WooCommerce stores a variable product as a parent product plus separate records for its variations. The parent holds shared information such as descriptions and attributes; each variation can have its own SKU, price and stock. An export that includes only parent records will therefore omit much of the data needed for inventory or pricing work.

WooCommerce’s built-in exporter can include variable products and variations, but produces CSV files and offers limited filtering. WP All Export provides filters for product fields, attributes and custom fields, alongside Excel and XML output. A key distinction is that an attribute filter applies to the parent product: filtering for blue selects products that offer blue, but exports all their variations, including other colours.

In WP All Export, a WooCommerce Products export can be narrowed with rules for product type and colour, joined with AND. The drag-and-drop column editor can include title, SKU, price, stock and variation attributes, rename headers, and apply PHP functions to values. Advanced Options determine whether the file contains parent records and variations, variations alone or parents alone. Custom XML Feed output also allows a tailored tag structure, including nesting variations under parent products.

Author of the original text: Priscilla Asonibare (Oxygen)