Why EDI is so important in integrating with Amazon?
The Corono pandemic along with all its backlash to different sectors of economy has brought massive boom to the online shopping due to prevention of physical movement of people on account of mandatory social distancing between them. And the Amazon is leading the online shopping spree with estimations of its earnings to touch $100 billion income in the final quarter of 2020. At present Amazon has around 150 million paying prime members globally with an average spending of $1000 a year.
However, while adding and using the various services provided by Amazon to have the share of the online spree and EDI service provider, it is an imperative service partner to avail various services models offered by Amazon for a seller to sale his good and items using Amazon platform. The three most important partnership models offered by Amazon where EDI is mandatory include:-
Vendor Central, Where Application of EDI is Mandatory
The first important partnership model with Amazon for a seller with the help of an EDI service provider is Vendor Central that includes various manufacturers selling their product and services in bulk to Amazon under a brand name before selling them further to a retail customer. EDI is an imminent and imperative step for a seller singing an Amazon vendor central contact with Amazon.
As efficiency, speed, accuracy and customer satisfaction is at the core of Amazon services and is its USP, therefore, the marketplace insists upon an aspiring seller on Amazon vendor central to be board on Amazon’s EDI streamlined and automated communications so the movement of goods and services from a manufacture’s production unit to Amazon fulfillment and distribution centers to be faster and effective using high confidence ED-powered supply chain. Application of EDI, therefore, lets a seller system to be Amazon EDI compatible for invoices, purchase orders, advance ship notices (ASNs) and other documents through Electronic Data Interchange.
Seller Central-Process Related Delays Results Into Decrease in Sales and Revenue
The second most important business partnership model based at Amazon is seller central. Seller central an Amazon marketplace allows retailer and brands to sell their product and services using the Amazon platform. Though, it is not obligatory for a seller on seller central to use EDI, however, with number of orders growing in volume, it is always advisable for a seller to go for application of EDI in their business process. The EDI enabled business process at Seller Central lets orders and goods to be move, fulfill and ship quickly. EDI enabled business processes let a seller to have a positive customer experience and review. EDI makes the entire business process automated and saves a sellers effort from manually typing all important business data at times expensive, faulty and time consuming. EDI not only process seller central order to be fulfilled but also tracks shipping of a package unless is not reached at a seller’s doorstep, thus improving profitability and revenue for a seller.
Amazon Direct Fulfillment
This is a third type of partnership model into which a seller get into when he sells from Amazon marketplace. Also known as drop ship, this model of shipping gets highly benefited from EDI integration while providing the real-time view of inventory. It enables a seller to have real time inventory access to vendor for his entire catalogue. Under this model Amazon informs a vendor about the product sold to a customer and the vendor subsequently purchases that good and ship it directly to a customer.
What to look into EDI Service Provider when connecting to Amazon?
However, for getting into partnership with Amazon through an EDI service provider, the application of EDI is consisted of robust and secure connection. Only a very few EDI service provider can only fulfill this requirement trough SFTP, ASE and REST API is every different Amazon platform requires varying message types and formats. An EDI service provider should have following qualities.
- The EDI solution should have all the necessary integration on one system. It enables an Amazon order to be processed from EDI platform or an ERP without logging into Amazon.
- The EDI service provider should offer flexibility to automatically share inventory reports in different ways to different trading partners.
- The EDI service provider you are opting for should have Amazon accreditation, otherwise there set-up and system configuration process can be compromised
