Parent Listings in Amazon Marketplace

Selling on Amazon
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To begin, here is a listing I have in Ca marketplace

You will see that there are three variants. Now, the weird part. I don’t have a parent showing anywhere in the Canadian Inventory holding them together. They seem to be using the USA marketplace relationship, which is odd.

But when I go to edit the asin on CA marketplace, it claims it’s not part of a variation group. What now?

So I created the parent with the same sku and ASIN as the US version so the children can accordion underneath it in the Canadian Inventory. Nope, not happening. Not only did the parent get made as a standalone listing, it seems to think it needs an offer.

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Does the Canadian marketplace handle parents differently. The mystery is how does it have these guys under a parent when it claims they aren’t even variants, let alone not sure what the parent can be. They show as stand alone units under the Manage All Inventory pages in the Seller Central Canada, so it’s all weird.

Any suggestions of at least trying to get the inventory look like the USA inventory layout?

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Nothing that I’ve ever seen before … it’s like there’s a “Regional” parent instead of a “Marketplace” parent.

However that’s not the case either, since the MX listings are orphans …

:thinking:

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it’s very odd. I hate seeing singular children when I know they are variants on marketplace display.

Going to try a full update again linking them with the CA marketplace file to sort of force the issue once again. the listings also seemed to ignore meta updates and just did the images last time I tried, even with a full update.

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Grrrrr! I did a flat file update on full update, and got the 8005 error

“You are attempting to change an identity attribute for this SKU. To proceed, please delete this SKU and recreate the SKU with the appropriate identity attribute”

On all skus. But they updated anyway. So now I see the proper parent tree in the Manage All Inventory page.

But now something is wrong. One of my variants doesn’t show at all, I can’t even directly link to it’s ASIN.

Even though it exists in Manage Inventory properly. I’ve given if over 12 hours to update and still doesn’t exist.

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What I see when I follow the link …

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there was once a pink variant too.

But i found out why. Even though they were imported over for the remote fulfillment, I’m not allowed to sell them, only other sellers can sell my leashes, so no Offers have been set on the pink leash, so it’s not showing up as sold out, just no offers, though my listing shows I’m the featured Offer.

So if another seller decides to sell my leash, it should appear with them becoming the Featured Offer.

Good to know I updated the pages to help their sales at least. Sigh

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So can I list them? LOL

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I know this is a sore subject for you but you seem to be putting a lot of effort into trying to revive the biz.

Have you ever considered going back into SAS core for a few months to have them get this all fixed up for you globally? Then you can bounce once it’s all fixed.

Just throwing that out there. There hasn’t been a legitimate issue that SAS hasn’t fixed for us, and that was across 4 different managers since we joined that program. This catalog setup thing is something they should be able to figure out and rectify relatively quickly (few weeks).

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lol. i’ll give you a commission.

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I actually have a management team coming on, but they just requested I “clean up” the Canada listings that were odd. They are going to optimize and rebracket the ones they are managing (leashes were not worth it to them).

In regards to SAS, there was only one thing they did on behalf. I had to beg for about a week, but they fixed a broken parent listing and reconnected the children.

something I could have done but I just wanted to see them do something.

Remember, I got delisted on my top grossing products over two issues that were not just odd, but stupid, and SAS couldn’t get me back up with me communicating every other day. I finally just started uploading flat files like crazy with little changes and fixed it myself. Then they had to ask me how. That was the summary of my SAS experience. They fired my first rep half way into my term.

I learned the hard way that they didn’t understand why they’d do anything for a smaller seller. The SAS experience is very seller specific. Let me go back to all the times I’d have a small request, then they’d create a ticket on my behalf, and then it would go nowhere as if I made it. Probably experience some PTSD.

I was paying for a middle man who created an extra step.

On my exit interview, they asked what I found the key benefit to be of SAS and what they could work on. And I said the same question to them, name one thing they did on my behalf that made the experience worth it. The guy admitted that he couldn’t, but did remind he was only my guy for half the time.

I remember they said I can get lightning deals for free… but none of my listings qualified. So that was a cool perk too

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also, I hated feeling dependent on them when I was with them. I was stuck in this “I’m not doing it because they can fix it before I ever can”, and then they’d never fix it and I keep on with that logic. And my blood would boil. Both at myself and them.

And it was three issues. Going through tickets, my first regulatory removal was due to verbage in the Product Title for textiles. The attribute got locked, so they were able to tell me the issue, after a FEW WEEKS of them looking into it, and I had to explain to them I couldn’t edit it.

Then to my surprise, they said they couldn’t change it either, since it was locked. I was like, what the…

And then they accidentally forwarded me a ticket between some internal team with them bickering about how to edit the attribute i was removed for. So A for effort, F for outcome.

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Got it. We have been having a far different experience. Each manager was better and more effective than the last until we got our latest one who isn’t so great but good enough and gets things done for us. She did catch that 4 ASIN suppression we were being dealing with before I did, and took care of that last week within 72 hours.

Just sent my 45th escalation since being with SAS. I keep a tally. We are 37 for 8. None of those 37 things would have been taken care of without SAS so we keep it. Expensive insurance, more expensive than our actual liability insurance by 2.5X and our policy is expensive bc of what we sell.

