Some products come in multiple variants. A lot of these variations center around color and size.

Ideally, different variations of the same product ought to share a product page. Take the example of a refrigerator, a portable speaker, a phone, a laptop computer, a shirt, or a pair of shoes. If the design is identical and the only variation is in the color, then those products should share a product page.

Different variations of some products like nail polish, hair dye, makeup, or paint may be chemically and functionally identical for the most part but still have subtle color variations that make all the difference to the customer. In this case they can have different product pages but the core information needs to be synchronized. 28% of sites fail to do this.

 

Why is syncing information important?

Scattering all the relevant product information like the product description, images, and reviews across multiple variants leaves customers confused and unable to access all the information they need to make a purchasing decision.

It also makes locating a product hard and makes some of your product pages look sketchy (e.g. when they lack reviews or comprehensive product descriptions.)

 

How should you sync reviews?

For products like clothing, home appliances, and electronics, most of the reviews center around the functionality and build quality with the color being no more than aesthetic choice with little relevance to customer satisfaction so all the reviews should be in one place.

For products like paint, dye, or makeup where the color used is actually important to customer satisfaction, you should still have the reviews in one place but actually try to differentiate them by shade. Color variants need to be grouped together. For example, black and blue paints shouldn’t have their product information synchronized but the different shades of blue should.

Examples