Amazon Orders & Fulfillment

This guide explains how Amazon orders flow into Ecommerce, how fulfillment and tracking work, and how inventory and pricing stay in sync with your Amazon storefront. It is written for dealership staff who manage day-to-day Amazon operations within Ecommerce.

Table of Contents

1. How Amazon Orders Arrive in Ecommerce
2. What Order Data Is Imported
3. Order Status Lifecycle
4. Fulfilling Orders and Uploading Tracking
5. Supported Shipping Carriers
6. Inventory Sync to Amazon
7. Pricing Updates
8. Open Listings Report and Reconciliation
9. Frequently Asked Questions
10. Troubleshooting

How Amazon Orders Arrive in Ecommerce

Amazon orders are imported into Ecommerce automatically. You do not need to copy orders over by hand or log in to Seller Central to check for new orders. Here is what happens behind the scenes:

1. Ecommerce requests an order report from Amazon. Every few hours, Ecommerce asks Amazon to generate a report of all orders placed in the last three days. The report type used is called GET_FLAT_FILE_ALL_ORDERS_DATA_BY_ORDER_DATE_GENERAL  .
2. Ecommerce waits for the report to be ready. Amazon does not produce reports instantly. Ecommerce polls Amazon at regular intervals until the report is available for download.
3. Ecommerce downloads and processes the report. Once the report is ready, Ecommerce downloads it as a tab-separated file (TSV) and reads through each order line by line.
4. Only Pending orders are imported initially. When an order first appears in the report with a status of "Pending," Ecommerce creates a new order record. Orders that are already in Ecommerce are updated rather than duplicated.
5. Ecommerce fills in the order details. After the initial import, Ecommerce updates each order with full customer and shipping information, including the customer's email, phone number, name, shipping address, and the specific Amazon order item IDs for each line item.

What This Means for You

• New Amazon orders will appear in Ecommerce within a few hours of being placed on Amazon.
• You do not need to take any action to trigger the import — it runs on a schedule.
• Because Ecommerce looks back three days each time, orders are unlikely to be missed even if a single import cycle encounters an issue.

What Order Data Is Imported

When an Amazon order is brought into Ecommerce, the following information is captured:

Order Identification

Customer Information

Shipping Address

Important Notes About Order Data

• The recipient name on the shipping address may be different from the buyer name. Always ship to the recipient name and address provided.
• Amazon sometimes withholds buyer contact information (especially email) until the order leaves "Pending" status. Ecommerce updates the order as this information becomes available.
• Each line item in an order has its own order item ID. This is critical for fulfillment — Amazon tracks fulfillment at the item level, not just the order level.

Order Status Lifecycle

Amazon orders move through a defined set of statuses. Ecommerce maps these Amazon statuses to internal Ecommerce statuses so you can manage them consistently alongside orders from other channels.

Status Flow

Pending (ORDER_NEW)
    |
    ├──> Shipped (ORDER_FULFILLED)    — when you ship and tracking is uploaded
    |
    └──> Cancelled (ORDER_CANCELED)   — if the order is cancelled

What You Should Know

• New orders start as ORDER_NEW. This is the status you should watch for when looking at orders that need to be picked, packed, and shipped.
• Once you ship an order and tracking is uploaded, it moves to ORDER_FULFILLED. This happens automatically when Ecommerce sends the tracking data to Amazon (see the next section).
• Cancelled orders require no action. If an order is cancelled on the Amazon side, Ecommerce updates the status to ORDER_CANCELED automatically during the next import cycle.
• You cannot change an order's Amazon status manually from within Ecommerce. The status is determined by the data Amazon provides and the fulfillment information Ecommerce sends back.

Fulfilling Orders and Uploading Tracking

When you ship an Amazon order, Ecommerce automatically sends the tracking information to Amazon. This is how Amazon knows the order has been fulfilled and how the customer receives their tracking number.

How It Works

1. You ship the order and enter tracking information in Ecommerce. After physically shipping the package, record the carrier and tracking number in Ecommerce as you would for any order.

   Ecommerce collects all unshipped Amazon orders that now have tracking. On a regular schedule, Ecommerce looks for Amazon orders that have tracking information entered but have not yet been reported to Amazon as shipped.

