Creating Variations on Amazon: What Is and Isn't Allowed?

Have you recently received a listing policy violation notice about misuse of ASIN variations? Were any of your listings orphaned or, even worse, was your account suspended or deactivated?

We’ve heard more and more chatter about this happening to sellers and understand your frustration — creating variations on Amazon can be confusing and you also may have been operating for years without issue until red flags were suddenly raised.

The good news is that help is available. Read this article to get a better understanding of parent-child relationships, including when to use them and the Amazon policies to pay close attention to. You’ll also get great advice from Leah McHugh of ecommerceChris, a team of industry experts specializing in account reinstatement, on how to handle these situations and other can’t-miss tips.

What Are Variation Relationships?

There are many benefits to creating product variations but, as you know, it can be difficult to do in practice. You also may unknowingly be making the same mistake over and over again.

Having a solid understanding of what a variation relationship is in Amazon’s eyes is extremely important, no matter if you’re just starting out or going back to square one. You may see things differently, but in this case that doesn’t matter — you’re playing by Amazon’s rules. Here’s how the marketplace defines variation relationships:

Variations (also known as parent-child relationships) are sets of products that are related to one another in terms of size, color, flavor, etc. Good variation relationship listings allow buyers to compare and choose products based on different attributes such as size, color, or other characteristics from the available options on a single product detail page.

Furthermore, there are three components to a proper variation relationship that you need to consider:

1. Parent Product: The parent ASIN is a non-buyable product that’s used to relate to child products. Think of it as the general holding area for its related offspring, or child ASINs.
2. Child Products: A child product is related to the parent product but varies in some way, like in size or color (or sometimes both). Child ASINs are the items available for purchase.
3. Variation Theme: The variation theme defines how the related products differ from one another. Themes will vary depending on the product category (check the “valid values” tab in your inventory file to see what types of relationships your category supports). A single variation theme is allowed per listing, but some categories do accept double, or hybrid, variations. For example, child products in the Clothing, Shoes & Jewelry category can have a size-color variation, like the small Blue Topaz Heather t-shirt shown in the listing below. Another example would be a 12-ounce pack of beef-flavored dog treats in the Pet Supplies category (a quantity-flavor combination).

When to Use Parent-Child Relationships

If an appropriate variation theme exists for creating a valid parent-child relationship, Amazon will require you to use it. But considering that not all related products are valid variations, what does having an “appropriate” theme and a “valid” relationship even mean?

When you’re creating variations on Amazon, here are the questions the marketplace wants you to ask yourself:

• Are the products fundamentally the same?
• Could they share the same title?
• Do they vary only in a few, specific ways that don’t alter the product’s core use?
• Would customers expect to find them together on a single product page?

Essentially, you can’t list inherently different products together, like having a suitcase with wheels alongside one with a shoulder strap. While they may be similar in function, you couldn’t answer “yes” to any of the questions above.

This gets increasingly complex, however, when you sell multiple products with multiple style and color variations. You may not recognize the differences (they’re basically the same product, right?) but a customer will. It directly impacts their shopping experience, and this is what Amazon cares about.

For example, imagine you sell coffee mugs in different colors and with different sayings. If all the sayings were universally offered for each color variation, you could create a variation family per saying using the color variation theme. However, if only the blue mug says “Best Dad Ever” and only the pink says “Best Mom Ever”, you couldn’t legally set this up as a simple color theme variation. The image below helps bring this scenario to life — see the difference?

Top Tips for Creating Variations on Amazon

There’s a lot to consider when you’re creating variations on Amazon, so here are some of the biggest things to remember:

• Be sure to fully describe each child product in detail so it will be included in browse and search
• Add the appropriate variation value, like size or color, to each child ASIN’s title
• Do not create large variation families with more than 2,000 child ASINs, which is the maximum Amazon will display
• Do not create variation families or add child ASINs to variation families that are not of the same brand or product type
• Do not include price and quantity values for parent products
• Do not include the variation value in the parent product’s title
• Do not use a variation theme outside of the approved theme that's offered
• Do not put more than one product characteristic in a variation attribute

It’s also important to understand how variations show up in search results and on product pages — it’s not always the same, which causes some sellers to think something is wrong.

Related Reading: How to Add a Variation to an Existing Amazon Listing

Clothing, Accessories & Luggage, Sporting Goods, and Beauty categories all display best-selling parent products in search results and on product pages and show display elements (i.e. title and description) pulled from the parent product. Every other category will show the best-selling child product in search results and on product pages and show specific display elements associated with that ASIN.

Variation Misuse: Common Mistakes and What Amazon Wants to See from You

Amazon’s variation policy outlines four main misuses of variations which can lead to “your ASIN creation or selling privileges being temporarily or permanently removed.” They are:

1. Changing the parent or child’s detail page to become fundamentally different from the product that was originally listed.
2. Changing the parent product’s detail page so it doesn’t match the child products.
3. Adding child products that aren’t valid variations of the parent product. This includes adding newer versions or models of the parent ASIN later on, which is something that we see all the time as sellers try to piggyback on an existing item’s reviews.
4. Adding multi-pack variations that weren’t created by the manufacturer to an existing parent product.

You may have already seen some of our previous work with Chris McCabe, Founder of ecommerceChris, discussing ways to keep your Amazon business compliant. We recently spoke to his Listing Compliance Investigator, Leah McHugh, about the rise of variation misuse.

In my experience, variation misuse is systemic on seller accounts. Rarely is it just a single listing that is incorrect. Amazon expects you to check all your listings for variation misuse when they send you a policy warning. They only send so many warnings before they suspend the entire account. Ensuring that ALL variations are set up correctly needs to be part of your plan of action.

Leah McHugh
Listing Compliance Investigator
ecommerceChris

McHugh went on to explain the two most common mistakes that she sees sellers making. The first, unsurprisingly, is including child ASINs that vary by more than one variation theme when it isn't allowed.

Child products can only vary by the theme, and available themes differ by category. If your products don't fit into one of the available themes, Amazon doesn't want them in a variation family. - Leah McHugh

The other mistake involves adding extraneous information to product attributes, like adding "blue large wagon" to the color attribute when it should just be "blue".

McHugh spoke alongside McCabe in this excellent eComEngine interview about staying compliant with ASIN variations. Watch the video below to learn what Amazon specifically wants to see in order to reinstate your account, the best way to resolve variation issues, and the relationship between bundles and variations.

Do You Have Questions? Let Us Know!

We hope this information has answered some of your questions about Amazon variations. If you need additional help or insight into Amazon policies, please let us know — the eComEngine crew or the fine folks at ecommerceChris would be happy to help!