Create parent-child relationships

When you create parent-child relationships between products, you help customers find different versions of the product they are viewing. To create a parent-child relationship between products, use inventory files or the Add a Product tool.

When creating parent-child relationships:

Do not include price and quantity values for parent products. Including price and quantity can cause your products to disappear from the catalog.
Completely describe each child product and all of their variation attributes.
Follow the recommendations in the Product Page Style Guides for each child product.

You can view the existing child ASIN(s) for parent ASINs in the Amazon catalog on the Add a Product page in your seller account. If your product is not in the Amazon catalog, you will have to create a new ASIN. For more information, see the ASIN Creation Policy.

Inventory files: special considerations

There are a few special things to consider when you use inventory files to update, modify, or delete your inventory.

A child product cannot be assigned a new parent-sku value without first removing the relationship to its original parent item. To eliminate the relationship, you can delete either the parent or child product SKU.
When you delete a parent, you remove the relationship between that parent and all of its children. When you delete a child item, you eliminate the relationship between just that child and its parent.
After the original relationship is removed, you can re-assign the child item to a new parent item by entering that parent item's SKU in the child item's parent-sku field.

Setting up a parent-child relationship in the inventory file template

The following table demonstrates how you might use an inventory file to set up a parent-child relationship for several t-shirts that come in 3 sizes and 2 colors.

Note:

The exact column headings in your product template might differ. Refer to the "Data Definitions" tab in your Inventory File Template for the specific columns you use to establish relationships.
Some attribute fields in your template can be noted as optional, but they are required to describe your child products accurately in relation to parent products.
The variation theme column indicates that products in this particular parent-child relationship differ from each other based on both color and size. The "Data Definitions" tab in the inventory template lists the terms you can use for variation themes. Amazon will remove product listings that do not correctly use established variation themes.
Use only SKUs for building variation relationships.
Do not include price and quantity values for parent products. Including price and quantity can cause your products to disappear from the catalog.
When you list your child products, completely describe each child product and include data for all of the variation attributes of the parent product, so that they are included in browse and search results and on product detail pages.
Follow the recommendations in the Product Page Style Guides when determining the variation attributes to use for each child product.

Example

SKU	Title	Size	Color	Parentage	Parent SKU	Relationship Type	Variation Theme	Price	Quantity
101	T-Shirt			parent			SizeColor
101MB	Royal Blue T-Shirt M	Medium	Royal Blue	child	101	variation	SizeColor	15.97	50
101SB	Royal Blue T-Shirt S	Small	Royal Blue	child	101	variation	SizeColor	15.97	50
101LB	Royal Blue T-Shirt L	Large	Royal Blue	child	101	variation	SizeColor	17.97	50
101MR	English Red T-Shirt M	Medium	English Cherry Red	child	101	variation	SizeColor	15.97	50
101SR	English Red T-Shirt S	Small	English Cherry Red	child	101	variation	SizeColor	15.97	50
101LR	English Red T-Shirt L	Large	English Cherry Red	child	101	variation	SizeColor	17.97	50

In the example above, SKU 101 "T-Shirt" is the parent product. Because parent products are not offered for sale, fields such as size, color, price, and quantity are irrelevant and should not be used.

However, you should still describe other aspects of the parent product, including an image that represents the generalized product. The only information to omit relates specifically to price, availability, and shipping.

Use XML for parent-child relationships

You can use XML uploads instead of inventory file templates to set relationships between products.

For more information about using XML to manage your inventory, see Establish Product Relationships - Relationship Feed Schema.

Delete patent-child relationships

For information about deleting relationships between products, see Special consideration section under Modify Your Inventory File.

Best practices

For information about best practices to follow, refer to Best practices section in When to use parent-child relationship in variation.