Overview

If you sell on Amazon, you might see a "Revert Value" error after exporting your products. It happens when Amazon rejects a product update because a specific piece of information conflicts with data that is "locked" in Amazon's catalog.

Amazon accepts or rejects a product as a whole. So one locked value that does not match blocks the entire update, including everything else that was valid, such as new descriptions and images, until the conflict is resolved.

Akeneo Activation can handle many of these cases automatically, so your products go live faster. This article explains what these errors are, what Activation does, what it does not do, and what you need to do, step by step, so that your products get accepted.

Note: Revert Value errors are currently observed only within Amazon's ecosystem, so this feature is available exclusively for Amazon channels. The underlying logic is not specific to Amazon. It is designed to support other channels if similar locking mechanisms appear in the future.

What are Revert Value errors?

Amazon "locks" certain attribute values for a product in its catalog. If the value in your PIM differs from Amazon's record, even slightly (35 cm instead of 30 cm, "Acme Inc." instead of "Acme"), Amazon refuses it.

Why does Amazon lock them? The product page on Amazon is often not only yours. It may have been created first by a reseller, or by Amazon itself. Amazon keeps control of the information that drives shipping fees and the structure of its catalog.

Revert Value errors are linked to these types of attributes:

• Shipping and measurements: for example package length, width, height and weight, or item dimensions and their units.
• Cost: for example the cost price.
• Product identity: for example UPC, SKU, brand, manufacturer.
• Product categorization: for example product category, sub-category, browse node.
• Legal: for example hazardous waste designation, battery information.

What Activation does for you

When the Automatically fix Revert Value Errors setting is on, Activation does three things:

1. It reads Amazon's answer and finds the locked attributes that were rejected.
2. It sends the product again without those attributes. Amazon keeps the value it already has for them.
3. Everything else still comes from your PIM, so your other updates, such as descriptions and images, go live.

Your PIM is never changed. Activation also never sends Amazon's value back to Amazon: it simply leaves the locked attribute out.

It only happens when every error on the product is a revert value error. If the product has any other error, Activation changes nothing for that product. Amazon rejects the whole product anyway, so a second attempt would not help. Fixing all the other prior errors first is currently needed for the reverted value error logic to start.

Three real situations

1. "It just worked": only revert value errors

You: update the description of a sneaker. In your PIM the package length is 35 cm. Amazon has 30 cm.

Amazon: rejects the product because the package length cannot be changed.

Activation: sends the sneaker again without the package length.

Result: the new description is live on Amazon. The package length stays 30 cm on Amazon. In your report, the error now shows as a warning with the note "Re-exported without this attribute."

What you do: nothing. If you want the value to match permanently, share the revert value report with Amazon (see below).

2. "Something else is in the way": a revert value error plus another error

You: update a shoe. Amazon returns two errors: the category cannot be changed (a revert value error), and the required attribute color is missing (a regular error).

Activation: does nothing for this product. Both errors stay as errors, and the category error still carries the "revert value" label even though nothing was reverted.

Result: the product is not published.

What you do:

1. Fix the other error first. Here, fill in color in your PIM.
2. Export again.
3. Now the category error is the only one left, so Activation reverts it and the product goes live.

Rule of thumb: a "revert value" label does not mean the error was fixed. If the product still shows an error, look at all its errors and fix the ones that are not revert value errors first.

3. "The Vendor SKU error": the one Activation never reverts

You: send a product with the Vendor SKU SKU123-7-US. Amazon has it as SKU123-7US (no hyphen before "US").

Amazon: rejects the product, and its message tells you the original value.

Activation: does not revert this one. The Vendor SKU is how Amazon identifies your product, so Activation cannot send the product without it, and it never swaps it for another value on its own. The error has the "revert value" label, but the product stays blocked. If the product also has other revert value errors, none of them are fixed either.

What you do:

1. Compare your SKU with the one in Amazon's message.
2. Amazon's is right? Update the PIM attribute that you mapped to Vendor SKU, then export again.
3. Yours is right? Open a support case with Amazon and ask them to correct the SKU. This can take a few weeks.
4. Your SKU is your source of truth, but Amazon has a different one? Check the EAN/UPC/ASIN in your PIM first. A wrong identifier could put your content on the wrong product page.

Your checklist after an export

1. Open your Amazon channel, go to the Reports tab and open the export.
2. Filter on Revert values errors.
3. For each product, look at all of its errors:
   • Only revert value errors, and the setting is on: nothing to do. You see warnings, and your product is published.
   • Another error as well: fix that one first, then export again.
   • A Vendor SKU error: follow situation 3 above.
4. Export again.
5. Optional: download the Revert Value Errors Report and share it with Amazon so that their catalog matches yours.

If the setting is off, Activation reverts nothing, and every product with a revert value error stays blocked.

Turning the setting on

The setting is optional and applies to one Amazon channel at a time.

1. In Activation, open your Amazon channel.
2. Click the Settings tab.
3. Find the Error Handling section.
4. Turn on Automatically fix Revert Value Errors using suggested values. Despite its name, Activation leaves the locked attribute out instead of sending a suggested value.

Once it is on, it applies to all future exports for this channel.

Reading your results

In the report

Open the export in the Reports tab. A product that Activation sent again shows its revert value errors as warnings with the note "Re-exported without this attribute." A product that was not sent again keeps its errors.

The downloadable Revert Value Errors Report

When Activation sends products again, it also creates an Excel report with one row per attribute left out. Find it under Generated files in the export's report. The columns are:

• PIM Identifier: your product identifier in Akeneo PIM.
• SKU/EAN: the SKU or EAN submitted to Amazon.
• Marketplace Identifier: Amazon's identifier for the product.
• Product Type / Catalog: the product type used for the submission.
• Attribute in error: the attribute Activation left out.
• PIM / Pushed Value: the value from your PIM that Amazon rejected.
• Reverted Value: the value Amazon holds, as quoted in its message. It shows N/A when the message does not quote the value. This is not a value that Activation sent.
• Message: Amazon's original error message.

Share this report with Amazon Seller Support and ask them to update their locked values to match your correct product information. Until then, Amazon keeps its value for these attributes, and Activation keeps leaving them out. Your PIM remains your source of truth.