Amazon Integration Overview

Some businesses like to sell their products on Amazon. This can sometimes be a useful supplementary sales channel for online retailers. You need to assess whether or not this would be a profitable avenue for you to explore.

Note: For full details of each of the IRP sections referred to below, refer to the Amazon Marketplace help topic.

1. Configure your Amazon Pro Seller Account. Ensure in particular that:

• If you have an existing, older Amazon marketplace account, you upgrade to the latest Pro Seller account, otherwise the IRP Amazon Integration feature will not work.
• You register your IRP sales email addresses in your Amazon Pro Seller account as an approved sender. This allows the IRP emails to be forwarded on to your customers. See https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/communication-manager/address-authorization.html.
• You set up your shipping options correctly in your Amazon Pro Seller account. See Shipping Costs and Delivery Times for more information.

2. Configure all Amazon marketplaces using the MarketplaceAmazonEdit.aspx page. The following settings are of particular note:

• Stock Source – set this as you wish. You may want to demarcate a specific location just for Amazon products, or simply use your web stock level. Alternatively you may want to manage your stock levels externally.
• Update Order Status from Amazon Order Status – for most customers this should be disabled, so that you can use the IRP for dispatch and generally so that orders flow completely through the IRP order flow.
• Endpoint/Service URL – This is the URL where services for the marketplace can be accessed. For example, https://mws-eu.amazonservices.com is the URL for many of the European Region marketplaces. See the Amazon MWS Developer Guide for help with Endpoint URLs.
• Merchant Keys – These details are provided as part of the Amazon sign-up process. You can also find this information when you sign in to the marketplace-specific Amazon MWS (see How to Use the Amazon Marketplace Web Service (MWS)).

3. Define the products that should be available to Amazon customers using the Inclusion/Exclusion Rules tab.

• Brand rules that you configure here will be replicated on the BrandsEdit.aspx page (Marketplaces tab).
• Category rules that you configure here will be replicated on the CategoriesEdit.aspx page (Marketplaces tab).
• Model and Stock rules that you configure here will be replicated on the ModelsEdit.aspx page (Marketplaces tab).

4. Define the product prices and discounts using the Price Rules tab.

• You can choose simply to use the prices you already have configured for your products in the IRP or you can configure various types of discount specifically for selling on Amazon.
• You can also use the 'Amazon Marketplace Stock Allocation (%)' setting for stock items on the ModelsEdit.aspx > StockEdit.aspx page.

5. Configure the automated Amazon tasks using the Automation tab:

• Inventory Download: This task downloads a report of the Inventory on the configured Amazon Marketplace. Any unmatched items will be listed in the 'Unmatched Items' tab for analysis. (This automated task is identical to the Common Task called 'Marketplace Amazon Inventory Download'.)
• Stock and Price Update: This task submits a Stock and Price file to Amazon to update your Inventory for the Configured Marketplace:
  1) Removes Items that have been specifically Excluded (from your IRP) at Stock, Model, Brand-Category, Brand only or Category only level.
  2) Applies Stock Source Rules to the Stock Levels in your Inventory.
  3) Applies Price Rules to the Min, Max and Standard Prices in your Inventory.
  (This automated task is identical to the Common Task called 'Marketplace Amazon Stock And Price Update'.)
• Inventory Feeds: This task is a combination of both the 'Inventory Download' and 'Stock and Price Update' Automation Tasks. Note: it is advised that if the 'Inventory Download' and 'Stock and Price Update' Tasks are enabled, the 'Inventory Feeds' Task Type should not be enabled. (This automated task is identical to the Common Task called 'Marketplace Amazon Submit Inventory Feeds'.)
• Order Download: This task downloads the latest Orders from the configured Amazon Marketplace and updates or inserts them into your IRP. (This automated task is identical to the Common Task called 'Marketplace Amazon Order Download'.)
• Order Update: This task updates Orders in your configured Amazon Marketplace that have been processed through your IRP. (This automated task is identical to the Common Task called 'Marketplace Amazon Order Update'.)

