[MacNichol]

Hello,

I'm selling primarily via my website (Miva cart), Amazon Seller Central, and eBay. I'm wondering whether anyone has suggestions for software or modules that will help me integrate the these to make things run more quickly.

Many Thanks.

[lesliekirk]

That's a great question, I was just recently asked if there was an easy way to list products from a Miva Merchant store into an Amazon Seller account.

[wcw]

Do they have a data feed capability? If they do, do you know what the format looks like, i.e. the order that the data appears in columns?

[MacNichol]

Below is the feed information for Amazon Seller Central, but this is over my head.






Sellers and Amazon.com can exchange data through seller-customized Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). The APIs help sellers quickly develop applications for integration with their own point-of-sale and fulfillment systems. Amazon.com supports three data-exchange methods for sending feeds and retrieving reports (both also known as documents) as alternatives to using manual processes in Seller Central.
The first method, and the easiest to implement, is AMTU (Amazon Merchant Transport Utility). This utility is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. Once AMTU is installed, a service runs in the background and automatically searches for documents waiting to be sent to or pulled from Amazon.com. In other words, it handles the bi-directional communication of documents between Amazon.com and the seller. The seller copies outbound feeds into a specified folder and AMTU posts them to Amazon.com. When processing is complete, the utility pulls a processing report from Amazon.com, providing the seller with detailed processing results.
The second method is SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol). For this method, the seller develops applications that use predefined APIs to send or receive feeds, processing status reports, and acknowledgments for downloaded documents.
The third method uses Amazon Marketplace Web Service (MWS), which enables sellers to easily exchange data supporting their listings and sales on Amazon.com through an integrated Web service API. Sellers can programmatically exchange data on listings, orders, payments, reports, and more. XML data integration with Amazon enables higher levels of selling automation, which helps sellers grow their business. By using Amazon MWS, sellers can increase selling efficiency, reduce labor requirements, and improve response time to customers.
Amazon MWS supports seller API functions that are broader in scope and functionality than any API functionality previously offered to sellers by Amazon, which will ultimately help sellers gain efficiency and scale their business. With Amazon MWS, listing, order, and payment data can be integrated into a seller's existing workflow so that selling on Amazon fits seamlessly with a seller's current business practices.
Note:
• All three methods support XML feeds or text-file feeds as long as they adhere to the predefined formats.
• With AMTU you won't have to develop the SOAP transport layer, resulting in lower cost and faster deployment (in most cases).
The Seller Central Help pages cover SOAP in depth, and present an overview of Amazon MWS as well as information about how to register to use MWS. For additional, in-depth information about MWS, go to http://mws.amazon.com. For more information about AMTU, go to http://amtu.sourceforge.net.

[wcw]

Without this info "text-file feeds as long as they adhere to the predefined formats. " there is no way to know. That is the part you need to know.

[lesliekirk]

I'm digging through stuff on the site. Here is some of what I have found and will keep digging:

text file
Sellers use text files to load multiple products at the same time. You can create these files using a program such as Microsoft Excel. After you create a spreadsheet with the data you want in it, you save the file as a tab-delimited text file, and then upload this file to Seller Central.
The text files you use in Seller Central are set up using predefined templates. For inventory files, these templates are based on the product category. Seller Central Help. (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help).

[wcw]

These data feeds don't vary much. They have columns like product code, name, description, image url, price, condition, etc. The thing that differs is the order the columns are in. You can make a tab delimited text file data feed with the template data feed module but you have to know the order those columns are in. You create the template using tokens in the order you need them. Then you click a button and it creates the feed file from the data in each record.

[Kent Multer]

I've written a couple of modules to integrate Miva stores with Amazon. I have some good news and bad news :^) .

Half of the integration is pretty simple. I have a module available off the shelf that reads data on completed Amazon purchases, and imports it into Miva. It converts the data into standard Miva orders, so you can form them into batches, view reports, or export them to other software. The module is available at:

http://www.vikingcoders.com/store/me...IC_AMZORDRIMPT

The other half of the job -- exporting your Miva store's products in a format that you can upload to Amazon -- is much trickier. Amazon's format for this is quite complex, and it varies depending on what type of product you sell. Someone selling clothing will have a data format that's quite a bit different from someone selling electronics or sporting goods.

I wrote an export module as a custom project for a clothing dealer. If you also sell clothing, I can provide you a "semi-custom" module at a good price. For anything else, this will be a pretty expensive module ... but I can do it if you want. Feel free to contact me by email if you want to discuss it in detail.

Thanks -

[wcw]

Originally Posted by Kent Multer The other half of the job -- exporting your Miva store's products in a format that you can upload to Amazon -- is much trickier. Amazon's format for this is quite complex, and it varies depending on what type of product you sell. Someone selling clothing will have a data format that's quite a bit different from someone selling electronics or sporting goods.

That is why using a template module is the easy and cost effective solution. Each shopping portal has a different wrinkle on what they want. Even something as simple as Google base has different data elements based on your product type. They have the basic export. But if you sell specific things, they have a list of recommended other fields to export, e.g. ISBN. You simply have custom product fields in your store that hold that data. Then change the template to export that custom product field for that column.

[Barney Stone]

We can't help with the product feeds, but the Stone Edge Order Manager can import the orders from all of your sales channels and give you one place to manage your orders, customers, inventory, purchasing, warehousing, shipping, etc. For info go to www.StoneEdge.com, or give us a call at 610-994-3699.