What is the difference between Amazon's "Variant Merge" and "Merge"?

In the operation strategy of the Amazon platform, "Merge" and "Refurbishment" are two important product page management technologies.

Merge : Replace one ASIN with another ASIN. The original ASIN no longer exists and only the retained ASIN is displayed on the front end, but the inventory and reviews can be shared.

Refresh operation: A method of transferring inventory by mapping a SKU from an old ASIN to a new ASIN.

Merge is a feature provided by Amazon that aims to reduce duplication of product pages on the platform and optimize the customer shopping experience. Through Merge, sellers can merge duplicate product pages into one and keep only one product page.

Unlike regular variant merges, in a Merge operation, the replaced ASIN will disappear, leaving only the ASIN that the seller wishes to keep.

Despite this, both linked inventories and reviews can still be shared.

Merge operation advantages:

1. When the link being promoted is out of stock, you can use Merge to share inventory, avoid the impact of out-of-stock on the product, and save the cost of moving warehouses and changing labels.

2. Combine links with poor reviews and good reviews to reduce the impact of bad reviews on sales.

3. For restricted ASINs, you can create the same product link to transfer FBA inventory, saving the cost of overseas relabeling, labeling, and distribution.

4. Merge links to the same product to achieve review sharing, increase the number of reviews, and improve the click-through rate and conversion rate of the product.

5. Newly created links can get support from Amazon’s new product traffic.

Merge operation process:

A refurbishment operation is a method of transferring inventory by mapping a SKU from an old ASIN to a new ASIN.

The refurbished link is the link of the new ASIN, but the inventory is still the inventory of the old ASIN.

There are certain risks in the refurbishment operation because it exploits loopholes in the Amazon system, and Amazon may hold you accountable later.

Advantages of refurbishment operation:

1. For old links with poor performance, they can be refurbished and re-promoted as new links to obtain new product traffic support.

2. Refurbishment can restore links with poor scores to new status and rebuild them from scratch.

3. For links that have been removed from the shelves due to infringement or other reasons, renovation can save the cost of moving and changing the label.

Renovation operation process:

1. Create a new link in the background and make sure the product details are consistent with the old link.

2. Record the SKU and ASIN of the old link, and then delete the old link.

3. Follow the sale of the new ASIN in the background and use the old SKU when filling in the SKU.

4. After waiting for a while, the Manage Inventory interface will display links to the new ASIN and old SKU, but the status will be unsaleable.

5. Contact customer service and request to restore the link to a saleable state. If it does not work once, you can try multiple times or use customer service in other languages.

Risk Warning: Both Merge and Refurbishment have certain risks. Amazon may deal with accounts that abuse variants. Therefore, it is not recommended to use these methods unless necessary. As a long-term seller, you should focus on product quality and customer service.