The VariationMinimum response group provides the child ASINs for each parent ASIN in the response. For example, if the response contains "Brand X T-Shirt" as a parent ASIN, this response group will return the ASIN for each child ASIN of "Brand X T-Shirt," including "Small, Blue, Brand X T-Shirt", "Medium, Blue, Brand X T-Shirt", "Large, Blue, Brand X T-Shirt", "Small, Red, Brand X T-Shirt", etc.
A variation is a child ASIN. The parent ASIN is an abstraction of the children items. For example, Shirt is a parent ASIN. Parent ASINs cannot be sold. A child ASIN of it would be a blue shirt, size 16, sold by MyApparelStore. This child ASIN is one of potentially many variations. The ways in which variations differ are called dimensions. In the above example, size and color are the dimensions. Parent ASINs therefore return two related elements:
VariationDimensions
VariationDimension
For example,
<VariationDimensions>
<VariationDimension>ClothingSize</VariationDimension>
<VariationDimension>Color</VariationDimension>
</VariationDimensions>
The values returned by these elements are the dimensions listed in the child ASIN’s response, for example,
<Item>
...
<ItemAttributes>
...
<ClothingSize>Large</ClothingSize>
<Color>Black</Color>
...
</ItemAttributes>
...
</Item>
Sample Response (REST)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ItemLookupResponse xmlns="http://webservices.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/2005-10-13">
<OperationRequest>
<HTTPHeaders>
<Header Name="UserAgent" Value="Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)"/>
</HTTPHeaders>
<RequestId>11Y0BJVFR7F1TDNP3ZNE</RequestId>
<Arguments>
<Argument Name="MerchantId" Value="All"/>
<Argument Name="Service" Value="AWSECommerceService"/>
<Argument Name="AssociateTag" Value="[Your Associate ID Here]"/>
<Argument Name="AWSAccessKeyId" Value="[Your Access Key ID Here]"/>
<Argument Name="ItemId" Value="B00006XYAB"/>
<Argument Name="ResponseGroup" Value="VariationMinimum"/>
<Argument Name="Operation" Value="ItemLookup"/>
</Arguments>
</OperationRequest>
<Items>
<Request>
<IsValid>True</IsValid>
</Request>
<Item>
<ASIN>B00006XYAB</ASIN>
<Variations>
<Item>
<ASIN>B0000B1P5Z</ASIN>
</Item>
<Item>
<ASIN>B0000B1P62</ASIN>
</Item>
<Item>
<ASIN>B0000B1P63</ASIN>
</Item>
<Item>
<ASIN>B0000B1P65</ASIN>
</Item>
<Item>
<ASIN>B0000B1P67</ASIN>
</Item>
<Item>
<ASIN>B0000B1P69</ASIN>
</Item>
<Item>
<ASIN>B0000B1P6M</ASIN>
</Item>
<Item>
<ASIN>B0000B1P6O</ASIN>
</Item>
<Item>
<ASIN>B0000B1P6Q</ASIN>
</Item>
<Item>
<ASIN>B0000B1P6T</ASIN>
</Item>
</Variations>
</Item>
</Items>
</ItemLookupResponse>
The Request that Generated the Response (REST)
http://webservices.amazon.com/onca/xml?Service=AWSECommerceService
&AWSAccessKeyId=[Your Access Key ID Here]
&AssociateTag=[Your Associate ID Here]
&Operation=ItemLookup
&ItemId=B00006XYAB
&MerchantId=All
&ResponseGroup=VariationMinimum