Summary: My products need to be a certain category in order to vary by color so that the correct images will show, and Amazon is making this impossible in a number of ways.

Just spent 40 mins on the phone with seller support only for the call to get disconnected while she was in the middle of trying to explain something. Case ID: 15382558321

It seems like every quarter or so Amazon introduces some new feature to make listing products even more difficult and I am at my wit's end. Now, not only is there no way to create variations from the add a product web form (i.e., you have to use the feed files), but now if Amazon's terrible AI detects a "better" category for your product, it simply locks the product until you change it to that. Pretty sure I know the best category for my product but okay.

Furthermore, the variation themes are so specific and weird for each category, and my old trick to override this doesn't work anymore. My main issue is that according to my case 14498828691, variations like Size, Style, or Number of Items are not considered "visual variants," and so if I try to create a variation family with a variation theme such as SizeName-NumberOfItems, the system will force the parent's image to be the main image for all items, regardless of what I submit. This is completely ludicrous to me as two items obviously looks different than one item, and different styles will appear different as well. (Size in my opinion can also be a visual variant, even on a plain white background, but I understand that one a bit more.)

All I want to do is create a variation family for these products that correctly showcases them. I need Color to be involved so that I can add swatch images, and so that they will all show the main images that I submit. But Amazon keeps changing the category, and the suggested category does not offer Color as a variant option.

It's also saying the colors I'm submitting don't match up with the "catalog" (so tired of this issue; we have brand registry so where is the supposed additional influence to have control over my own products?), but I don't even know where some of the old colors are coming from, because I certainly didn't make the color "Woodgrain" at any point. But now I can't update it.

These products are less than a year old and as far as I know don't have any competing offers so it's just ridiculous that it's this difficult to update. It feels like I'm running through a maze and bumping into another dead end at every turn. What am I supposed to do to simply sell my products accurately?