   Ecommerce builds a fulfillment file. For each order ready to be reported, Ecommerce creates a record containing:

   • Order ID — which Amazon order this fulfillment belongs to
   • Order Item ID — which specific item within the order is being shipped
   • Quantity — how many units of that item are in the shipment
   • Ship Date — the date the package was shipped
   • Carrier Code — the standardized carrier identifier Amazon expects
   • Carrier Name — the human-readable carrier name
   • Tracking Number — the tracking number from the carrier
   • Ship Method — the shipping service used
2. Ecommerce submits the fulfillment feed to Amazon. The file is uploaded to Amazon using the SP-API as a POST_FLAT_FILE_FULFILLMENT_DATA   feed. Amazon processes this feed and updates the order status on their side.
3. The customer is notified. Once Amazon processes the fulfillment data, the customer receives a shipping confirmation email from Amazon with the tracking number.

Best Practices

• Enter tracking information promptly. The sooner tracking is in Ecommerce, the sooner it gets to Amazon and the customer.
• Double-check the carrier selection. If the carrier does not match a recognized Amazon carrier, the tracking may not work properly on the customer's end. See the supported carriers list below.
• Make sure the tracking number is correct. An incorrect tracking number will show as invalid to the customer and can lead to A-to-Z claims.
• Ship within the expected timeframe. Late shipments affect your Amazon seller metrics. Ecommerce sends lead time information to Amazon as part of inventory sync (covered below), so make sure your actual ship times match your configured lead times.

Supported Shipping Carriers

Ecommerce maps carrier names to Amazon's recognized carrier codes when uploading fulfillment data. The following carriers are supported:

In addition to these commonly used carriers, Ecommerce supports a total of 27 carriers recognized by Amazon. The system automatically converts carrier names from AfterShip format (used internally by Ecommerce for tracking) to the corresponding Amazon carrier code. This means you generally do not need to worry about carrier code formatting — just select the correct carrier when entering tracking, and Ecommerce handles the translation.

If Your Carrier Is Not Listed

If you use a carrier that is not in the supported list, the tracking number may still be submitted to Amazon, but Amazon may not be able to validate or display tracking to the customer. Contact your Ecommerce administrator if you regularly use a carrier that does not appear to be supported.

Inventory Sync to Amazon

Ecommerce automatically keeps your Amazon inventory levels up to date. You do not need to manually adjust quantities on Seller Central.

How Inventory Sync Works

1. Ecommerce checks each active Amazon listing. On a regular schedule, Ecommerce reviews every listing that is currently active on your Amazon storefront.
2. For each listing, Ecommerce determines the best SKU. Ecommerce identifies the fastest-available SKU associated with the listing. This ensures that the inventory count reflects stock that can ship quickly.
3. Ecommerce calculates the available quantity. The quantity is calculated based on your current stock levels, applying any configured floor (minimum threshold before showing as out of stock) and cap (maximum quantity to advertise on Amazon).
4. Ecommerce retrieves the current price. The price for each listing is pulled from your Ecommerce pricing rules (see the next section for details on pricing).
5. Ecommerce sends the update to Amazon. The inventory, price, and maximum lead time to ship are submitted to Amazon as a JSON_LISTINGS_FEED  . This feed is processed by Amazon and your storefront reflects the updated quantities and prices.
6. Updates are sent in batches. To handle large catalogs efficiently, Ecommerce sends up to 25,000 listing updates per feed. If your catalog exceeds this, multiple feeds are sent.

What Gets Sent in Each Update

Automatic Listing Disabling

Ecommerce will automatically disable a listing on Amazon (set quantity to zero) under these conditions:

• No price available. If Ecommerce cannot determine a price for the listing based on your pricing rules, it will not advertise the item.
• Price falls below threshold. If the calculated price is below your configured minimum price threshold, the listing is disabled to prevent selling at a loss.
• Out of stock with purge enabled. If the item is out of stock and your account has the out-of-stock purge setting enabled, the listing is set to zero quantity.

These safeguards run automatically and help prevent overselling or selling below cost.

Pricing Updates

Pricing updates to Amazon are handled as part of the inventory sync process described above. Each time inventory is synced, Ecommerce also sends the current price for each listing.

How Prices Are Determined

• Prices are calculated based on Ecommerce pricing rules configured for your Amazon channel.
• Pricing rules can account for factors like cost, margin targets, competitor pricing, and minimum/maximum price boundaries.
• When a pricing rule produces a new price for a listing, that price is included in the next inventory sync feed to Amazon.

