Unlocking Amazon Vendor Central Data With New API
Amazon Vendor Central has a new, modern Selling Partner API (SP-API). The new API supports both sellers and vendors alike within a unified platform.
Seller Central has had API access under the Amazon Marketplace Web Service (MWS) umbrella for years. Amazon Vendor Central? They have had a more complex journey for programmatic access until now.
Amazon released a new version of MWS called the Selling Partner API (SP-API). The new API supports code-free Amazon Vendor Central Software, providing automation opportunities for Sellers, unlike the old MWS system. 😊
Update: As of June 21, 2023, Amazon has released a new, near real-time API for Vendor retail analytics. This is a real game-changer for Vendors!
Unlike the legacy EDI solution, growing your business using data from the API is simple and efficient. Optimize how you sell your products on Amazon with the new API. With the latest real-time release, you now have direct, code-free, and fully automated access to a collection of data feeds from Amazon Vendor Central accounts;
- Vendor Sales Report
- Net Pure Product Margin Report
- Vendor Traffic Report
- Vendor Forecasting Report
- Vendor Inventory Manufacturing Report
- Vendor Inventory Sourcing Report
- Vendor Real-time Traffic
- Vendor Real-time Inventory
- Vendor Real-time Sales
Vendor Central vs. Seller Central
Vendors and sellers are two distinct models within the Amazon platform. Amazon Seller Central accounts are generally open to all merchants to sell directly to customers. Those participating in this market are called 3rd party sellers or “3P”.
Unlike Amazon Sellers (3P), access to Amazon Vendor Central is an invite-only program. Without an invitation from Amazon, you can not participate. Invites typically are sent to well-established brands that Amazon shoppers demand. Amazon may sell less established brands that have attractive items in high-demand categories.
As a result, they have a different relationship with Amazon than most merchants. If you become a vendor, you will wholesale price products directly to Amazon, becoming a full-time distributor.
When Amazon becomes the distributor and seller to consumers, it is similar to if you sold into traditional retail channels like Target or Walmart. Amazon is responsible for getting products in front of customers. They handle the buying and storing inventory and fulfilling orders, retail pricing, customer service, and returns. This will be reflected on product pages where merchandise is marked as “ships from and sold by Amazon.”
Vendor Central and Seller Central Shared Amazon Retail Platform API
If you are a Vendor, having simplified, automated integration systems lowers costs and improves operational efficiencies. Unfortunately, the difference between Amazon Vendor Central vs. Seller side has seen vendors stuck with complex Amazon Vendor Central EDI documentation/integrations or manual data entry processing workflows.
Given the complexity of EDI, the typical approach was to manually login into an Amazon Vendor page and then navigate to the Amazon Daily sales report to download as a CSV. Messy and time-consuming.
Amazon recognized the operational, technical, and cost challenges vendors faced with the EDI or manual workflows. As a result, a decision was made to move towards a modern, well-established approach for programmatic access that benefits both seller and vendor. This new platform for businesses is called the Selling Partner API.
The new API offers plenty of benefits in terms of improving performance at scale and minimizing translation costs while growing your e-commerce business. The Vendor API will enable the management of retail business operations programmatically through web service integration. Unlike the former EDI integration approach, the new Vendor API is REST-based, a key difference in supporting a quicker setup process and ongoing operations.
Fundamental differences between the new API and the old are that the new one can be used within applications to increase operational efficiency, reduce effort, reduce errors, and improve performance using industry standards and open frameworks. This becomes a powerful tool for retail partners, especially those with a complex sales process.
What is included in the Vendor Central API?
The API currently supports a subset of business operations available via the current UI and EDI:
As you can see from the feature matrix, there are several functional gaps across the entire legacy Amazon EDI process. One of the most requested features is access to sales and sales analytic reports.
The good news? Amazon recently released support for this data, and we detailed all the data feeds available to merchants in the Vendor Retail Analytics Reports. See our post, Secret To Unlocking Amazon Vendor Central Reports, for more information on the new reports. The new data provides direct access to Vendor sales, showing you exactly how to check sales volume on Amazon.
