Can the same product be in two groups?

No. A product can belong to only one group at a time.

If the same product lived in two groups, the storefront would not know which group's swatches to render on its page - the two would conflict and could show the wrong options to shoppers. OPTIS prevents that instead of letting it break silently.

What this means in practice

• Manual groups: a product you already grouped can't be added to a second group. Remove it from the first group if you want it in another.

• Auto Groups: design your rules so they don't overlap (e.g. two tag rules whose tags both apply to the same product). If two rules match the same product, it stays in the group that claimed it first - the other rule skips it.

• Duplicated groups: this is exactly why Duplicate creates the copy as a Draft - the copy shares the original's products, so it stays off the storefront until you edit it to use different products and activate it.

Want one product to appear under two "angles" (say, grouped by color AND by material)? Use a multi-option group instead - one group, several options.