Overview

Error 8019 appears when a seller tries to link a parent product to a child product using the identical SKU for both items. The conflict stops Amazon’s catalog engine from establishing the variation, which can delay the launch of multi‑option listings that many sellers rely on.

Key Points

• Identical SKU triggers the block — The system returns error 8019 as soon as the parent‑SKU field matches the child‑SKU field in any submission.
• Both flat files and XML feeds are affected — Whether you upload a tab‑delimited inventory template or push a relationships XML, the rule is enforced uniformly.
• A product cannot be its own variation — Amazon’s catalog logic requires each variation member to have a distinct SKU; self‑referencing entries are rejected.
• Fix is simply to differentiate SKUs — Assign a unique identifier to the parent and to every child before re‑uploading the file.
• The error usually points to the first offending row — Amazon reports the initial conflict it encounters, so additional duplicate pairs may remain hidden until the first is resolved.
• Typical cause is copy‑paste or template misuse — Sellers often duplicate a parent row as a child row and forget to edit the SKU column, leading to the conflict.

How Error 8019 Occurs

1. Duplicate SKU in a flat file — A seller fills out an inventory spreadsheet, copies the parent line into a child line, and leaves the “SKU” and “Parent SKU” columns identical (e.g., both set to GADGET‑100).
2. Matching SKU in an XML relationships feed — The XML payload contains a <Relationship> element where <ParentSKU> and <ChildSKU> hold the same value, such as <ParentSKU>GADGET‑100</ParentSKU><ChildSKU>GADGET‑100</ChildSKU>.
3. System validation rejects the entry — Amazon’s backend checks each relationship; when it detects a self‑referencing pair, it aborts processing and returns error 8019, halting the entire file or feed upload.