Variable Product
A variable product in WooCommerce is one product sold in several versions, such as sizes or colours, each with its own price and stock.
In plain English
A t-shirt in three sizes and two colours is one product with six variations, not six products. The customer picks from dropdowns on a single page.
The attributes are the choices, size and colour. The variations are the combinations you actually sell, each with its own price, stock level, image and SKU.
Why it matters
It keeps the shop navigable. Six near identical listings clutter a category page and split the reviews and the search ranking between them.
It also keeps stock honest. When the medium blue sells out, only that combination goes out of stock, and the rest stay on sale.
How it works
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You define attributesSize, colour, material, with their possible values.
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You mark them used for variationsWhich tells WooCommerce these are choices, not just specifications.
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Variations are generatedAll combinations, or only the ones you actually stock.
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Each gets its own detailsPrice, stock, weight, image, and whether it is enabled.
Do not generate every combination blindly
Four attributes with four values each is 256 variations, most of which you will never sell, and a product page that takes noticeable time to load.