While the new API has pros and cons, it is expected to achieve parity with the EDI and UI over time.
If you do not see something supported like customer reviews, sales history, retail prices, or selling prices, and you feel it is critical for the API to support a business process, let the dev team know via GitHub Issues.
For example, if you want to see the Amazon dev team support Sales Data (Amazon Retail Analytics), you can submit a feature request for those sales analytics reports! The more interest expressed by users, the greater priority the dev team will make an update to include these features in the API!
Amazon Vendor Central: Everything you need to know about the new API
There are two principal groups of Vendor Reports;
- Brand Analytics Reports
- Vendor Retail Analytics Reports
These reports are similar to what you will see in the Vendor Central user interface.
Currently, there is a collection of logistical options in the Selling API. These operations are limited to orders, shipping, payments, and transactions:
- Orders — Get bulk PO numbers and PO status
- Orders — Get bulk PO details (New PO and PO Changes)
- Orders — Get PO details by PO number
- Orders — Confirm/Reject POs
- Shipping — Submit Shipment Confirmations
- Payments — Submit Invoices
- Transactions — Check Order Confirmation transaction status
- Transactions — Check Shipment Confirmation transaction status
Using the Orders API, you can receive purchase orders and send order acknowledgments. The Shipment API to exchange shipment-related documents. The Payments APIs to exchange payment-related documents.
The Submit Invoices API allows you to send invoices to Amazon for confirmed and shipped orders. You can use this transaction API to check the status of operations like Order Acknowledgment or Shipment.
Amazon Vendor Central’s Direct Fulfillment Program
Are you a vendor in the direct fulfillment (DF) program? If yes, you can access the Selling Partner API for Direct Fulfillment. Access to the API provides a path to manage direct fulfillment business operations programmatically.
Below is a collection of supported DF operations;
DirectFulfillment Orders API
- Get Purchase Orders
- Get Purchase Order
- Acknowledge Order
DirectFulfillment Shipment API
- Get Shipping Labels
- Get Shipping Label
- Submit Shipment Confirmations
- Submit Shipment Status Updates
- Get Packing Slips
- Get Packing Slip
- Get Customer Invoices
- Get Customer Invoice
DirectFulfillment Payment API
- Submit Invoices
DirectFulfillment Inventory API
- Submit Inventory Update
DirectFulfillment Transaction Status API
- Get Transaction Status
Supported Vendor Central Marketplaces
While the broader Selling Partner API supports North America, Europe, and the Far East selling regions, the API supports a subset of vendor marketplaces;
North America Marketplace
- Canada
- United States
- Mexico
Europe Marketplace
- Spain
- Amazon UK
- France
- Germany
- Italy
- India
API Options From Amazon Vendor Central To Seller Central
Interested in Amazon Marketing Services, Advertising API, Seller Central, and data needed for optimizing selling on Amazon? Openbridge has done all the work for you!
Our direct, code-free data integration provides reliable, integrated data automation solutions for Seller Central And Vendor Central that allow you to;
- Unify data in a trusted, private industry-leading data lake, data lakehouse, or cloud warehouses like Databricks, Amazon Redshift, Amazon Redshift Spectrum, Google BigQuery, Snowflake, Azure Data Lake, Ahana, and Amazon Athena. Data is always fully owned by you.
- Take control, and put your data to work with your favorite analytics tools. Explore, analyze, and visualize data to deliver faster innovation while avoiding vendor lock-in using tools like Google Data Studio, Tableau, Microsoft Power BI, Looker, Amazon QuickSight, SAP, Alteryx, dbt, Azure Data Factory, Qlik Sense, and many others.
Get a 30-day free trial of the Openbridge Amazon Vendor Central Integration.
Finally, you can turbocharge their reporting, business intelligence, and insights software by tapping into the APIs that are fully automated and code-free.
See the Amazon Vendor Central FAQ for information about their program
References
Questions about Amazon Vendor Central? Contact us
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