Yes what Penny says is correct.

We have seen this error before too.

You have to put "Does not Apply" in for each variation where an item has variations.

But we have found that it also accepts them if you put it in as well at the product level.

If you have it on the variations and NOT at the product level you will get one of those "improve your listings" warnings when you display your Active Listings. So just to satisfy those we have put them in both places. All our stuff is "Does not Apply".

I use File Exchange to list lots of our stuff and when using that if you try to put them in both places for an item with variations you get an error and the item will not list. So their rules are very inconsistent.

Then when you do list the item you get the Active Listing warning I described above, so we manually revise the listing after it uploads to include them at the product level as well.