}

Add Styling with CSS

To make your custom selector visually appealing, add the following CSS to your theme’s theme.css or styles.css file:

.variant-option label {
  display: inline-block;
  padding: 10px;
  margin: 5px;
  border: 1px solid #ccc;
  cursor: pointer;
}

.variant-option input[type="radio"] {
  display: none;
}

.variant-option input[type="radio"]:checked + label {
  background-color: #000;
  color: #fff;
}

Step 3: Enable Dynamic Variant Switching with JavaScript

To ensure customers can seamlessly select variants, add JavaScript to dynamically update the product image, price, and availability.

document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () {
  document.querySelectorAll(".variant-option input").forEach(input => {
    input.addEventListener("change", function () {
      let selectedVariant = this.value;
      // Update product image, price, and add-to-cart button
    });
  });
});

Step 4: Optimize for SEO & Performance

1. Structured Data Implementation

Adding schema markup helps search engines understand variant relationships, improving search visibility.

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Product",
  "name": "Your Product Name",
  "offers": {
    "@type": "Offer",
    "price": "29.99",
    "priceCurrency": "USD",
    "availability": "https://schema.org/InStock"
  }
}

2. Optimize Images for Fast Loading

Use WebP format for high-quality compression.
Implement lazy loading to defer offscreen images.

3. Mobile-Friendly Design

Ensure touch-friendly elements for seamless mobile interactions.

Conclusion

Creating a custom variant selector in Shopify improves user experience, enhances brand consistency, and boosts SEO performance. Whether you use radio buttons, color swatches, or dropdown alternatives, your goal should be to make variant selection effortless for customers. Implement these strategies, test responsiveness, and optimize performance to maximize conversions and engagement on your Shopify store.

Forem