I wanted to get an idea how other people create and manage their listings that may have variations.
Do you use excel or the GUI to make the listings?
When editing or adding to existing parent/child listings do you use the GUI or excel?
If you are managing your variations where do you source your excel data from to look for discrepancies?
Do you also use excel for image management?
What is your process? What would you change in your process if you had to start from scratch.
I ask all of this because several of our legacy product listings have been corrupted for various reasons like pre-upc validation, foreign piracy, other marketplace changes bleeding over. I want to make a new fresh listing for an item with 14 variations, but I want to keep it clean and learn how others do it.
I use Excel to make all of my variation groups and almost all of my listings.
When editing or adding to existing parent/child listings do you use the GUI or excel?
Excel. If I am adding onto a group, a lot of times I will go into Variation Wizard to download the spreadsheet.
If you are managing your variations where do you source your excel data from to look for discrepancies?
I normally export out the listing info from our Shopify store and copy and paste as needed. The boss has made the listings there, so they should have the correct info but if they donāt, then it wasnāt my oops
Do you also use excel for image management?
Yes, I add and update all my images via spreadsheets. The URLs are in the listing data I export from Shopify, so it is really easy to copy and paste them in.
What is your process?
If it is a brand new variation group, I will go in and download a fresh product template from Amazon. Next, I will work my way through the spreadsheet from left to right filling in all the cells that are the same for all of the variations, hide columns that arenāt needed, and make sure that all the ones that I need arenāt hidden. Top row is always the Parent followed by the child listings. Then I go back through and copy in the child/variant specific information by copying most of it from a spreadsheet I have exported from our Shopify store. Since we format our product titles differently on Amazon, I create it using a formula in another spreadsheet and then copy and paste it in. Then I do a quick once over to make sure I didnāt miss anything before itās upload time.
*I am frustrated with Amazon. They simply cannot fix a bogus UPC code some brand hijacker bought 2nd hand, and applied to a product that was supposed to be āprotectedā by brand registry. When I download spreadsheets, the correct UPC is shown, but when I upload, I get an ā8541ā error that specifically states
The Listing data provided is different from whatās already in the Amazon catalog.
The item_id provided matches ASIN B0XYZ, but some of the listing data
contradicts what is already in the Amazon catalog. The following listing attribute
value(s) conflict with Amazon catalog value(s): āstandard_product_idā (Merchant
[āGS1-issused GTINā] / Amazon [āHijackerās Bogus GTINā]). To fix the issue, please
follow these steps 1) If the product you are listing is the same as ASIN B0XYZ,
then update your listingās āstandard_product_idā attribute(s) to match Amazonās
catalog value, 2) If itās not the right ASIN, make sure the item_id provided is
correct, or 3) If you disagree with the data in Amazon catalog contact Selling
Partner Support to start the appeal process.
So, if I create a variation to include a new ASIN with the correct UPC code, and include the ASIN with the incorrect UPC as a variant, and then let that variant with the bogus UPC go out of stock, have I fixed my problem in terms of being able to ship Amazon UPC-labeled product that does not require hand-labeling with FNSKUs?
My favorite, is when you make a listing and all the children and months/years later, one of the children magically get moved to a different category, preventing you from making any changes whatsoever to the parent.
ā8541: The value ADULT_TOY_ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā specified cannot be used as it conflicts with the value ADULT_TOY_DILDO for ASIN B0C1MR6VZZ in the Amazon catalog. If this is ASIN B0C1MR6VZZ, update the value to match the ASIN data. If this is a different product, update identifying information (UPC/EAN/Part Number/etc.).ā
We had an item that the category_type was changed. We got it changed back with using the category specific template file, completed just the required fields and submitted as Partial Update. This process had to be repeated a few times (waiting 24 hours between each Partial Update) and it was finally cleared and accepted.
Exactly ā¦ canāt remember who coached us through it but doing just the required fields (which for us included the field that was giving the 8541 error) with a Partial Update once every 24 hours eventually triggered the system to reset the field that was causing the issue. If we remember correctly, it was either 4 or 5 days before it took.
So I tried making a new listing with variations today but ended up making 7 individual listings with no parent. All I get with the parent is the following message
Do I leave the variation theme column blank for the parent or not? I did put parent in the parentage column and the rest children to no avail. The stupid template does not define what should or should not be in the parent.
