Electronic data exchange with Amazon

With an annual turnover of US$280.5 billion in 2019 (Germany: US$22 billion) and thus a 20% increase in sales compared to the previous year, Amazon continues to be one of the world’s top-selling companies, and even the current situation seems to have little effect on Amazon. On the contrary, business is booming. Contact restrictions and social distancing give those companies that also generate revenue by selling their goods on the internet a decisive advantage that could even prove to be essential.

Amazon started defining EDI as a strategic tool and core part of its supplier integration very early on. In contrast to the fee-based VAN networks used by U.S. companies at the time, Amazon initially pushed the use of FTP/sFTP connections. With the advent of AS2, Amazon has imposed this connection type as the standard for all electronic EDI exchanges within the Amazon Group because of its advantages when it comes to transaction security (acknowledgment of documents via MDN at the protocol level).

If you, as a seller, want to benefit from the enormous reach of the internet giant, you would do well to support Amazon’s EDI requirements. There are a few things to keep in mind here:

First of all, you need to register via Amazon Vendor Central. EDI connections can be set up and managed via this portal (Amazon will provide the login details)

Important for EDI-enabled Amazon suppliers: Many of our customers report better ranking in Amazon search results when the suppliers support the four (three) relevant processes! Supporting all EDI business processes required by Amazon is often directly correlated with higher business volumes!

An EDI connection of numerous European national subsidiaries (Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Spain, Amazon Poland, Amazon UK, Amazon Italy, etc.), as well as a direct EDI connection to Amazon warehouses are also possible.