Most Shopify import/export tools stop at the product level: a product is either on a channel or it isn’t, and every variant comes along for the ride. Altera publishes (or unpublishes) individual variants on a specific sales channel — so you can keep a product live on the Online Store while hiding a single SKU from Hydrogen, the Buy Button, or a marketplace channel.
For the broader picture of how Altera handles sales channel publishing in general — and where Matrixify falls short — see Matrixify Sales Channel Publishing. This page focuses specifically on variant-level control.
Why Variant-Level Publishing Matters#
Shopify’s Publication API tracks publication state separately for each ProductVariant, not just each Product. That means a product published to the Online Store and to Hydrogen can have one variant hidden from Hydrogen and visible on the Online Store, or vice versa.
This is the difference between hiding a SKU from one channel and removing it entirely. Common reasons to do it:
- Wholesale and B2B SKUs — trade-only sizes that should appear on a private GraphQL channel but not on the public Online Store
- Headless storefront curation — exposing only a subset of a product’s variants on a Hydrogen storefront, while the legacy Online Store keeps the full lineup during a migration
- Buy Button embeds — surfacing a single “featured” variant on an embedded buy button without listing the others
- Marketplace constraints — channels like Facebook or Google sometimes have policy restrictions on certain variants (e.g., bundled or oversize SKUs); per-variant publishing lets you exclude just those without delisting the product
- Phased channel rollouts — releasing new variants to one channel at a time
- Discontinued variants — pulling a single variant off one channel without removing it from inventory or losing its history
Without per-variant publishing, the only ways to hide one variant from one channel are to split the product, duplicate it, or unpublish the entire product everywhere.
How Altera Handles Variant-Level Publishing#
For every channel where Shopify allows per-variant visibility, Altera generates a Variant Published: <Channel Name> column. TRUE publishes the variant on that channel, FALSE unpublishes it, blank skips the update.
| Variant ID | Variant SKU | Variant Published: Online Store | Variant Published: Shop | Variant Published: Hydrogen | Variant Published: GraphQL App | Variant Published: Buy Button |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 45812882505914 | BENCH-00098-000 | TRUE | TRUE | TRUE | TRUE | TRUE |
| 45812882538682 | BENCH-00098-001 | FALSE | TRUE | TRUE | TRUE | TRUE |
| 45812882571450 | BENCH-00098-002 | TRUE | TRUE | TRUE | TRUE | TRUE |
| 45812882604218 | BENCH-00098-003 | FALSE | TRUE | TRUE | TRUE | TRUE |
The same column pattern works for any installed marketplace channel — Variant Published: Facebook & Instagram, Variant Published: Google & YouTube, and so on.
Export:
- Per-variant publication status for every supported channel, one column per channel
- Combine with product-level (
Published: <Channel>) and collection-level columns in the same export
Import:
- Set or unset publication for any combination of variants and channels in a single import
- Leave a column blank to skip updates for that channel — only the channels you specify change
- Works alongside product-level
Published: <Channel>columns, so you can adjust both layers in one spreadsheet
One thing to know about how the layers interact: a variant can only appear on a channel if the parent product is also published to that channel. The variant columns let you narrow a product’s channel visibility, never expand it.
Frequently Asked Questions#
Does Matrixify support per-variant sales channel publishing? No. Matrixify reads publishing values “only in the first row of each product” — variant rows are ignored. And even at the product level, Matrixify only supports Online Store and Point of Sale; every other channel is out of reach. See Matrixify Sales Channel Publishing for the full picture.
Which channels support per-variant publishing?
Online Store, Shop, Hydrogen, GraphQL App, Buy Button, and any installed marketplace channels (Facebook & Instagram, Google & YouTube, etc.). Point of Sale is the one exception — Shopify only supports POS visibility at the product level, so there is no Variant Published: Point of Sale column.
What happens if I leave a column blank?
Altera skips that channel for that row. Only the channels you explicitly include with TRUE or FALSE are updated, so you can target a single channel without disturbing the others.
Can I publish a variant to a channel that the product isn’t published to?
No. Shopify requires the parent product to be published to a channel before any of its variants can appear there. The variant columns can only narrow a product’s channel visibility, not expand it. If you need the variant on a new channel, publish the product to that channel first (with Published: <Channel>).
Can I use Altera’s variant publishing alongside Matrixify for everything else? Yes. Altera uses the same Matrixify-compatible spreadsheet format. You can use Matrixify for the data types it supports and Altera for variant-level sales channel publishing, product- and collection-level sales channel publishing, market translations, metafield definitions, metaobject definitions, inventory transfers, linked product options, and other data types Matrixify doesn’t cover.
See our full Altera vs. Matrixify comparison for a breakdown of all the differences between the two tools, or check the FAQ for more common questions.
