ChannelAdvisor Support of eBay Variations

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Note: If you are already submitting child items to eBay individually, you already have your items configured and likely do not need to make any changes to support variation listings.

If you would like to make sure your items will be ready to support variation listings, you need to make sure you:

• have inventory configured in parent/child relationships
• create eBay fixed price or store listing ads for each of the child items (variations are not supported for auction-style listings)
• configure the item specifics to be submitted for those ads
• have an appropriate image for each item configured as the Picture URL on the posting template

The Item Specifics are very important -- this is where eBay is learning the variation information on the items.  If you have not configured the item specifics information, then it will be impossible to provide eBay with the variation details on your items.  In general, if you are already submitting these child items to eBay individually you have likely configured all of this information already and have nothing that you need to do to be ready for the support of eBay variation-style listings.  The process will be designed so that if you desire to continue listing individual items as you do today, that will be very easy to continue without any changes to the current way you do business.  If you want to start using variation-style listings, then enabling that option will be a simple click and your items will be processed for variation-style listings automatically for each new listing.  In order to submit a variation-style listing, all of the following must be true:

• Variation-style listings are enabled for the account (the aforementioned setting)
• Variation-style listings must be enabled for the category at eBay
• The inventory must be configured in parent/child relationship
• The listing must be a fixed-price or store inventory format listing (auction-style do not support variations)
• There must be at least two children with available quantity

If any of these are false, then the eBay listings will continue exactly as they do today -- each child variation submitted in its own eBay listing.

ChannelAdvisor is already in the process of making all of the changes necessary to be able to support variation-style listings on eBay and plans to launch support with a few customers supporting the Men's Shoes and Women's Shoes categories in mid-June after eBay makes the functionality available.  We are not accepting new users into the program at this time, but hope to make the functionality widely available soon.  As this is a brand new system for eBay, we will be working directly with these customers and eBay to identify areas for improvement and to enhance the overall process to make it as easy and simple as possible.  Once that process has completed we will expand availability to all users, though if eBay has not enabled your categories for variation-style listings it will not have any impact on you.  As eBay enables additional categories, we will be learning that to update the categories that support variation-based listings.

For detailed information on how to enable and implement variation listings, see Using Variation Listings on eBay.

Background on Variation-Style Listings at eBay

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eBay announced in April of 2009 that they would start supporting the ability to submit variation-style listings (previously known as Multi-SKU and Choice Listings) in June of 2009.  Variation-style listings allow a single eBay listing to have multiple options to select within the listing, such as different sizes, colors, or other options.  While common and popular on many stores and other marketplaces, eBay had not previously supported the concept and had previously prohibited it with the Choice Listing policy.  This required sellers with variation items to list each of them separately and to incur the listing fees and the complexity of managing the additional listings, while making it much more difficult for a buyer to find the exact item that is suitable for them to purchase.  In a variation-style listing, the buyer is able to quickly see all of the options that are available and can select those appropriate to their purchase requirements.  Without this option, they were required to search throughout the eBay site to find if the option they want was even available for sale.

The functionality of the variation listings allows the buyer to select from the available inventory in the listing.  This might allow them to select specific colors or sizes or a combination of the two based on the inventory that the seller has available and has submitted to be included in the eBay listing.  The seller also only has to pay for a single eBay Insertion fee for the listing regardless of the number of variations included in the listing.  The optional additional features (such as Bold or Gallery) are also only charged once per listing rather than the much more expensive once per variation option.  This can equate in a substantial savings in eBay fees as well as a much better buyer experience.  Users of variation-style listings will also get another advantage in search results, as the variation options will be indexed as part of the title without having to actually be included in the 55 character title field.  Thus, a seller is able to include even more information to be found in the search results than they were able to do previously.

The change for eBay to support variation-style listings is a very large technical undertaking.  Before this new feature was announced, each eBay listing could have one and only one item available for purchase.  Evolving its 15 year old system from that model to a variation based model is a complex undertaking and requires many changes to existing components for eBay.  That same complexity applies to the ChannelAdvisor side as well, as the eBay processing system requires many updates and changes to support these new listings.  Those changes are already in progress, both at eBay and ChannelAdvisor, to properly support the new eBay variation-style listings.  Because the information ChannelAdvisor has on the products is well-defined and detailed, we were able to implement the Amazon variation listings without requiring any changes on your part.  We are planning the same for the eBay variation listings to make it as easy as possible for you to adopt them if you so choose (and if they are available in an eBay category you submit items into).

Initially, eBay will be launching support for variation listings in June of 2009 for two categories: Men's Shoes and Women's Shoes.  In July of 2009, they are expected to expand that support to the remainder of the categories in Clothing, Shoes, and Accessories as well as selected categories in Home & Garden.  No other categories are currently planned to support variation-based listings in 2009.

ChannelAdvisor History with Variations

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ChannelAdvisor has supported the ability to configure inventory for variations for many years.  This support of parent/child inventory allows you to configure your items and define which children should be considered part of the same parent item and how they each vary from one another.  These are called "dimensions" and may be based on size, color, club loft, scent, length, or any other factor that you find relevant.  It is not limited to a single dimension; you can create parent/child relationships with multiple dimensions.  For example, shoes might vary on size, color, and width.  A golf club might vary on loft, shaft type, material, and hand (left or right).  This flexibility allows you to define the variations of your inventory in a way that is relevant and appropriate for your information.  For more information on configuring your account to support variations, please see the Product Variations SSC page.

As shown on the Product Variations SSC page, the ChannelAdvisor Stores products support variation listings to improve the buyer experience.  When a buyer comes to a page for a product, they are not required to traverse through multiple product pages to find the size and color that they desire, but can determine if it is available and select it right there on the single universal product page for that item.  This makes the buyer experience more satisfying as they are able to quickly discern all of the available options and to identify those they desire for purchase.  If you have configured your inventory for variations and have an active store, you can already see this in your store.  Product pricing for variation options may be different, as certain sizes or colors may have a higher cost than others.  That differential pricing is properly supported so that a user purchasing a more expensive option sees that price while users purchasing one of the standard options see the standard price.

Since late 2006, the implementation of the Amazon functionality has also supported submitting variation listings.  Instead of requiring complicated configuration from you, the information already configured in the product information is used to determine the associations and submit the appropriate data to Amazon for the parent/child listing.  Similar to the display in the ChannelAdvisor Stores, the Amazon product page combines all of the information for all of the available children into a single product page with the options for the various children that can be purchased.  If you have configured parent/child products to be sent to Amazon, you already have this implemented in your items automatically.  The only configuration requirement to support Amazon variation listings is the configuration of the VariationTheme option on the posting template to explain to Amazon the dimensions of the item and the different options that are available.