Amazon: creating product variants

About this article

This article describes the creation of product variants on Amazon.

Table of contents

Introduction

On ChannelEngine

On Amazon

Best practices

FAQs

Introduction

It is possible to create variants on Amazon. For example, this is useful to list several sizes of a single type of socks or different colors of the same pair of shoes.

On ChannelEngine

Go to the Content mapping section of the Amazon channel to set up variants. By default, content export is not enabled for Amazon so you need to request it.

To set up variants:

1. Go to Mappings, Content mappings and select the product type for which you want to set the variants. You need to repeat this for every product type/category, as the selectable options for the variation theme vary per product type.
   
2. Before setting the attribute on which you want to set the variants (i.e.: size or color), you must set the Relationship type. To set variants, select the Variation option. The option Accessory can be used to group products together with an Also recommended element on Amazon, displayed as accessory/additional products to be purchased with the selected product.
   
3. After setting the relationship type, you must set up the Variation theme under the Content mapping. This is where you select the attribute on which you want to differentiate your variants. E.g.: if you are selling a t-shirt or a pair of shoes with different sizes, the correct option is either Size or SizeName. If you are selling a USB stick in four different colors, the correct option is Color.
   
4. If you choose Color as the Variation theme, make sure to fill in the color map as well. This maps your color names to accepted color names on Amazon. Note that you have to do this for every product type, even if you always want to use the same variation attribute. This is due to Amazon's lack of support for variations for every product type – and to the fact that variation themes can differ per category.

On Amazon

To create variants directly on Amazon, refer to the Use 'Add a product' to create variations article on Seller Central.

Best practices

Amazon's content mappings may not match the content that should be mapped for the specific product category on ChannelEngine. This is due to Amazon's huge number of possible categories, and their ever-changing templates.

As a result, attributes that may be required are marked as optional, and vice versa. The best practice is to generate the category-specific template on Amazon's Seller Central, and compare that to the mappings available on ChannelEngine. This way you know for sure which mappings are required and which are optional.

To create variations, the parents must be included in the product selection. You can do this by adding a filter to your product selection stating: If > Type > Equal to > Parent.

Parents cannot and must not be categorized. If the parents have a category trail, you can add a categorization rule to prevent them from being categorized. Make sure to leave the value blank, as seen below. Keep in mind that categorization rules work based on their order, i.e.: the first rule has priority over the second rule, and so on. Hence this should be the first rule.

Although parents need all required attributes under All products, and all of them must be mapped to pass the validation, some of their values are copied from the children.

• SKU
• Variation theme - copied from the children
• Parent_child
• Item_name
• Recommended browse nodes - copied from the children
• Brand - it is mandatory that the brand name is consistent throughout the whole product family
• Product type (category) - copied from the children

Try to avoid optional fields at first, this way you lower the chance of encountering errors preventing the content from being accepted. Once the content is pushed correctly, you can slowly map more optional fields – making sure each time to check for new errors.

Map the optional Update type attribute to Clear and overwrite, so the existing content on Amazon is overwritten with the mapped data on ChannelEngine.

FAQs

I am using Amazon in a country other than the United Kingdom or United States. How do I identify the 'Relationship type' and 'Variation theme'?

Below you can find the translation of those attributes per country. Note that for the UAE the Relationship type is under the All products category, while the Variation theme is category-specific. For all other countries, both attributes are category-specific.

• Canada - Relationship Type, Variation Theme.
• France - Type de relation, Thème variation.
• Germany - Produktbeziehungs-Typ, Varianten-Design.
• Italy - Tipo di relazione, Tema variante.
• Mexico - Tipo de Relación, Tema de Variación.
• Netherlands - Type relatie, Variatiethema.
• Poland - Typ Relacji, Motyw zmiennosci
• Spain - Tipo de relación, Tipo de variación.
• Sweden - Relationstyp, Variationstema.
• United Arab Emirates (UAE) - Relationship Type, Variation Theme.