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no joke man, I just think I was too small and put on the bottom of the totem poll.

another key issue. I never understood why my pet towels went from barely being able to keep in stock, to disappearing from sales overnight. I had SAS look into it, and they said there was no suppression and the listing was setup fine.

Then a random 3rd party contractor that I hired to dial in my PPC campaigns noticed that the browser node was something completely unrelated, which looked to be the cause of my lost sales. He caught this somehow through some other report. SAS did not see this. Once caught, Amazon seller support said the change did happen but they are not responsible for mistakes of their own automation. So I’m not sure if SAS really ever looked.

My last attempt at value was me sending them a spreadsheet of fake (or at least super suspicious) reviews for removal/review. I only had less than 2 months left with the service so thought this would give some final positive on the exit. They removed none, but said they’d try.I don’t think they ever opened the Excel file over the 50 days or so.

But, the primary function I saw: I’d hit up my SAS rep direct, he’d submit a seller support ticket on my behalf, and seller support would treat me no differently than someone without SAS.

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I misunderstood the SAS program when we first joined it because it was misrepresented to us, so Amazon can line their pockets some more.

Being part of SAS is a job for the seller, not a benefit but it offers a seller an inside line to someone in this country with very little influence. I’ve found ruthless persistence and lots of evidence helps to get things done. Also, bringing in the SAS manager’s director into things that are more important seems to pay off.

I never give up, and I never stop annoying people until things get done. I gave up on a few things that even I would consider trivial…

Yes, it’s annoying that you need to follow all the same steps as a seller without SAS when issues pop up - opening cases and such before bringing to SAS and escalating. Originally, I thought I could just hand things over and say “fix this”. Nah.. Doesn’t work that way.

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Again, their treatment of you was likely on the importance of size and influence of revenue changes, which also benefits them.

I was small fry. I need to find some of the better threads, but I was so persistent they had to repeatedly tell me to calm down. I honestly told them I was flying up to Seattle to blow up their campus at one point, and that did nothing. I’m not sure they even read that email.

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Here is a good one. I requested a Sport Report and my rep sent me a Sport Report for another brand.

May 25

Hey Megan,

Looking at the Sport Report, I don’t think this is us. Or is this just a demo of how they look?

I can’t find any campaigns we have run that match.

Nor can I match up the Campaign IDs shown. A majority of our Campaigns start with "SS - ", of which I do not see in this report.

I think we might have got another Brand’s report.

Cheers!
Ryan

I believe this was the last straw that got her fired, showing private info of another brand.

I had 3 more emails sent to her with different requests between May 25 and May 28. No response, so on May 31st, I wrote her and her superior, Charlie (at this point I hated Megan)

Hey Charlie!

Is Megan still my manager? Since she isn’t responding to simple emails I’m thinking that we are on hiatus while we look for another manager? I just don’t want to bother her any longer if she is already out.

Also, not sure if you saw, she sent me some other brand’s Sport Report. I’m sure the brand would have some confidentiality problems with that mistake, but good to see what other people are spending on keywords.

Let me know where I stand in regards to Megan, as I don’t want to send her another email if she is no longer operating as my rep.

Cheers!

Got no response on this. I waited, and I wrote 6 more emails to SAS betwen the 31st and Jun 21st. Then I tried Megan directly again, as I still didn’t have a correct Sport Report:

can i get an updated SPORT report?

And then I finally got a response!

Hello,

I am no longer with the company. For any SAS Core Seller inquiries, please direct your email to Ramzee at [email protected].

Thank you

So emailed him and Charlie same day:

Megan is gone. Who is my SAS core rep now?

And they setup a meeting to restart my SAS core with a new rep on… July 5th. All while I’m still paying the monthly fees. So over a month with no communications.

Ramzee would create this incredible custom report on what changes I need to make for more imporessions and sales. I completed them verbatim and… my impressions tanked with sales, though conversion rate did increase some.

Over a year into SAS and my page sessions fell 40% since when I started (the extended removal of listings was a big part of the blame)

I then asked if we could please use the word “Compostable” on our TUV Austria licensed products, since other brands were using the term without even a license. and was told there was nothing they can do.

My exit question on the value of SAS, my final response:

The only value to SAS is knowing that actual human beings work at Amazon and not just the bots encountered through Seller Support. It’s a cool novelty, that wears thin quickly.

and that was just the small things. my email threads when listings were down, you can feel the rage.

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last one. this was the big issue, when my listings got removed for verbiage the first time, then after about 7 weeks recovered,to be quickly removed again under SAS. I was hammering with persistence and some uncontrolled F bombs. They could not for the life of them unlock or edit the listings on their end so they could be updated to compliance.

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Sorry I brought back bad memories on all of this.

Really hope you succeed with the revamp and the new help you have. Like really succeed!

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Actually, i get a sort of enjoyment looking back at it all. It’s like healing every time I can look back at all the crazy that went down while I was under the SAS umbrella.

To this day, after using them for I believe 18-24 months, I’m still not sure what their purpose was. I was never given a single perk or any level of quick support, but a lot of effort. the SPORT report and the Customer Insights report was my exclusives for enrollment.

Honest question. what is the number one thing you have become reliant on them for? And do they actually do it or just advise you on how to do it?

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edit: going through old tickets, I take back my original statement. They created a ticket on my behalf to fix a broken parent/child relationship, which was completed properly, and they created a ticket on my behalf to seller support to do a browser node update to a listing,which was completed.

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