Goal: Control which sales channels each variant of a Shopify product appears on, independently of the parent product. This is useful when you want to sell a specific size, color, or format on only some channels - for example, showing a limited edition variant on your Online Store and Buy Button but hiding it from the Shop app.

The easiest way is to export the products you want to update, edit the resulting spreadsheet, and re-import it. The export already includes the right identifier columns and the current per-variant publication state, so you only have to flip the values you want to change.

Video walkthrough: Watch the step-by-step video

Prerequisites:

You have Altera installed on your Shopify store
The product and its variants already exist in your store
The sales channel you are targeting is already installed on your store (e.g., Online Store, Shop, Buy Button, Facebook)

Step 1 - Export the products you want to update

Go to Apps > Altera in your Shopify admin and click Export, then select Products.

In the Sales Channels field category, tick Variant Published on Sales Channel (and Published on Sales Channel if you also want product-level columns). Use the export filters to narrow the export to just the products you need - for example, by handle, vendor, or tag.

Click Start export and download the resulting spreadsheet when it's ready.

Step 2 - Edit the Variant Published columns

Open the spreadsheet. For each sales channel you opted in to, there will be one Variant Published: [Channel Name] column (e.g., Variant Published: Online Store, Variant Published: Shop, Variant Published: Buy Button). Each variant row shows its current publication state for every channel.

Change values as needed:

Set a cell to TRUE to publish the variant on that channel.
Set a cell to FALSE to unpublish the variant from that channel.
Leave a cell blank to keep the current state unchanged.

You can delete rows for variants you do not want to touch - only the rows you keep will be updated. Leave the Handle, Variant ID, and Variant SKU columns alone so Altera can match each row back to the right variant.

Step 3 - Re-import the file

Back in Altera, click Upload file and select your edited spreadsheet. Review the analysis preview to confirm the product and variant count, then click Start import to apply the changes.

Outcome

Each variant is published or unpublished on the channels you changed. The parent product's publication state is left untouched. You can verify by opening a product in your Shopify admin, opening a variant, and reviewing its Sales channels section.

Example - Hiding one size from the Shop app

After exporting, edit the Variant Published: Shop cell on the Large row from TRUE to FALSE:

Handle	Variant SKU	Variant Published: Online Store	Variant Published: Shop	Variant Published: Buy Button
`cotton-t-shirt`	COTTON-TEE-SM	TRUE	TRUE	TRUE
`cotton-t-shirt`	COTTON-TEE-MD	TRUE	TRUE	TRUE
`cotton-t-shirt`	COTTON-TEE-LG	TRUE	FALSE	TRUE

After importing, the Large variant is hidden from the Shop app but still available on the Online Store and Buy Button.

Limitations

Point of Sale is not supported. Shopify does not allow variants to be hidden from POS independently of their parent product. If you set Variant Published: Point of Sale to FALSE, the change is skipped and a warning (PRD062) is reported.
The parent product must be published on the channel first. A variant cannot appear on a channel where the parent product is not published. Publish the product on the channel before publishing the variant.
Blank cells are skipped. Leaving a Variant Published: cell blank does not unpublish the variant - it leaves the current state alone. Use FALSE explicitly to unpublish.