Updated on January 20, 2026
Full error name: “Quantities vary on Variations“, “Does not have Quantity per SKU: it cannot be shared multichannel.” Quantities vary setting has been changed. Quantity is not at the parent level anymore.
Cause
Etsy lets you manage stock at the product level instead of the variation level.
Other marketplaces require stock to be managed per variation.
Nembol requires stock to be set per variation. Products from Etsy cannot be imported if “Quantities vary by variation” is turned OFF, because stock is defined only at the product level.
Why you should turn Quantities vary ON?
This can be confusing for sellers who expect the quantity to apply only to the parent product. However, this behavior is intentional and necessary in Nembol:
- Almost all other sales channels require stock to be defined at the variation (SKU) level.
- Listings with variations but no per-variation stock are rejected and cannot be published on those channels.
- Inventory synchronization would break if Nembol did not provide consistent, per-variation stock across all connected channels.
Solution: Keep Quantity Vary ON
Turn Quantities Vary ON if you plan to sell on multiple channels. Other marketplaces do not accept variants without assigned stock.
Are you experiencing an issue where the quantity associated with each variation of your product is being imported into Nembol, despite keeping the “Quantities vary” setting OFF when creating your listing on Etsy?
Let’s delve into the problem, and explain why this occurs.
On Etsy, it is possible to have just one quantity parameter even for products with multiple variations. This setting is not available on other sales channels, which all require specifying the stock available for each variation (i.e. for each SKU).
When you import from Etsy to Nembol a product with variations, a quantity is necessarily assigned to each individual variation, rather than being included only at the parent product level. In order to avoid future sync issue, Nembol does not allow you to import product if your “Quantities vary” setting on Etsy is OFF.
This can be confusing for sellers who intended for the quantity to apply only to the overall parent product. However, there’s a reason behind this Nembol behavior:
- Most if not all other channels require to have stock info at the variation level
- If you attempt to list a product with variations but with stock only at the parent level, an error would stop the publication and reject the product
- Additionally, synchronization won’t work across channels if Nembol doesn’t provide consistent stock to connected channels
Example: how Etsy’s “Quantities Vary” setting affects stock during import
Suppose you set a stock quantity of 10 for a product on Etsy that has four variations: blue, red, brown, and gray, with “Quantities vary” turned ON.
When this product is imported into Nembol:
- The quantity 10 is assigned to each variation, not to the parent product.
- As a result, each of the 4 variations has a stock of 10, for a total visible stock of 40 (10 × 4) on both Etsy and Nembol.
Why this matters:
This behavior can create a mismatch between the stock you originally intended (10 total units) and the stock shown after import (40 units). Understanding this is essential to avoid overselling, inventory sync issues, and customer confusion.
1) Products with variations on Etsy
2) Products with variations when imported into Nembol
Please note
Keep Quantities Vary OFF if you plan to sell only on Etsy and want uniform stock. Do not edit your listings in Nembol to avoid them to overwrite Etsy.
- ALERT: consider that each time you receive an order on a connected channel for one of your Etsy products, its stock will be edited.