EDI trading partners
Amazon EDI for Vendor Central suppliers
Amazon lets a vendor exchange purchase orders, acknowledgments, shipment confirmations and invoices by EDI, through its API or by hand in Vendor Central. The EDI guides sit behind the Vendor Central login; the rules for each document are public in Amazon's developer documentation. This page covers those rules, the document behind each step and what Amazon rejects.
Updated
What Amazon publishes, and where
Amazon buys from vendors in two programs. In retail procurement Amazon issues a purchase order and the vendor ships the goods to an Amazon fulfillment center. In direct fulfillment the vendor ships each customer order from its own warehouse under Amazon's name. For both, Amazon states that a purchase order can be confirmed "using the API, EDI, or Vendor Central".
The EDI implementation guides, the list of transaction sets and versions per account, and the "EDI Resources help page" that Amazon refers to are inside Vendor Central and need a vendor login. What is public is Amazon's developer documentation for the Selling Partner API vendor operations, updated in September 2026. Its business requirements describe the documents themselves: when they are due, which values have to match and what is rejected. Everything below is taken from those pages, checked on 3 October 2026. Amazon is one of the trading partners we build an EDI integration for; on an Amazon account the same integration can run on EDI or on the API.
The documents, step by step
| Step | Amazon operation | X12 set for the same step | Rule in Amazon's documentation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purchase order | getPurchaseOrders |
850 | A placed order cannot be changed through the API; changes are made in Vendor Central |
| Acknowledgment | submitAcknowledgement |
855 | Within 24 hours; never more than ordered |
| Shipment request, collect freight | SubmitShipments, GetShipmentDetails |
753, 754 | Only for confirmed orders; returns the routing instructions |
| Shipment confirmation (ASN) | SubmitShipmentConfirmations |
856 | Before the goods are received |
| Invoice | submitInvoices |
810 | Only after the goods are confirmed and shipped |
| Direct fulfillment inventory | submitInventoryUpdate |
846 | Stock per warehouse for direct fulfillment |
The X12 column gives the transaction set that carries the same business step in X12, as defined by the standard. Which of them a given account trades by EDI, and in which version, is set in Vendor Central.
The acknowledgment: 24 hours, never more than ordered
Amazon gives the vendor 24 hours to accept a purchase order and requires a rejection for any order still on hold after that. The acknowledgment may confirm less than was ordered, never more. A backorder is allowed only when the order says so in isBackOrderAllowed, which Amazon's business representative decides per vendor. With backorders allowed, a line is confirmed in two parts: accepted with a date for what ships now and backordered with a date for the rest. A backordered line without price data gets the acknowledgment rejected.
Take the order used on our document pages: 24 units on line 1 and 16 on line 2, with 12 of line 2 in stock. With backorders allowed, line 2 goes out as 12 accepted and 4 backordered. Without them, 12 are confirmed and the remaining 4 are not shipped on this order. In direct fulfillment the rule is stricter: an acknowledgment has to cover every line of the order, and partial acknowledgments are not accepted. Amazon can take up to 30 minutes to show an acknowledgment as processed.
The shipment confirmation
Amazon receives pallets and cartons by scanning a license plate, the SSCC, and looking up the contents in the shipment confirmation. Its documentation sets these rules:
- The confirmation has to reach Amazon before the goods are received, and "missing or delayed shipment confirmations result in chargebacks".
- For palletized deliveries the confirmation is needed before a delivery appointment can be requested at the fulfillment center.
- One confirmation covers one delivery, from one vendor account, on one truck, to one fulfillment center, arriving on one day. Two trucks or two fulfillment centers need two.
- At most 100 confirmations per truckload or less-than-truckload shipment; Amazon recommends one per shipment.
- Small parcel shipments need a confirmation for every carton.
- The SSCC is 18 digits, unique per pallet or carton, not repeated within 365 days, and printed as a barcode on the label as well as sent in the confirmation.
- The shipment identifier has to be unique for the vendor and not used in the last 365 days; without it the confirmation is rejected.
- Perishable items are sent at item level, with dates as YYYYMMDD; one item in one case or pallet may carry one expiration date or lot only.
The 365-day rule turns into a counter that must not restart. An SSCC is one extension digit, the GS1 company prefix, a serial reference and a check digit. With a 10-digit company prefix the serial reference has 6 digits, so 1,000,000 numbers per extension digit. A warehouse that labels 600 cartons a day uses 219,000 numbers a year and runs through one extension digit in 1,000,000 divided by 600, about 1,667 days. A label printer or WMS that is reinstalled and starts again at 1 repeats numbers well inside 365 days. The SSCC label page explains the structure.
