Add New Variants

Add New Variants finds colors and sizes your supplier has added after you imported a product, and adds them to your existing Shopify product. Nothing on your product is deleted or replaced. Only the missing variants are added.

If you imported a polo with 8 colors and your supplier later added Forest Green, this action adds Forest Green to your existing product with its own price, SKU, image, and PromoSync data, leaving the other 8 colors alone.

When to Use It

Don’t use this to fix prices or update existing variants. Use Update Metafields for that. Add New Variants only adds, it never touches variants that are already there.

Before You Run It

Your products need a supplier link, a hidden tag PromoSync attaches to every product it imports so it knows which supplier product the Shopify product came from. (Internally this is the psrestful.extra_id metafield, but you don’t need to think about it.)

Source of the productHas a supplier link?Will this action work?
Imported through PromoSync’s Product SearchYesYes
Imported through “Onboard to PromoSync” or “Link to PromoSync”YesYes
Created by hand in Shopify, never touched by PromoSyncNoNo, the product will be skipped

If a product doesn’t have a supplier link, run Onboard to PromoSync on it first, then come back.

One Extra Requirement for “Color-Split” Stores

If your store splits each product into one Shopify product per color (the “by color” variant grouping setting), this action only adds variants whose color matches that specific Shopify product. So adding Forest Green to your “Acme Polo - Navy” product won’t happen. You would get a new “Acme Polo - Forest Green” instead, but only after running an import. This action does not create new color-split products.

How to Run It

  1. In Shopify Admin, go to Products.
  2. Tick the checkboxes next to the products you want to check for new variants. You can also use Shopify’s filter and “Select all”.
  3. Click the ... button, then Apps > Bulk Product Sync.
  4. In the dropdown, pick Add New Variants.
  5. Click Submit.

The window closes after a couple of seconds and the job runs in the background. You can close Shopify Admin and go do something else. You’ll get an email when it’s done.

First time? Run it on 2 or 3 products you know have missing variants, so you can verify the result before turning it loose on hundreds of products.

What Happens Next

You’ll get an email titled “Add New Variants Results”. It includes:

The email goes to the notification contacts you’ve set up in your shop settings.

Why Something Might Be Skipped

What the email or log saysWhat it meansWhat to do
”no extra_id metafield”The product doesn’t have a supplier link. PromoSync never imported it.Run Onboard to PromoSync on it first, then run this action again.
”No new variants”Your supplier hasn’t added anything since you imported the product. Nothing to do.Nothing. This is the expected outcome most of the time.
”No color-matching new variants” (color-split stores only)The supplier added variants, but none of them match this product’s specific color.Check whether you need to import a new color as its own product.
”color [X] not linked to any metaobject”The new variant’s color doesn’t exist as a swatch in your store yet.Add a color swatch for that color in Shopify Admin > Settings > Custom data > Metaobjects, then run the action again.

Common Questions

Will this overwrite my existing variants?

No. This action only adds variants that don’t exist yet. Your existing variants, including any prices, SKUs, or images you’ve customized, are not touched.

Will it change my product images?

No, your existing product-level images are left alone. The new variants get their own images from the supplier, and those new images are uploaded to your store.

How does it know which variants are “new”?

PromoSync looks at every variant on your Shopify product and checks its part ID (a unique code the supplier uses for each color/size combination). Anything in the supplier’s catalog whose part ID isn’t already on the product is treated as new.

What if I select 1,000 products?

The job will take longer, but it will still finish. Expect roughly an hour for 1,000 products on a typical store. The email comes when it’s all done.

Can I undo it if I don’t like the result?

Not as a single click. You would need to delete the new variants by hand from each Shopify product. Run on a small batch first to be sure.

Does this update prices on existing variants?

No. To refresh prices, use Update Prices (for the visible Shopify price) or Update Metafields (for the PromoSync pricing data).