This is a BIG concern for us. Right now product information only displays the parent SKU description and specifications-- which is not always 100% accurate.
We have products grouped together in various parent/child relationships, some specification will have different information per child, so only seeing information listed by the parent is not accurate and important details would be missing--
1. example: shovels have different handles or they have the same handle but different scoops-- each of those variants will have important information that is needed to be shared with the customer as they pick what type of shovel they wnt to buy
*** Because of this variant issue we removed the parent/child relationships because customers could not see the information they needed.
2. example: first aid kits-- each variant "10 person", 20 person", "50 person" contains different product details and specifications. If customers cannot see what information is included in those first aid kits, how can they make an accurate decision? All three options mentioned above have different products in the kits and one may buy a 20 person first aid kit vs a 10 person first aid kit because one includes scissors and the other one does not. Therefore the parent SKU can't mention they all have scissors in the kits-- that's not accurate.
3. Examples of different sizes per variant. A customer wants to make sure if they are picking out a vest, shoe, coveralls or anything with a size option that they are buying the correct size. Each size variant can mention M= size 8 or information like, "Item a size 8 but size up for a better fit", etc. If the parents SKU is the only information being displayed the accurate detailed information per variant SKU is not being shared.
Seeing specification and descriptions per SKU and not per parents allows us to accurately group the SKUs that need to be grouped together and displaying accurate information per SKU. Displaying the correct information confirms the customer is buying the correct item and leads to fewer returns.
This has been implemented as of October 2022 and we appreciate your feedback! - https://support.optimizely.com/hc/en-us/articles/10006663630733-October-2022-Release
I neglected to mention that inheritance is still a key issue here.
Documents (Assets) that are assigned to the parent should be inherited by the Children, but if a Child has it's own Document then that should be displayed only when the Child is selected.
Similarly - if the value for say Color is set at the Parent as Red, and the Child doesn't have a value for Color, then the Parent color should be inherited...unless the Child has a value, then display that value.
We have a similar need for our site.
Customers are complaining that when they search for the Child, the Search results dropdown resolves to the exact match of either our part number or theirs, but then when they land on the page the Parent data is all they see.
Our market has requestors that may know the Length, Gauge and Color of a part number, but the buyer that actually goes to our site to BUY the product only knows the number (if they're lucky).
So, when they search for it and all they 'see' is the variant values, but not the Child ID - they get nervous and start clicking Chat/Contact Us, email or phone to find out why our site is 'broken'. Sure, we explain they can narrow the results in Product Options and then click the 1 result found, but that's just another step or two to them...and they don't have the time or inclination to help OUR site work better for them...they expect things to work the other way around.
https://www.eis-inc.com/product/acrylic-coated-sleeving-ph21-nu-sleeve-ag-155-a?option=ACRA02NFJ