Variant splitting is a legacy feature in SupplyMaster. It was originally built when Shopify limited products to 100 variants each. Shopify has since raised that limit to 2,048 variants per product for all stores, meaning virtually all supplier products now fit in a single Shopify product without splitting.

If you are setting up a new supplier, you can skip this article entirely. The default settings already use the 2,048-variant limit, and no splitting is needed.

This feature remains available only to support stores that originally imported products under the old 100-variant limit and already have split products in their Shopify store. Those stores need the setting to remain so their existing split products continue to sync correctly.

Background: The Old 100-Variant Limit

Shopify previously limited each product to 100 variants (each unique size/color combination counts as one variant). A t-shirt with 20 colors and 8 sizes has 160 variants (20 × 8 = 160), which exceeded the old limit. SupplyMaster provided variant splitting to work around this by breaking large products into smaller ones.

Shopify has since increased the per-product limit to 2,048 variants for all stores. At this limit, even the largest supplier products fit comfortably without splitting.

Do I Need Variant Splitting?

Situation	Do You Need Splitting?
New supplier setup	No. The default 2,048-variant limit handles all supplier products without splitting.
Existing store with split products from the old 100-variant limit	Yes — keep your current settings. Changing them could break the link between your existing split products and the supplier data.

How Variant Splitting Works

For stores still using the legacy 100-variant limit, the Handle Variant Limit setting determines what happens when a product exceeds the limit:

Strategy	What It Does	Example
Split by Color	Creates a separate Shopify product for each color. Each product contains all sizes in that color.	“Gildan T-Shirt - Red” (all sizes in Red), “Gildan T-Shirt - Blue” (all sizes in Blue)
Split by Size	Creates a separate Shopify product for each size. Each product contains all colors in that size.	“Gildan T-Shirt - Small” (all colors in Small), “Gildan T-Shirt - Large” (all colors in Large)
Limit to Max Variants	Imports only up to the maximum number of variants. Additional variants beyond the limit are not imported.	A product with 160 variants under the 100-variant limit would import only the first 100 variants.

Split by Color is the most common choice. It keeps all sizes together on one product page, which is the way most customers shop for apparel.

Configuring Variant Splitting (Legacy Stores Only)

Go to Edit Supplier > Automatic Sync tab.
Find the Maximum Variants Per Product setting and set it to 100 Variants (Legacy).
Set Handle Variant Limit to your preferred strategy (Split by Color, Split by Size, or Limit to Max Variants).

The Handle Variant Limit dropdown and Maximum Variants Per Product settings

Customizing Split Product Titles

When products are split by color or size, SupplyMaster generates a new title for each split product. You can customize this title using a Liquid template.

Default Template

{{ title }} - {{ key }}

This produces titles like “Gildan T-Shirt - Red” or “Gildan T-Shirt - Small” depending on the split type.

Custom Template

You can change the format to suit your store. For example:

Template	Result
`{{ title }} - {{ key }}`	Gildan T-Shirt - Red
`{{ title }} ({{ key }})`	Gildan T-Shirt (Red)
`{{ title }} \| {{ key }}`	Gildan T-Shirt \| Red

{{ title }} is the original product title from the supplier, and {{ key }} is the split value (the color name or size name).

Where to Configure

Go to Edit Supplier > Automatic Sync tab.
Set Handle Variant Limit to either Split by Color or Split by Size.
The Title for Split Products field appears. Enter your Liquid template.

The Title for Split Products template field with the default Liquid template

Shopify Store Variant Limits

In addition to per-product limits, Shopify has a store-wide limit of 50,000 variants for stores not on Shopify Plus. After reaching this limit, Shopify allows only 1,000 new variants per day. SupplyMaster automatically manages this process, gradually importing products until all required variants are added. Shopify Plus stores do not have this restriction.