Key Points

• Price changes are not instant on Amazon. After Ecommerce submits the feed, Amazon takes some time to process it. Allow up to a few hours for price changes to appear on your Amazon storefront.
• If no valid price can be determined, the listing is disabled. This prevents items from being listed at $0 or at an unintended price.
• Review your pricing rules regularly. Since pricing flows automatically, misconfigured rules can lead to prices that are too high (lost sales) or too low (lost margin).

Open Listings Report and Reconciliation

Ecommerce periodically downloads an Open Listings Report from Amazon to verify that the listings Ecommerce expects to be active on Amazon are actually active.

What the Report Does

• Ecommerce requests a report of all currently active (open) listings on your Amazon seller account.
• Ecommerce compares the ASINs in this report against the ASIN records it has internally.
• Any discrepancies — such as a listing that Ecommerce thinks is active but Amazon does not, or vice versa — can be identified and addressed.

Why This Matters

• Listings can become inactive on Amazon for various reasons: policy violations, catalog errors, suppressed listings, or feed processing issues.
• The open listings report helps catch these problems. Without it, you might not notice that a listing has dropped off Amazon until a customer reports that they cannot find your product.
• Reconciliation runs automatically. You do not need to trigger it manually. If discrepancies are found, they will be visible in Ecommerce for review.

What to Do If You Notice Discrepancies

1. Check the listing status in Amazon Seller Central for details on why a listing may be inactive.
2. Verify that the ASIN and SKU in Ecommerce match what is expected on Amazon.
3. If the listing was suppressed by Amazon, address the issue in Seller Central (e.g., missing product information, policy compliance).
4. After fixing the issue, the next inventory sync cycle should reactivate the listing.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How often are new Amazon orders imported into Ecommerce?

Orders are imported automatically every few hours. Ecommerce requests an order report from Amazon that covers the last three days, so even if one import cycle is delayed, orders are picked up in subsequent cycles.

2. An order is showing on Amazon Seller Central but not in Ecommerce. Why?

The most common reasons are:

• The order is very new. Give it a few hours for the next import cycle to run.
• The order is not yet in "Pending" status. Ecommerce only imports orders that have reached the Pending stage.
• There was a temporary issue with the Amazon report. Because Ecommerce looks back three days, the order should appear in a later cycle.

3. Can I manually import a specific Amazon order into Ecommerce?

The import process is automated and pulls all eligible orders. You cannot selectively import a single order. If an order is missing, wait for the next import cycle or contact your Ecommerce administrator to investigate.

4. How quickly does tracking information reach Amazon after I enter it in Ecommerce?

Ecommerce sends fulfillment feeds to Amazon on a regular schedule. Tracking information is typically submitted to Amazon within a few hours of being entered in Ecommerce. Amazon then takes additional time to process the feed and notify the customer.

5. I entered the wrong tracking number. How do I fix it?

Update the tracking number in Ecommerce. The corrected tracking number will be sent to Amazon in the next fulfillment feed. Note that Amazon may still show the original tracking number to the customer until the update is processed. If the situation is urgent, you can also update tracking directly in Amazon Seller Central.

6. Why was my listing disabled on Amazon even though I have inventory?

Ecommerce disables listings automatically if:

• No valid price can be calculated from your pricing rules.
• The price falls below your minimum price threshold.
• The item is marked out of stock and your out-of-stock purge setting is enabled.

Check your pricing rules and inventory settings in Ecommerce to identify the cause.

7. How does Ecommerce decide what quantity to show on Amazon?

Ecommerce looks at the fastest-available SKU for each listing and calculates the available quantity. This quantity may be adjusted by a floor setting (a minimum level below which the item shows as unavailable) and a cap setting (a maximum quantity to advertise regardless of actual stock).

8. My Amazon prices do not match what I see in Ecommerce. What is going on?

Price updates are sent as part of the inventory sync feed. There is a delay between when Ecommerce calculates a new price and when Amazon displays it. If prices are consistently wrong, review your pricing rules in Ecommerce to make sure they are configured correctly for your Amazon channel.

9. What happens if an Amazon order is cancelled after I have already shipped it?

If an order is cancelled on Amazon's side, Ecommerce will update the order status to ORDER_CANCELED during the next import cycle. If you have already shipped the package, you will need to handle the return according to your standard process and Amazon's return policies.

10. How do I know if my inventory sync is working correctly?

Use the Open Listings Report in Ecommerce to verify that your active listings match what Amazon shows. If you notice listings that should be active but are not, or quantities that seem incorrect, check your inventory and pricing rule configuration in Ecommerce. You can also compare a sample of listings in Ecommerce against what appears on Amazon Seller Central.

Troubleshooting