# Single Products vs. Products With Variants

> What standalone and configurable mean in Osello, how Shopify variants map over, and how product structure shapes your marketplace listings.

Every product in Osello is one of two kinds: a **single product** (Osello calls this *standalone*) or a **product with variants** like sizes and colors (Osello calls this *configurable*). Osello picks the right kind automatically when it imports from Shopify — you'll see the word "Standalone" or "Configurable" right under the product's name on its page.

## Standalone: one buyable item

A standalone product is a single item with a single SKU — a tote bag that comes one way, for example. The product's page shows its SKU and barcode directly, and its price and inventory belong to the product itself.

## Configurable: one product, many variants

A configurable product is a parent with a set of variants, where each variant is one specific buyable combination — "Small / Navy", "Medium / Navy", and so on. The two levels hold different data:

- **The parent product** holds everything the variants share: title, description, tags, and shared images.
- **Each variant** holds what makes it unique: its option values (size, color), its own SKU and barcode, its price, its images, and its inventory.

Products with variants get a **Variants** tab on their page listing every combination with its SKU, barcode, and stock. Single products don't need one.

When a variant is missing something — say it has no images of its own — Osello falls back to the parent product's data, so you don't have to duplicate shared photos onto every size.

## Which kind you get from Shopify

Shopify decides this for you:

- A Shopify product with real options (size, color, material) imports as a product with variants.
- A Shopify product with no options — just Shopify's automatic default variant — imports as a single product.

If a product looks wrong in Osello (for example, variants you expected are missing), check its options in Shopify and fix them there; the correction flows in on the next sync.

## How this shapes your listings

Listings mirror your product structure. When you list a product with variants on a marketplace, Osello creates a listing with a listing variant for each product variant, so shoppers see one product page with size and color choices — not ten separate products. Marketplaces differ in how they handle parent products behind the scenes, and Osello adapts your structure to what each one expects at submission time.

## Products that don't come from Shopify

Most catalogs come from Shopify, but products can also be added from a file — choose **Import Data** from the actions menu on the Products page. Products added this way follow the same two structures: single products, and parents with variants.

## Where to go next

- [How products import from Shopify](/help/products/how-products-import-from-shopify)
- [Create listings from your products](/help/channels-listings/create-listings-from-your-products)
- [Product identifiers: UPC, GTIN, and barcodes](/help/products/product-identifiers-upc-gtin-barcodes)