How to Integrate Amazon Vendors Using EDI or API?
Introduction to Amazon Vendors and Integration
Being an Amazon Vendor, the question of EDI Integration is something you should be curious to know about. Some basic ones like What information can be transmitted and received, what does it take to connect, and what are the benefits?
Amazon Vendor has long used Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to send and receive information about purchase orders, shipments and invoices. Amazon Vendor recently launched an API, which is particularly suited to Direct Fulfilment Vendors. Functionality of both, EDI Integration and API Integration is roughly similar.
Why to Integrate with Amazon Vendor?
If you have been an Amazon Vendor for a long period of time, you will know that the manual paperwork burden can be quite huge. Typically, few days of a week place a large workload on staff for the whole process i.e. to download, process orders & accept purchase orders.
Most companies dedicate one or two members of staff to handling POs on daily basis. For companies/vendors, more the sales — more the paperwork. For most of them, Integration is the answer. “Get EDI” is the call from Amazon during numerous training sessions In-fact, Amazon has been known to offer incentives and account rewards to those companies/vendors that adhere to their integration standards at every phase. Integrating to Amazon can be a positive step in building a strong relationship with your vendor accounts.
Transmission over EDI is possible for?
Below mentioned are six major EDI message types that are most used or rather transmitted to maximum, with Amazon Vendor:
- Purchase Order
- Purchase Order Acknowledgement
- Routing Advice Request (ARN)
- Advance Shipping Notice (ASN)
- Invoice
- Cost Inventory Update
Here are some things you cannot currently transmit to Amazon Vendor:
- Product creation
- Product listing, images and descriptions
- Price change negotiations
What should be used, EDI or API?
In May 2020, Amazon Vendor launched a new Vendor API that offered a lot of similar functionality to the EDI connection. There is a very comprehensive breakdown of the functional differences in Vendor Central space, but overall, they are minimal. Majorly, EDI has a wider range across the whole Vendor functionality, whereas the API provides additional access for Direct Fulfilment processes; so that’s an add-on.
The real choice depends on various parameters like what will work with your systems, the setup time incurred, the setup cost incurred, and obviously the end goals. For instance, you might have an existing B2B EDI provider who can add Amazon Vendor for you, or maybe you already have an API setup and want to use that for your Vendor integration. Few companies have systems that are only compatible with traditional B2B EDI integration, whereas others can use/are using RESTful APIs smoothly.
Costs for Amazon Vendor Integration
Cost of Amazon Vendor Integration solely depends on the system you are integrating with and how sophisticated and simple you need to make it. If you use a mainstream ERP and just want purchase orders downloading, you will probably be able to get that setup for some thousands and if a bespoke setup with more messages is the need than it might require a few hundred thousand budgets. For a worldwide, multi-system integration for a large corporation, you can expect few lacs quote.
Time duration for Amazon Vendor Integration
The answer to this query is same as above — it depends on the system, number of messages and level of sophistication required for a smooth processing. Integrating to Amazon is actually very fast compared to other eCommerce in the market. You could set it up in two weeks, or six months at the max. It varies, particularly for larger organizations mapped across globally and having different systems to integrate.
What is the need to integrate with Amazon Vendor?
If you’re not sure about the need of integration with Amazon Vendor, here are some good questions to help you decide what you need in terms of a solution. If you answer “Yes” to any of the below mentioned questions, then integration is a must for your company:
Could you spend more than ten hours a week on order processing and on shipment creation?
Can you spend more than five hours a week on invoice creation?
Does the company have sales in excess of $1 million per year to Amazon Vendor?
Consider Amazon Vendor a future growth channel for sales and revenue over the next five years?
Do you want to automate, streamline and consolidate processes related to order handling?
Do you wish to reduce manual paperwork, touch points and handling time for orders to Amazon?
Where do I start with for Amazon Vendor integration?
First, in order to get your operations, administration and finance teams together is important to discuss the main problems all are facing. Pinpoint the issues that are to be solved, discuss as to which all steps take the most time, and in return what you want to achieve. EDI integration helps to reduce the time taken to download & accept POs, make ASNs, and make invoices for the same.
Secondly, it is important to gauge your internal level of need, budget as well as timescale.
Is this a must-have or a nice-to-have project?
Do you need it before a seasonal peak?
Who will benefit the most from this? This all need to be addressed internally.
Third, some research is required. You might need an off-the-shelf integration provider, or maybe you need something a bit more tailored to you. Amosoft helps you to get the best tailored solution.
Lastly, arrange some demos with Amosoft, see how the systems work, and see how can you tailor the things with Amosoft for the benefits of the organization.
Is it possible to set up Amazon Vendor integration myself?
You might not need a software partner to get setup with EDI, and need some way of accepting & handling EDI or API messages within your internal systems, as well as capturing and exporting the necessary data from your ERP system.
AMOSOFT promises the exponential growth of your business with its tailored EDI solutions as well as APIs for Amazon Vendor Integration!!
