What it requires. Near-duplicate products differ only by tokens an attribute should carry (size, term, tier), multiplying the catalog.
Why it matters. [practitioner: Cloud Giants] "Companies have long been guilty of SKU proliferation" - each variant-as-SKU multiplies every downstream artefact (price rows, selling models, components, table rows keyed by product) into a multiplicative maintenance surface, where attributes carry the same variance as data through one product.
How to fix it. Model the variance as attributes on one product; retire the variant SKUs as they fall out of quotes.
Source. Cloud Giants: RCA products guide
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