Setting up variations on OTTO: size, colour, product reference

Product vs. variation: the difference

According to the OTTO Market API, a product is a collection of variations that share properties such as brand, category and product name. On OTTO you manage your product data mainly at variation level. Each variation is its own record with its own SKU, EAN, images and price. On otto.de, the variations then appear together on one product page; when a shopper picks a size or colour, otto.de adds ?variationId=… to the address.

The product reference holds variations together

To tell OTTO which variations belong together, give them all the same product reference. The API documentation says:

• The product reference groups all variations you want to combine into one product.
• Shoppers don't see it, and it can be up to 50 characters long.
• Each product reference may be used only once in your catalogue – for that one product.
• Pick a value that fits all variations and doesn't describe any one of them.

A good example is "RainJacket-Nordwind", a bad one "RainJacket-Nordwind-Blue-L". According to ChannelEngine, some long-time sellers still group by SKU; the product reference is today's standard. The difference between MOIN, SKU and product reference is explained in OTTO MOIN, product reference and SKU.

What must be identical across variations

Per the API documentation, these fields must be identical for all variations of a product:

• Category – for example "Outdoorjacke" (outdoor jacket).
• Brand (brand ID).
• Product line, if provided – the product's proper name, up to 70 characters.

What differs is SKU, EAN, images, price and of course the properties the variations differ in. The EAN must be unique in your assortment, so two variations can never share one.

Which properties can form variations?

Not every attribute works as a variation. In the category data, OTTO defines per category group which attributes can be used for variations – the field is called variationThemes. Often these are properties such as size or colour. The API best practices state explicitly that variations are built via these variationThemes. Check the list for your category before you plan variations. Categories and attributes change, so OTTO recommends fetching the category list regularly, ideally daily.

Images and texts per variation

Images belong to the variation. A blue jacket needs a blue image, a red one a red image. For colour selection there are dedicated colour tiles as a media type. You also maintain description and attributes per variation, so make sure colour and size are right in each one. For good images and texts, see OTTO product images and Writing OTTO product descriptions.

Common mistakes – and why they're costly

1. Each colour as its own product: without a shared product reference, colours end up on separate product pages. Shoppers don't see the other colours.
2. Different category or brand across variations of one product – this breaks the rule that these fields must be identical.
3. A variation-specific product reference like "Shirt-Blue-M" – you can't cleanly add more variations to it.
4. Changing things later: per the API best practices, a successfully created product reference and SKU combination for an EAN can't simply be changed. You have to deactivate the affected SKUs and resend the data. So plan the structure before the first upload.

Variations, search and reviews

OTTO doesn't publish how it weighs variations in search or which variation it shows in the results. We also found no official statement on whether reviews are shown per variation or for the whole product – best check your own product page. What's certain: clean grouping puts all sizes and colours on one page, where shoppers find their variation. Whether restructuring your variations changes your position becomes visible when you track the product before and after – for example with MarktRank, which records the position per keyword weekly. More on new products in Making new products visible on OTTO.

Frequently asked questions