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Listings Lounge: We Are Family (of Variations)
Welcome back to the Lounge! This deep dive examines methods for using variations to strengthen your catalog and expand your reach. Variations enable grouping related options to increase sales, so let's dive in!
Variations allow multiple ASINs under a single detail page. This consolidates inventory while catering to customers' preferences. It is important to note that some categories do not support variations, and sometimes the best method for creating variations will be through templates.
So how are variations created? The options are:
- Using the Variation Wizard tool
- Through the ‘Add A Product’ tool
- Using Inventory file templates and make sure to use the template specific to your category.
Why use variations?
- Color/size options: sellers have found that creating an ASIN with variations drive traffic to all their ASINs as compared to standalone ASINs, resulting in improved conversion rates.
- Multi-Packs: a 3-pack variant often converts newcomers or encourages repeat purchases.
- Customizable fields: Leverage differences in images and bullets to differentiate your SKUs and guide buyers to the best fit.
Proper variation configuration is important. Grouping similar options together and employing intelligent labeling/structuring will direct the right customers to the optimal product for their needs. Be sure to watch this Seller University video to make sure your listings are compliant with the Variation policy!
What next steps can you take?
- Audit your best selling products. Are there other color/size combinations out there that might meet more buyers needs?
- Select one top product to test adding a Multi-Pack variant for a month and track the results.
- Customize variant fields with subtle differences to test what works best for your customers.
What’s worked best for you?
Please help share your wins and experiments using variations, what themes work best for your products, or any other helpful tips you can think of that might benefit other sellers!
Having trouble?
See the following resources for further information, and please create your own thread here in the forums for any issues requiring individualized assistance!
Resources:
- Variation Relationship Overview
- About parent-child relationships
- Elements of a parent-child relationship
- Add a variation using Variation Wizard
- Create product variations one at a time
- Creating Variations using Inventory File Templates
- Amazon Variation Policy Compliance
- ASIN Creation Policy / Variation Policy
Until next time!
-Danny
10 replies
Seller_aNsixtdBpnLRG
"...Proper variation configuration is important..." How about allowing NEW or different kinds of Variations then the ones presented? Ours do NOT always shoehorn into yours.
As for 'Grouping' concept in general - it would be nice if we could group listed inventory inside of "Manage All Inventory" - There are times when we do add a new product and it is just placed at the top of the heap - we'd like to move it so it is 'grouped' with 'like' products. It's a pain to have to scroll down to find a lone product that was entered much later then the 'others'
Seller_yvO8mEXSyy2K8
@Danny_Amazon I'm surprised to see multi-packs listed here as an example that should be tested. Last September, we got a series of listing violation warnings and (among other things) we were explictly told that an individual product and the multi-pack of that exact same product could not be children of the same parent. We were specifically told to break those up into stand-alone listings. Has that policy now changed? Or was it ever even the policy to begin with?
More broadly, why are some sellers held to the strictest possible interpretation of Amazon's variation policy while other sellers can seemingly do whatever they want? For example, we were told that we can't have "fixture with bulb" and "fixture without bulb" as children of the same parent. OK, fine - but we have a competitor that has "1 pack with bulb," "1 pack without bulb, "6 pack with bulb," "6 pack without bulb," "10 pack with bulb," "10 pack without bulb," "12 pack with bulb" and "12 pack without bulb" as the size variations - and then for the color variation, they're using four entirely different fixtures that are in fact the same color. So they have 32 different ASINs, across four completely different products, all under one variation family. Since that's apparently OK, did we ever actually need to break up all of our "fixture with bulb" and "fixture without bulb" families into stand-alone ASINs? Or were all of those listing violation warnings in error?
Seller_WsdULSSIajCRd
@Danny_Amazon
What is the best way to link to a parent listings that I didn't created? If you could tell us the best practices for doing this with another seller created variation or one that the retail team created.
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