Amazon Vendor: marketplace guide

About this guide

This is a ChannelEngine guide on the Seattle-based marketplace Amazon Vendor. Here you can find information on how to request an Amazon Vendor account, how to configure this marketplace on ChannelEngine, what the specific requirements are, and more.

Table of contents

Introduction

Commercial information

How to request an account

Associated costs

Marketplace features

Settings and configuration

Marketplace-specific requirements and exceptions

• Setup
• Categorization
• Mappings
• Pricing

FAQs

Commercial information

Founded	1994
Founder	Jeff Bezos
Headquarters	Seattle, United States
Area served (orders)	Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States
Revenue	USD 514 billion (2022)
Number of monthly unique visitors	circa 2.2 billion (2023)
Setup cost	see the Associated costs section
Commission	see the Associated costs section
Other costs	see the Associated costs section
Payment	see the Associated costs section
Product categories	all categories
Input language	country-specific
Input currency	AED, AUD, CAD, EUR, GBP, INR, JPY, MXN, PLN, SAR, SGD, SEK, TRY, USD
Content creation	yes
Is the marketplace commission available via the API?	no
Profile on ChannelEngine	Amazon

Introduction

The Amazon Vendor program is designed for direct suppliers – including first-party distributors, manufacturers, and wholesalers – who sell their products in bulk to Amazon. In its turn, Amazon resells these products on the marketplace.

Approved vendors log in and manage their accounts via Amazon Vendor Central, as opposed to Seller Central. If you are a merchant interested in selling your products directly to consumers (B2C) under your business name, refer to the Amazon: marketplace guide instead. 

For more information on the differences between the two platforms, check out the article Amazon Seller Central vs Amazon Vendor Central.

How to request an account

To join Amazon's Vendor program, you must first receive an invitation from their team. Typically, invitations are offered to merchants who have established a successful brand, maintained consistently high sales volumes, demonstrated exceptional customer service, and received positive reviews for their product range through the standard Seller Central program.

Get in touch with your contact person at ChannelEngine to explore how to improve your metrics and traffic generation, so you may be considered for the Vendor program. 

Associated costs

The costs of joining the Amazon Vendor program vary per vendor. During the onboarding and contract negotiation processes, vendors and Amazon discuss wholesale prices. Additionally, there may be extra fees charged by Amazon to cover slotting and marketing costs – ranging from 4% to 10%. Besides, Amazon may request further support and marketing fees based on sales performance. 

Marketplace features

Supported	Not supported
Product content (excl. product videos)	Advanced Amazon features, such as Amazon billing
List price and Cost price	Sales channels*
	Product variations (sizes/colors)**
	Repricing
	Carrier mapping
	Orders
	Shipments
	Cancelations
	Returns (marketplace)
	Returns/refunds (merchant)
	Product offers (ASIN matching)
	Direct fulfillment

* A marketplace that supports sales channels allows merchants to list and sell products across multiple markets (e.g.: countries, regions, and states), all from the same connection.

** ChannelEngine does not export parent products to Amazon Vendor, only child and standalone products. Therefore, it is not possible to create product variations, but Amazon tries to create variants automatically based on existing GTINs. You can also request changes directly via Amazon Vendor Central. 

Marketplace-specific requirements and exceptions

Settings and configuration

Setting up each marketplace on ChannelEngine follows the same flow, though not every marketplace includes the steps listed below.

1. Go through the Setup.
2. Create a Product selection.
3. Complete the Categorization.
4. Set up the Mappings: content, offers, and carriers.
5. Configure the Pricing: rules and currency conversion.
6. Finish the Activation.
7. Check the Listed products overview.

 Setup

On Amazon Vendor Central

1. Log in to the Vendor Central website of the Amazon Vendor sales channel you want to connect with ChannelEngine. E.g.: https://vendorcentral.amazon.de/ for vendors on Amazon DE. 
2. From the top navigation bar, click Integration, EDI integration. 
3. On the Self-service EDI setup page, locate and copy your unique vendor code. 
   

On ChannelEngine

1. Go to the Setup page of your Amazon Vendor marketplace, and enter your Unique vendor code into the relevant field.
2. Go to the Authorize ChannelEngine section and click Authorize.
3. Log in to Amazon Vendor Central to complete the OAuth authentication. The API access tokens are automatically entered in the relevant fields on ChannelEngine, and appear once you save and refresh the Setup page.

Plugin-specific settings

Use own AWS images

Amazon's API expects images to be hosted on the Amazon AWS platform. To achieve this, you have two options:

• Use ChannelEngine's AWS CloudFront - if enabled, ChannelEngine uses its own CloudFront solution to host and deliver images via its content delivery system (CDS). Images are routed through CloudFront and sent to Amazon using the image URLs provided by ChannelEngine. Image-related attributes are hidden on the Content mappings tab, and ChannelEngine manages the image mapping process on your behalf. Because the image attributes are hidden, you need to change the image stored on ChannelEngine to change an image on Amazon Vendor.

• Use own AWS images - if enabled, you can use your own Amazon AWS account to host images – and link them to image-related attributes on ChannelEngine. The image-related attributes become visible on the Content mappings tab, allowing you to map your image URLs as usual. Disable this setting to use ChannelEngine's AWS CloudFront.

Categorization

Categories on Amazon Vendor differ from those on Amazon Seller. However, categorization on Amazon Vendor is straightforward, and all categories are listed in the language of the country you have connected with ChannelEngine. E.g.: German for vendors on Amazon DE. 

