Department
Brand Enablement - Flat Files
Summary
Purpose
Scope
Responsibility
Template
Procedure
Output (deliverables)
Notes
Purpose
The purpose of this document is to provide a guide to create parent - child relationships between ASINs commonly known as variations.
Scope
This document is meant to be used by the Brand Enablement Specialists when creating variations.
Definitions
Variation
A variation (also known as parent-child relationships) is a set of products that are related to one another in terms of a specific attribute that makes them different between each other, for example: Size, Color, Flavor, etc.
If you need more information, please review the SOP What is a Variation
Components of a variation:
Parent listing: The product listing is a non-buyable entity used to relate child products
Child products: The products that are related to each other all under the parent listing
Variation theme: This defines how related products in a parent-child relationship differ from each other. (Size, Color, Style, etc)
Responsibility
This SOP provides the necessary steps to help creating variations.
Tools (or Materials)
Seller Central
Slack
Excel
Procedure
Determine the listings to be in a Variation
Whenever a variation needs to be created, confirm which of the listings in the Seller’s inventory will be part of it.
Types of listings that will be found in the Inventory:
Items currently under a variation (called children or variations).
Items that have variations within itself (called parent listings).
Items that are not part of any variation (called stand-alone items).
Check them all by following these steps:
Step 1. Access your Seller Central Account
Step 2. Click Manage All Inventory
Step 3. Within Manage All Inventory, these 3 types of listings will be found in the seller account:
Variation parents
Variation children
Stand-alone items
The Variation Parents can be found within the Seller’s inventory by paying attention to the small gray arrow pointing right under the Status’s column. Each item with this symbol is a Parent listing and if you want to see who are the children inside of it then you will need to click the arrow so it opens a sort of drop down list of child ASINs.
Please note the Parent Listing lacks basic information such as: Price, Quantity, Fulfillment and more, this will make it easier to spot.
The Variation Children will have a gray line located in the far left hand side of the screen, they can be displayed if not visible by clicking in the small arrow pointing right symbol next to the Status column in the parent’s listings.
The Stand-alone items are all of the ASINs that are not a Parent listing and neither a Child listing. They all will have price, quantity and all of the rest of attributes as they are items for sale in Amazon’s marketplace.
When choosing the items that will be inside of a variation, check whether the listings are already part of your current inventory or not.
If they are, then be sure to match all information from them when creating the variation, if they are not in the current inventory then will need to be added through the flat file while the variation is created.
How can you make sure that the items you selected aren’t already in a variation created from another seller?
Step 1. On Seller Central, open a duplicated tab of your browser, on the search bar enter “Variation Wizard ”:
Step 2. On the results, Click on the option called Add a variation using Variation Wizard
Step 3. Click on the Variation Wizard link.
Step 4. Choose the Add to or update an existing variation family option, enter one Child ASIN and click on Search or enter on your keyboard:
Step 5. Check the information and compare it with the information on the Inventory Page, verify that the items do not belong to any other variation:
Confirm the listings fit the requirements to be in a Variation
Step 1. While reviewing the listings within the Inventory and choosing the ones that will be included in the variation, we need to be sure all of them fit the basic requirements to be included in a new variation.
The basic requirements are:
Stand-alone items: Make sure all of the listings are stand-alone items, meaning they are not already included in another variation. Listings can’t be in 2 variations simultaneously.
Same category: All items to be included need to be in the same category. This is important since once the items are in a variation they will all share the same category, and according to the Amazon guidelines the listings can’t be in 2 categories at the same time.
The following needs to be avoided as it combines different types of items under the same detail page (dumbbells and kettlebells along with accessories like grips, barbells) under a color variation.
Listing is not already included in the variation: Even if there are different SKUs for the same ASIN for multiple item conditions and/or fulfillment methods, only add each ASIN once. This will automatically add all SKUs as different buying options.
1. Same branded items: only put together listings that share one brand name.
Check if the variation wanted is available within the desired category
Always keep in mind that not all variations are available in all categories. Some variations are limited to the specific categories while other categories might not even hold variations at all.
To check which variations are available within the desired category, you will need to follow some steps:
a. Log in to Seller Central
b. Go to Inventory > Add Products via Upload
c. After you have made to the page Add Products via Upload, click on Download Spreadsheet > update product details > product template, select the marketplace you are working on to download the template
You can use the Search tool or use the Product Classifier and choose the desired category to download a specific category template.
d. Leave the Flat File as Advanced and then click on Generate Template.
e. Once it is generated and downloaded, open the flat file and go to the Valid Values tab and look for the column called Variation Theme. You will see a list of all possible variations allowed within the specific category.
These are predetermined values, meaning that if the one type of variation you want is not available here, it will mean that it can’t be created at all.
Note: If you can’t find a column labeled ‘Variation Theme’ at all that means the desired variation doesn’t support any variation. (Inform the BM about these findings and if they desired to create the variation using another category please follow the SOP “Flat Files - BM Communication Policy Infringement”)
Download the correct Flat File
1. Access your Seller Central Account and click on Inventory, then Add Products via Upload, click on Download Spreedsheet > update product details > product template, select the marketplace you are working on to download the template
2. After Downloading the Inventory File. You can use the Search tool or the Product Classifier and choose the category of the product/products that are going to be added.
