What is a Product Variation on Amazon?
Amazon variation listings are one of the best ways for sellers to showcase products with slight variations, such as size and color. Adding variations to your listings can significantly enhance a customers’ experience by simplifying the process of purchasing for shoppers and offering all buying options in one place. This makes it much easier for them to locate what they want in one place, instead of having to browse multiple listings.
What is a Variation?
Variations are sets of products that are related to one another but with a different attribute - such as size, color, flavor, etc. Variation listing pages allow buyers to compare and choose from the available options all on a single product detail page. But what makes up a variation? Each variation is composed of three parts: Parent Listing, Child Listing, and Variation Theme.
Parent listing
The parent listing is a non-buyable entity used to relate child products. Amazon catalog uses the parent listing to establish relationships between the child listings.
Child listing
Child products or ASINs are the actual variants of the parent product that are purchasable. Every child variant can be distinguished from each other by a variation theme
Variation theme
This is the relationship between the parent and the child. The variation theme defines how related products differ from each other. Variation themes also vary depending on the product’s category.
For example, a seller has a product line of hats that come in various colors and sizes, as shown below:
These products can be put into a parent variation by color and size so that customers can see all 9 products on one listing page instead of having to search for each individually.
Benefits of Variations
Enhanced Visibility — If you have any products that have are low in the search results, variating them is one way to make them more visible. Combine low-performing products with higher-performing listings to improve visibility.
Improved Sales — When you boost visibility with variations and improve conversions, it helps your listings succeed with the Amazon search algorithm, encourages more reviews, and enhances your marketplace presence. Amazon also combines the overall sales history and reviews of the child listings together under the parent listing, which will help increase your organic ranking.
Higher Conversions — Variated products in a listing increase the amount of time you keep a shopper’s attention. If you can keep customers on the listing page longer, it increases the chances of a customer converting on your listing. The biggest advantage of adding a listing variation is that shoppers have several options available to them in one place without having to scroll through endless search results for the desired size/color/flavor.
Using product variations for your Amazon listings can help improve your shoppers experience as well as your success in the marketplace. Setting them up correctly can help ease customer confusion and help keep customers on your listing pages longer and away from competitors.
