The document flow
- Purchase order: Amazon orders quantities per item and fulfilment centre.
- Acknowledgement: you confirm, change or reject each line, with delivery dates.
- Advance shipment notice (ASN): what is in each carton and pallet, sent before the goods arrive.
- Invoice: billed against what was received, then paid by remittance.
Direct Fulfillment (drop ship) vendors also handle customer orders, shipping labels and inventory updates.
EDI
EDI is the long-established route. Documents follow standards such as ANSI X12 (850, 855, 856, 810) or EDIFACT, usually exchanged over AS2. It suits vendors whose ERP or EDI provider already speaks these formats. You will need to pass Amazon’s test phase for each document before production.
Vendor APIs
The SP-API Vendor APIs carry the same information as JSON over HTTPS: vendor orders, shipments, invoices and Direct Fulfillment operations. They suit vendors without an EDI provider and teams that want direct control and faster error feedback. Authorisation and rate limits work as in the rest of SP-API.
Avoiding chargebacks
Amazon charges vendors for operational defects such as missing or inaccurate ASNs, wrong labels or late acknowledgements. The integration should prevent them:
- Generate ASNs from the actual packing data, not from the PO.
- Check carton and pallet labels against the ASN before the truck leaves.
- Alert a person when an acknowledgement deadline is close and lines are still open.
- Reconcile chargebacks and shortages from remittance data and dispute them with evidence.