3. You can also make sure of the product category if the listing is active on the Amazon Detail Page.
4. Click on Generate Template.
5. Download the selected template and make sure to enable editing by all types of protection from the document.
Fill the columns to add a Parent listing
Once the Flat File is generated and downloaded, start adding the details for the variation. For this there are 2 type of listings:
Parent listings.
Child listings or Variations.
It is important to clarify that Parent listings might include different information from its Children listings. As seen earlier in this SOP, Parent listings aren’t real items.
Step 1. Download the specific category flat file we need and open it.
Step 2. Go to the “Template” tab, this can be located at the bottom of the Excel file.
Step 3. Make sure not to edit, delete/add rows or columns that might modify those headers (3 rows already filled up at the top). You will start working from row 4 and further below.
Step 4. Use the entire row 4 to add the information for the Parent listing, and then use rows 5, 6, 7, 8, etc, for each of the specific children of the variation. Keep in mind that those children might or might not be already added to your regular inventory.
Step 5. Fields for a Parent listing:
Required fields
Feed_product_type (pre-determined)
Item_sku (needs to be manually added)
Brand_name (same as the children)
Item_name (an item name that could work for any of the children)
Manufacturer (same as the children)
Item_type (pre populated)
Parent_child (Always select “Parent”)
Parent_sku (Always leave blank)
Relationship_type (Always leave blank)
Variation_theme (Select the type of variation you want from the list of available values: Color, Size, SizeColor, etc.)
Update_delete (if you are creating it you must choose Update)
Optional fields
Item_description
Bullet_points
Other_image_url
Generic_keywords
Prohibited fields for a Parent listing:
Standard_price
External_product_id
External_product_id_type
Quantity
Specifics such as: color, size, style, item package quantity, etc.
The Variation section in the template should look like this so far:
Fill the columns to include the Children
Deciding on what fields must be filled for a child listing will depend on whether the “soon-to-be child” listing is already within the inventory or not. If:
The listing IS NOT part of the current inventory:
It means that the ASIN needs to be added with all the required information:
Feed_product_type
Item_sku (you can create it)
Brand_name
Item_name
Manufacturer
External_product_id
External_product_id_type
Item_type (pre populated)
Standard_price
Quantity or Set it as FBA
Main_image_url
Item_description (Optional)
Bullet_Points (Optional)
Search_Terms (Optional)
Whatever attribute the variation will require (Size, Color, Style, Flavor, Item package quantity, etc.) this will be based on the Variation Themes available and early selected on the Parent listing
Parent_child (Always select “child”)
Parent_sku (copy whatever SKU value the Parent listing has)
Relationship_type (Always select “Variation”)
Variation_theme (Select the type of variation you want from the list of available values: Color, Size, SizeColor, etc.) It must match the one selected in the Parent listing.
Update_delete (if you are creating it you must choose Update)
The listing IS already part of the current inventory:
This means the ASIN can be partially modified to be included under the variation.
If this is the case, add all the required fields for the variation to be created:
Feed_product_type
Item_sku
External_product_id (optional)
External_product_id_type (optional)
Parent_child (Always select “child”)
Parent_sku (copy whatever SKU value the Parent listing has)
Relationship_type (Always select “Variation”)
Variation_theme (Select the type of variation you want from the list of available values: Color, Size, SizeColor, etc.) It must match the one selected in the Parent listing.
Update_delete (if you are creating the parent you must choose Update, and for the children you must choose PartialUpdate)
Whatever attribute the variation will require (Size, Color, Style, Flavor, Item package quantity, etc.) it will be based on the Variation Themes available and early selected on the Parent list
ing
The Variation section in the template should look like this so far:
Upload a Flat File
Step 1. Click on Inventory, then Add Products via Upload. Choose the second option: Upload your spreadsheet.
Step 2. Go directly to Browse files and select the file you want to upload:
Step 3. Select the Upload file option:
Check if successful
After you upload the file, check if the file is correctly uploaded by clicking on Inventory, then Add Products via Upload. Choose the third option: Spreadsheet Upload Status.
The file will show a Batch ID, status and an option to download the processing report. The processing report will reflect if there are errors in the file that need to be fixed. For more information you can see the SOP (FF errors and how to fix them)
Note: If the ASINs are successfully added to the variation in the seller's inventory with an inactive status, those are not going to show in the detail page as part of the variation.
Categories with no Variations Allowed
If the BM request a category from one of the below categories, please inform the category does not support variations and set the task as Done
| Category Name | |
| Automotive & Powersports (Tires & Wheels) | No Variations allowed |
| Books | Different kind of variations, only based on the Book Biding (Kindle, Audiobook, Paperback, Hardcover, Audio CD, etc) |
| Collectible Coins | No Variations allowed |
| Computers | No Variations allowed |
| Consumer Electronics | No Variations allowed |
| Fine Art - Inventory File Template available upon approval to sell in this category. | Unknown |
| Miscellaneous | No Variations allowed |
| Music | No Variations allowed |
| Software & Video Games | No Variations allowed |
| Sports Collectibles | No Variations allowed |
| Trading Cards | No Variations allowed |
| Toys & Games | No Variations allowed |
| Video & DVD | No Variations allowed |
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