This is a serious talk we need to have
I understand that making your variations stand out is a must, no one will deny that, but let’s remember that there are policies that we need to comply with.
We’ve all heard tips to boost product visibility using keywords or adding newly launched ASINs into established families. All that is cool until Amazon catches you violating the ASIN creation policy.
Let’s talk about variations for a minute.
I think this will be the next big catalog issue in the coming months because I’ve been noticing how sophisticated Amazon’s systems have become in detecting when products are materially different.
In their ASIN creation policy, Amazon states:
Adding incorrect child variations that are not true variations of the parent product. This includes but is not limited to:
โข Adding products that are fundamentally different from the parent ASIN
โข Adding products images and/or names that are that are fundamentally different from the parent ASIN
โข Adding products that are newer versions or models of the parent ASIN
The significant shift I’m seeing in the catalog right now is that Amazon is using image recognition to determine if the child ASINs are “fundamentally different” to the point where in some categories, they require all child ASINs to match images on a pixel-by-pixel basis.
I’ve helped hundreds of sellers fix their variations. Some of them (well over half) had invalid variations based on what Amazon states in their policy.
In reality, we were getting away with this practice, but I don’t know how long it will last.