# Variant Category Each set of product variants needs to be set up as a regular Product Category with the 'is variant group' option ticked. This is the configuration that will bring together the group of products that you want to be presented as 'variants'. There are some important settings on the Product Category page that determine how your variant group will end up looking ### Variant Shell Before continuing, let's explore the concept of a 'variant shell'. When browsing your site, a customer might see a product variant group on a category view, for example: ![](/files/icvL6i3oIqlIXAQYqqy8) This is not a link to a specific product, but to a 'variant shell' - that is, a page that presents all the products in the group and allows them to select which variant they want, like this:

A variant shell page

It is on this page that the customer will be able to select the concrete variant they are interested in. At that point, the customer will be viewing the standard detail page for the chosen product. ### Is Variant Group? It's important this option is checked - if not, the category will just be treated as a regular product category. ### Variant Axes The key setting for getting your variant group right. Choose the custom attributes like size or colour that you previously created to act as variant axes. ### Show Variants Will show a list of available variants on the category page before the customer clicks into the product. Stock availabilty will be reflected, with unavailable products greyed out. Note that this setting is also available at Website level. When set at Website level it will affect all category pages. This is the recommended method of setting this configuration - however, if you need more fine-grained control you can override on a category by category basis. ### Description The description you type here will be used as \*the default description\* on variant sell page when the customer clicks into the variant group, but before they select a specific product (refer to the description of 'variant shell') above. > Note that if you leave the description blank, the system will use the description of the first product in the variant group. ### Variant Group Image Choose the image that will be shown on the variant shell page before a specific product is chosen. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.pakk.io/websites/product-categorisation/product-variants/variant-category.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.