Inherited Fields & Preserve Empty Values

In Shopware 6, variant products can inherit certain values from their parent product. When a field is in an inherited state, the variant does not store its own value — instead, it automatically uses the value defined on the parent product.

In the admin interface, such fields are marked with a link icon, indicating that inheritance is active.

The “Preserve empty values” option in the import configuration allows you to control this inheritance behavior during import.

When this option is enabled, you can explicitly set a product field to inherited for a variant by marking it as empty in the import file.

As a result, the variant will take its value from the parent product instead of storing its own value.

How It Works During Import

To make a variant field inherited from a parent product via Shopware 6 import, follow these steps:

1. Enable the “Preserve empty values” option in the import profile.
2. In the import file, set the target field value to __EMPTY__VALUE__.
3. During import, our app will interpret this as:
   • The field should remain empty on the variant.
   • The inherited state stays active.
   • The value will be taken from the parent product.

This behavior mirrors clicking the link (inheritance) icon in the Shopware admin manually.

Important Limitations

This mechanism works only for basic product fields, such as:

• Name
• Description
• Manufacturer
• Other core product attributes

It does not apply to associations.

If the “Preserve empty values” option is disabled, empty values in the import file may overwrite existing data instead of preserving inheritance.

Practical Use Case

This feature is especially useful when importing or updating variants where:

• The parent product contains the canonical data.
• Variants should not override those values.
• You want to restore or maintain inheritance automatically via import, without manual edits in the admin UI.

By combining “Preserve empty values” with the __EMPTY__VALUE__ placeholder, you can precisely control whether a variant uses its own value or inherits data from its parent product — fully aligned with Shopware 6’s native inheritance model.