Consider the following set of variation data.

	2XL	3XL	4XL	LARGE	MEDIUM	SMALL	XL
BLACK/BLACK		2113439	2113447	2113436		2113434
BLACK/GREEN				2113457		2113455
BLACK/ORANGE				2113476		2113474
BLACK/RED				2113450		2113448
BLACK/WHITE				2113443	2113442	2113441
BLACK/WHITE/ANTRACITE	2113471
BLACK/YELLOW				2113462		2113460	2113463

 

Focusing on part 2113441, which is SMALL BLACK / WHITE.  THere is no part which is BLACK / WHITE and XL:

	2XL	3XL	4XL	LARGE	MEDIUM	SMALL	XL
BLACK/BLACK		2113439	2113447	2113436		2113434
BLACK/GREEN				2113457		2113455
BLACK/ORANGE				2113476		2113474
BLACK/RED				2113450		2113448
BLACK/WHITE				2113443	2113442	2113441
BLACK/WHITE/ANTRACITE	2113471
BLACK/YELLOW				2113462		2113460	2113463

 

So on website: when you drop down option, XL is greyed out. Because there is no way to get to it by changing size alone. For black white items : we only have LARGE, MEDIUM, SMALL. XL doesn't exist.

To work around this, whenever this happens on website  there is a dropdown called variations where you can eyeball stuff that is not directly reachable as matrix is not complete.

 

The variations drop down picks up anything which cannot be accessed at all from currently viewed part.

 

Consider this.

	2XL	3XL	4XL	LARGE	MEDIUM	SMALL	XL
BLACK/BLACK		2113439	2113447	2113436		2113434
BLACK/GREEN				2113457		2113455
BLACK/ORANGE				2113476		2113474
BLACK/RED				2113450		2113448
BLACK/WHITE				2113443	2113442	2113441
BLACK/WHITE/ANTRACITE	2113471
BLACK/YELLOW				2113462		2113460	2113463

Yellow 2113411 is where we start.

Green parts are ones we can get to just by changing One thing, size or colour. So from 2113441 to 2113448 we change from black/white to black/red. Size stays on 'small'

Orange parts are ones we can get to by changing two things. So from 2113441 to 2113450 we need to firstly change size to 'LARGE' (2113443) then change color to 'BLACK/ RED'

The red item is all by itself there is no way to get to it. Even though it is flagged as a variation, it has nothing in common with other items at all. So c9 website parks it in its own 'variations' catchall group.

 

For variations you pretty much want a matrix where every cell contains an item.  IF this is not possible c9 does its best to create an interface which allows users to move to variations.