A confirmation can be corrected: a confirmation of type replace overwrites the earlier one when the shipment identifier and the vendor code are identical. A correction sent with a new identifier is a second shipment.
The invoice
Amazon processes a correct invoice without human review and rejects an incorrect one in its payee system, sometimes after the submission itself succeeded, with an email that gives the reason. The checks it lists:
| Check | Example with the order on our 810 page |
|---|---|
| Total equals items plus charges and allowances | 405.00 merchandise, minus 8.10 discount, plus 18.50 freight is 415.40 |
| Total quantity equals the sum of the lines | 24 plus 12 is 36 |
| Line tax adds up to header tax | No tax on this order, so both are 0 |
| Each charge and allowance itemized at header level | Freight and discount as two separate entries |
| Item identifier equals the one on the purchase order | The ID Amazon sent, not your SKU |
| Payment terms equal the agreed terms | Terms from the vendor agreement |
| Invoice number unique and never reused | A corrected invoice gets a new number |
When Amazon cancels an invoice for wrong data, the vendor sends a new invoice with a new invoice ID. An invoice with a total of 0 fails, and an invoice for goods not yet confirmed and shipped is rejected. Before invoices can go through the API, Amazon runs a parallel test in which at least three invoice files are validated against the invoices entered in Vendor Central.
Direct fulfillment
In direct fulfillment the vendor pulls new orders, acknowledges every line within 24 hours, requests the shipping label from Amazon (only after the acknowledgment), ships, sends the shipment confirmation and then the invoice. Inventory goes to Amazon as one feed per warehouse. In a full update every item that is not in the feed is set to an available quantity of zero and gets no new orders; a partial update changes only the items it contains and is typically sent every few hours. An item missing from a full feed is therefore taken offline, which makes which stock counts a rule to set per warehouse. Customer names and addresses in these orders are personal data, which Amazon releases to an application only through a restricted data token after a security review.
What is not on a public Amazon page
Three things a vendor will be asked for come only from Vendor Central: the EDI guides with the segments and qualifiers per transaction set, the carton and pallet label manual, and the chargeback amounts. We print none of them here. The retailer pages for Walmart and Kroger show what a fully public specification looks like.
Handling Amazon orders on the ERP side
Each Amazon purchase order becomes a sales order for the Amazon customer with the ship-to fulfillment center, the PO number and the item identifiers Amazon sent, because the invoice has to return those identifiers. The ERP decides availability within the 24-hour window, the warehouse records which carton or pallet holds which units under which SSCC, and the invoice is built from the confirmed and shipped quantities, never from the order.
We build that part to Amazon's rules and your systems, on EDI or on the API: the order is picked up and acknowledged inside 24 hours with backorders only where the order allows them, the shipment confirmation is assembled from the pack data and checked for one truck and one fulfillment center, SSCCs and shipment identifiers are checked against the last 365 days, and the invoice is balanced before it is sent. A document that fails a check is held and shown in the dashboard with the reason. Tell us how you supply Amazon.
Frequently asked questions
Which EDI documents does Amazon require from vendors?
Amazon's EDI implementation guides are in Vendor Central and need a vendor login, so the exact set and version for your account come from there. The steps they cover are public in Amazon's developer documentation: the purchase order, the acknowledgment, the shipment confirmation (ASN), the invoice, and for collect freight a shipment request with routing instructions. In X12 those steps are carried by the 850, 855, 856 and 810, and by the 753 and 754 for routing.
Can I use the Amazon API instead of EDI?
Yes. Amazon states that a purchase order can be confirmed through the API, EDI or Vendor Central. The Selling Partner API has vendor operations for orders, acknowledgments, shipment requests, shipment confirmations and invoices, and for direct fulfillment a separate set that includes shipping labels and inventory updates. The business rules on this page apply whichever channel carries the document.
How fast does an Amazon purchase order have to be acknowledged?
Within 24 hours. Amazon's documentation says vendors have 24 hours to accept a purchase order and must reject any order that is on hold past that limit. The acknowledgment can confirm a smaller quantity than ordered but never a larger one.
Can I correct a shipment confirmation after sending it?
Yes. A shipment confirmation of type replace overwrites the earlier one when the shipment identifier and the vendor code are identical in both. A new confirmation with a new identifier is not a correction but a second shipment. Amazon can take up to 30 minutes to show the original or replaced version.
Does Amazon publish its chargeback amounts?
Not on a public page. Amazon's developer documentation states that missing or delayed shipment confirmations result in chargebacks, without amounts. The figures sit in Vendor Central, so none are printed here. What other retailers publish is collected under EDI compliance.
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