How to use EDI with AMAZON
20 June 2023
20 June 2023
EDI is a solution widely favored by e-Commerce players, whether merchants or platforms. The ubiquitous Amazon marketplace is no exception, promoting the use of EDI among all its sellers as a communications solution with their information systems. Let’s find out how EDI works with Amazon, from implementation to day-to-day use.
Amazon, more than most, favors EDI with its suppliers and vendors, and offers a range of services and support to help its suppliers and vendors implement EDI in the MarketPlace.
In this article, find out why you should choose EDI selling on Amazon and how to carry out your EDI integration project with Amazon.
Whatever your sales model on the Amazon MarketPlace:
It will be necessary to optimize the management of flows between your Information System and Amazon Vendor.
Even more than all other MarketPlaces, Amazon is very demanding when it comes to the level of service provided to end customers. As a result
integration between the Amazon MarketPlace and the merchant’s BackOffice must be perfect and transparent.
Amazon integration is the process of sending all product, pricing and inventory data to Amazon. It also enables us to receive all information relating to orders, customers, shipping and invoicing.
This integration process with Amazon, as with any other marketplace, is crucial. In fact, it must enable synchronization as close as possible to real time between Amazon and the seller’s Amazon Sales Management system.
EDI with Amazon is the most proven and shared method for seamless management of these commercial exchanges.
The main reasons for EDI integration with Amazon are :
The aim is to carry out the EDI integration project in compliance with Amazon’s requirements.
Amazon provides its suppliers, vendors and their EDI service providers with detailed documentation on its requirements. This documentation specifies the coding rules for products offered for sale, and the EDI documents and standards accepted.
Products sold on Amazon must comply with the coding rules dictated by Amazon. Amazon recommends the use of GTIN (Global Trade Identification Number) coding. GTIN codes can be obtained from GS1’s CodeOnLine service.
In fact, for each product sold on Amazon, you’ll need: item identifiers and the units of measurement used.
The EDI messages most commonly used with Amazon Vendor :
However, it will not be possible to use EDI for :
For this, you will need to use the Amazon Vendor WEB interface, logging in with your vendor account.
Amazon offers an AS2 connection and also supports all VAN EDI. Companies already using EDI will only incur the costs associated with setting up a new EDI partner. This means setting up a new connection, configuration and testing. EDI messages exchanged with Amazon will be invoiced on the same terms already negotiated with the VAN EDI network provider.
Companies that do not yet have an EDI solution, and do not have EDI skills in-house, should contact an EDI service provider. Most EDI providers offer turnkey EDI solutions for connecting with Amazon and the major MarketPlaces.
EDI integration with Amazon is actually quite rapid. However, the EDI interface with the back office (ERP, Sales Management, etc.) needs to be handled with care.
Amazon has very strict rules for filling out orders, and applies penalties for inaccurate information, as well as long delays in transmitting information.
Penalties applied by Amazon to its sellers can amount to up to 6% of sales for inaccuracies on documents leading to modifications and for delays in transmission. To avoid these revenue losses, and to avoid being rejected by Amazon in the long term, you need to work upstream on the quality of the data and information you transmit.
For this reason, it’s vital to achieve effective integration between the EDI platform and the Information System (ERP, Sales Management, WMS). All commercial data used by the company’s Information System must be accurate and of high quality. Tools such as EAI enable data and information to be synchronized between the various applications in the information system.
For a company already using EDI for its commercial exchanges and which already has an ecommerce site, EDI integration with Amazon will be very quick. On the order of two to three weeks minimum. Time for administrative formalities and testing with Amazon.
For a company with no EDI and/or e-commerce experience, some preliminary work is essential :
Technical work :
– Validation of communication between an EDI platform and sales management or ERP,
Qualitative work :
– Preparation of the product catalog: standardized GTIN coding of items, and product sheets ready to go online with categories and keywords for natural referencing,
This last point, which concerns qualitative work, will certainly take the longest and should be anticipated before carrying out EDI integration with Amazon.
EDI with Amazon is indeed the best solution. With EDI, Amazon can integrate seamlessly with all major
ERP, sales management, accounting and WMS software solutions. What’s more, EDI integration allows you to:
Since spring 2020, Amazon has been offering API integration in addition to EDI. To date, however, the functional richness of the API is less than that of the EDI solution. The advantage of APIs lies in their real-time nature. Similarly, APIs require expert programming skills and can be more complex to maintain than EDI. In fact, EDI is still the best solution for integrating securely and efficiently with Amazon’s back office.
Tenor has been helping companies implement EDI for over thirty years. Contact our experts to launch your EDI project with Amazon today !