Almost all my listings with variations have become seperated
As above, we have thousands of listings which have a parent listing with 2 or 3 variations. These listings have been going for 5+ years, but for the last month or so, they have all been being separated. This is confusing for us, and also our customers. Even the reviews seem to being split up to the individual variations, despite the products being variants of the same thing (a poster, and a framed version).
Can anybody help as our sales have dropped massively because of this.
Thanks
23 replies
Seller_ae51e0CJoHqCX
Yes, I’m afraid it does happen from time to time and it is aggravation.
Did you create the listings using a flatfile and do you still have the flatfiles?
If so you can try reuploading the flat files and do a partial update.
If that fails it maybe down to a couple of reasons but common errors are mismatch of imformation and you will have to update the listings and delete the parents. After deleting the parents you wait 24 hours and then recreate new parents and attach the variations back in.
Seller_tRuvBEHDedp4q
Also be aware that variations on Amazon are very limited.
Some categories do not allow it. Most only allow variations on Size and Colour (with the odd exception)
Some sellers mis-use the variations to get round this - but it is against Amazon policy and bots may eventually catch up and separate the listings.
When you say you selling posters - can I ask is the poster the same picture and the variation is either for the size or perhaps frame colour?
If the picture itself is different then that will be why they have now become separated
Seller_TufyJDtetbrlU
This has been going on for a while now, i’ve had a thread going on about this …
The only way i’ve managed to sort mine is to delete the listings then wait a few days and put them back up, however it may still keep happening. They will also merge listings sometimes
which is an even bigger pain to sort out.
Seller_yGFP9vQJKe1zg
Thanks for the advice, I hadn’t really considered that this could be an issue. Is there a better way to have two variants of the same product in the same listing? The main issue being that we want our customers to have the two options in front of them as we have found in the past that customers will message to ask if there is a framed option if it isn’t there in front of them to be able to choose?
Seller_TufyJDtetbrlU
Also like you said, i notice it’s only happening on my listings i’ve had on here for a few years not ones i’ve put up over the last year or so.
Seller_yGFP9vQJKe1zg
Thanks again for your help. I guess it does look that way. It just seems such a shame to be unable to have a poster available as just a poster or as a framed version. I see these options on so many marketplaces (Etsy eBay etc), its a shame Amazon discourage sellers from trying to take the initiative (and ultimately boost sales by upselling to a framed version).
Could anyone tell me how this listing is able to do something similar to what I am after?:
Will they end up in a similar situation, or am I doing things the wrong way?
Seller_c2jsSHsx93Djt
Its incredibly aggravating! Especially when Amazon changes an attribute and by doing so breaks the variation relationship.
I have for example a tub of wipes and a refill for them. The customer has the option of selecting the tub or refill and then the quantity which seems to meet the size/name parentage rules. Now both the tub and the refill have been organised into 1 count Pack of 1 as the option, breaking the variation.
So of course the solution will have to be that the refill pouches get their own listing and pack size variation which doesn’t really help the customer.
The catalog team do love to make changes! As with most things Amazon you just have to roll with the punches.
Seller_g0hK8Fa5sCNj5
I have seen this issue raised by several people today on twitter. It looks like Amazon are really clamping down on variation listings and to be fair it has been exploited for a while. Have seen big brands put like 12 completely different products in the same listing.
Seller_J2H5GprhaORbt
I have had this a lot with ceramic dinner plates
but to make maters worse , where the listing was for 6 colour variations of the same pattern , they have split all the variations separately and somehow got into each listing which is clearly for 1 dinner plate , got number pf pieces 6 . so the buyer is expecting 6 units