6. Check the configuration of other Amazon Common Tasks:

• Marketplaces Amazon Remove Old Service Requests And Feed Submissions

7. Ensure marketplaces are ACTIVE.

• Products will be uploaded to Amazon (with each stock item being a variation) via the schedule configured for the Stock and Price Update task.
• Orders will be downloaded to the IRP via the schedule configured for the Order Download task.

8. Check the Inventory Items tab on an ongoing basis. Look for:

• Items that need to be matched (see below for more details).

9. Check for Unmatched items using the Unmatched Items tab.

• Match where necessary.

10. View high-level information about the orders that have been placed by Amazon customers using the Orders > Marketplace Orders tab.

• You can link through to the page for managing any order by clicking the Manage button.
• To manually download orders, click the Redownload button (this is normally taken care of automatically by the automated task).

11. Monitor your marketplaces on an ongoing basis using these sections:

• Order Downloads tab
• Feed Submissions tab
• Errors tab
• The 'Marketplace Errors' alert on the Alerts menu in the top nav (this directs you to the MarketplacesOverview.aspx page)
• Marketplaces Overview page (MarketplacesOverview.aspx). Here you can see the key statistics about your Amazon operation.
• The Amazon Alerts bar at the top of IRP Admin (assuming you have selected this using the 'Edit' menu at the top-right corner of the Admin).
• Sales tab in the top-left corner of IRP Admin.

With the exceptions of refunds and cancellations, in most respects you manage orders from your Amazon Marketplace in the same way as any other orders on your IRP. See the Orders help topic for more details on managing orders.

You can see at-a-glance figures for recent Amazon orders on the Marketplaces Overview page.

You can also see orders for the last 30 days on the Orders > Overview page:

This information will naturally be of interest to you as an Amazon Marketplace seller. If you don’t see much activity in this area — or if you see a decline in the number and value of sales — then you should perhaps reconsider your Amazon strategy. Likewise, if you see a trend towards increasing sales in this area, you should consider whether to add more products to Amazon or raise your profile as a Marketplace seller.

Refunds for Amazon orders

You should review refunds on Amazon seller central as Amazon can periodically remove pending refunds from an order without notification if there is a problem applying the refund to a customer’s credit card and so forth. Refunded quantities can display incorrectly on Amazon seller central despite the correct refund values being applied.

You are strongly advised to manage any orders placed via Amazon entirely within the IRP unless it is absolutely necessary to make changes on Amazon’s own system. Any Amazon orders that you cancel (or refund) on the Amazon site will not automatically be cancelled or refunded in the IRP — you also need to manually update the orders in IRP Admin to synchronise stock levels.

Shipping costs and delivery times

Shipping costs are set and charged by Amazon — you cannot change this in the IRP. Amazon also determines the expected delivery time. When an Amazon order is downloaded to the IRP, the IRP attempts to determine the best shipping method to use by examining the information supplied by Amazon plus applicable shipping methods and rules for the destination address.

With this in mind, you need to ensure you have set up your shipping options correctly in your Amazon Pro Seller account. You should also double-check the shipping methods against IRP Amazon orders.

Important: Because Amazon sets the shipping cost and expected delivery time, if you fail to meet these consistently, Amazon could ban your Pro Seller account. Always ensure that your shipping configuration is correct.

Amazon customers

If an order comes through from a customer who has an existing account on the IRP, their customer ID is used for the Amazon order. If the customer’s email address doesn’t exist in the IRP then the IRP will generate a new guest customer account for the supplied buyer email address. All Amazon orders are flagged as guest orders.

Any Amazon order that fails to download will be displayed on the MarketplacesAmazonErrors.aspx page under the Amazon tab. An alert in the top navigation will also display the number of orders that failed to download (this links to the MarketplacesAmazonErrors.aspx page page):

You can either:

• Resolve the orders on Amazon Seller Central. This is the recommended action.
• Cancel these orders by.

The IRP will make additional attempts to download failed orders each time the integration is run (unless you have cancelled or resolved them).

Note: As noted previously, you are strongly encouraged to manage any orders placed via Amazon entirely within the IRP unless it is absolutely necessary to make changes on Amazon’s own system. Any Amazon orders that you cancel (or refund) on the Amazon site will not automatically be cancelled or refunded in the IRP — you also need to manually update the orders in IRP Admin to synchronise stock levels.