Mappings

Content

All products (required)

• Attribute: bullet point 1 - bullet points with the product's main features and benefits, displayed next to the product image. You can include up to ten points. The following requirements apply:
  • Use sentence case for each bullet point. E.g.: Portable, weather-proof 22 W solar panel.
  • Use a semicolon ( ; ) to separate bullet points.
  • Do not use all capital letters or abbreviations.
  • Do not include material composition, care instructions, or country of origin.
• Title: item name - the product's name. The following requirements apply:
  • Character length - 200 at most.
  • Structure - [brand] [item type name] [color] [model number]. E.g.: Cello Wooden Chair Brown B12345.
  • Use numerals instead of spelling out numbers.

All products (optional)

• Item weight - the product's weight, excluding the packaging. Indicate only the numeric value.
• Suggested ASIN - the product's ASIN, if it is already listed on Amazon. Together with the External product ID, this allows you to connect with the existing products on Amazon. Note that it is necessary to map all of the required attributes before your product is exported, even if it already exists on Amazon.
• List price (MSRP) - the product's manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP).
• Locator 6-8 for additional product image: other image URL - the product's additional images, displayed on the details page. For the image requirements, check Main product image locator: main image URL.
• Locator 1-5 for other product images: other image URL - the product's additional images, displayed on the details page. Start with the first image here. For the image requirements, check Main product image locator: main image URL.
• Locator for main product image: main image URL - the product's primary image. The following requirements apply:
  • Background - white (RGB color values: 255, 255, 255).
  • Resolution - 500 px to 10,000 px on the longest side.
  • File format - JPG, JPEG, TIFF, PNG, or non-animated GIF.
  • Clear, unpixelated, no jagged edges.
  • No logos, borders, color blocks, watermarks, or other graphics covering the product or in the background.
• Swatch product image locator: swatch image URL - the product variants' thumbnails. These are visible on the product's parent page, and showcase different color samples.

Category-specific (required)

• Are batteries required? - set it to 'Yes' if the product requires batteries, or is a battery itself. 
• Brand name - the product's brand or manufacturer. Specify the brand name exactly as it appears in the brand registry application.
• Country of origin - the product's country of origin.
• Dangerous goods regulations (supplier_declared_dg_hz_regulation/value) - select a value based on whether the product is classified as a dangerous good, or contains hazardous substances or waste products – requiring regulated transport, storage, or disposal.

Category-specific (optional)

• GHS classification: GHS class - the GHS class of the product, if it is classified under the UN globally harmonized system of classification and labeling of chemicals (GHS). E.g.: explosive.
• Hazardous material regulation (hazmat/aspect) - the aspect or supervisory authority used for the information on hazardous products. E.g.: Vereinten Nationen (United Nations).
• Hazardous material regulation: hazardous substance (hazmat/value) - the UN number of the product, if it contains hazardous substances according to the UN list of dangerous goods regulation. E.g.: UN 1993 (for flammable liquids).
  NB: it is important to provide values for both attributes related to hazardous material regulation (hazmat/aspect) and (hazmat/value) at the same time. Otherwise, you receive an error from Amazon during content export.
• Safety data sheet URL (safety data sheet URL/value) - the product's safety data sheet (SDS or MSDS), which is important for products with safety and compliance requirements. Provide the safety data sheet if your product is subject to UN dangerous goods regulation.

Offer

There is no offer mapping on Amazon Vendor. All products are sold directly to Amazon based on the mapped value of the Cost price attribute.

You can provide Amazon with the MSRP based on the mapped value of the List price attribute. It is up to Amazon, however, to follow your price suggestion or sell the product at their own price to the end customer. 

Note that it is not possible to communicate stock levels to Amazon. If there is not enough stock to fulfill Amazon's order, a cancelation is created.

Carrier

There is no carrier mapping on Amazon Vendor.

Pricing

ChannelEngine exports two prices to Amazon Vendor, based on the value of the following mapped attributes:

• List price - the recommended retail price, excluding VAT/sales tax.
• Cost price - the price Amazon pays to you for the purchased products. 

Amazon Vendor requires prices to be submitted in the respective currency of the country. If you do not have pricing attributes in that currency, you need to set a currency conversion.

FAQs

Why is the 'Cost price' attribute rejected by Amazon?

The Cost price might get rejected by Amazon if the provided value exceeds the amount configured on Amazon Vendor Central. To adjust the attribute's value, submit a cost change request via Amazon Vendor Central. Note that Amazon can still deny your submission.

What does the error "The value for the 'attribute_name' attribute cannot be edited. Set the value to 'value_name', and submit the data again" mean?

This error indicates that attempting to overwrite the existing value for this attribute is not allowed. This happens when you have already set the value for this attribute on Amazon Vendor Central.

To resolve the error and export the content successfully, you can either:

• Adjust your attribute value to match the one on Vendor Central, as suggested by the error message.
• Contact Amazon Vendor's support to adjust the attribute's value.

Why is my product shown as available if its stock is currently 0 (zero)?

On Amazon Vendor, it is not possible to set the availability of recently created products via ChannelEngine (i.e.: products that did not exist on Amazon). To change the status of such a product, go to Vendor Central.

Note that this does not affect products that already existed on Amazon.

How to make sure product variations are exported correctly to Amazon Vendor?

When creating product variations on Amazon Vendor, ensure that the parent product has a different External product ID compared to its children. Failure to do so will result in an error, preventing you from updating both the parent and child product content.