How to Get Started with Amazon Marketplace Web Service (Amazon MWS)

If you feel your research for Amazon reselling takes too long and isn't efficient — using a little IT skill can improve that research dramatically. Looking at the Amazon MWS site, it does seem like all sorts of things could be automated.

Data integration with Amazon Marketplace Web Service (Amazon MWS) enables advanced automation of selling operations, helping sellers grow on Amazon and expand their business. With Amazon MWS, exchanging data such as listings, orders, payments, and reports can be done automatically by program. By using Amazon MWS, sellers can expect improved selling efficiency, reduced operating costs, and better customer service.

This time I'll walk through the steps up to starting to use Amazon MWS.

Preparing a Professional selling account on Amazon

To use MWS you need a Professional selling account on Amazon Seller. Using a Professional account costs ¥4,900 per month (excluding tax). Sellers selling 50 or more items a month get plenty of benefits from a Professional account, so why not switch at this opportunity? For the differences between Individual and Professional, check the Amazon selling service pricing plans.

Getting Amazon MWS keys

Once signed in to Amazon Seller Central, click [Settings] - [User Permissions] at the top right of the screen.

When the "User Permissions" page opens, click the [View app management] button under "Third party developers and apps" toward the bottom of the screen.

On the "App management" page, click the [Authorize new developer] button.

Enter the required details on the screen that opens and click [Next]. ① Developer name: anything is fine. Here I used "Robin." ② Developer ID: the number identifying the developer. A 12-digit number, or enter the 12 digits separated by hyphens in groups of four.

Check the contents, tick the checkbox, and click [Next].

With that, you've obtained the AWS access key ID and secret key needed to use MWS. If these keys fall into someone else's hands it could become a severe security incident, so handle them with great care. You can also check these keys later.

Testing it with Scratchpad

Once you have the keys you need, let's test it with Amazon MWS Scratchpad. This time, let's retrieve the results of a product search for "Coach wallet."
API section: Products
Operation: ListMatchingProducts
SellerId: the "Seller ID" shown on the earlier screen
MWSAuthToken: blank is fine
AWSAccessKeyId: the "AWS access key ID" shown on the earlier screen
Secret Key: the "secret key" shown on the earlier screen
MarketplaceId: "A1VC38T7YXB528", which denotes the Japan marketplace
Query: the search term, "Coach wallet"
QueryContextId: enter this if you want to specify a genre, but blank is usually fine

Click the submit button and the response from MWS appears on the right side of the screen. You should be able to confirm that the response includes information such as the selling price on Amazon, ranking, and ASIN. Opening the "Request details" tab shows the request content sent to MWS. This is useful as a reference during development.

Looking at "What you need to know about the Products API section" in the Amazon MWS documentation shows you what this API can do. Master MWS and you'll be able to handle not just product information but order management, inventory management, and more. Write a program and automated research isn't just a dream. Do give it a try.

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