Question on Amazon Marketplace

[coca cola]

Could someone explain how this module works - this is what we are experiencing:

1. Does it take the price/quantity from Miva and update Amazon or the other way around. Should our work pattern be to first update Amazon or Miva? Does it work both ways? If updated in Amazon when does it update Miva?
2. When an order is placed in Miva how long does it take to be reflected on Amazon and the other way around.
3. We've noticed some products never automatically update the new quantities changed in Miva leaving the old quantities showing in Amazon
4. If a customer orders 2 of the same item the module imports the total price for both as the price per product. It also has trouble importing the right tax.
5. When you add the tracking number for a package it automatically updates Amazon very quickly (yeah!) but fails to enter the correct shipping method. If UPS ground, it never shows as ground; if USPS priority, it never shows as priority. We have to go into Amazon and manually edit it.

Thanks for a better explanation! The documentation is not clear.

[oliverands]

Re: Question on Amazon Marketplace

Number 5 is interesting. I've never been able to get Miva to update Amazon with tracking numbers. My log always shows an error, so I've been doing this manually in Amazon. Interested to hear a response to the questions above since I have seen the same issues with inventory quantities, etc.

[willough]

Re: Question on Amazon Marketplace

I'll take a pass at this for as many answers as I can.

1. Miva updates Amazon. You connect a product in your Miva store with an item in your Amazon Marketplace. You update your Amazon inventory with your Miva inventory count if and when you wish. I do not believe it is bi-directional.
2. An order placed on Miva is not reflected on Amazon unless you wish to update quantity. An order placed on Amazon is imported when you 'get orders'.
3. You choose when to update inventory. But orders imported from Amazon will draw down your Miva inventory as well as your Amazon inventory.
4. Don't know. Not something we experience.
5. Sending tracking numbers is not a problem. We had a similar error at first sending tracking but it was determined there was a bug in the module version and was resolved in version 1.004. As to the shipping service detail (ground, 2 day, etc) it still does not show that. Customer would have to click the tracking link to see.

[chetv]

Re: Question on Amazon Marketplace

I can confirm #4 from my experience with the interaction between our Miva store and our Amazon store. Documented in MIVA support ticket #VQD-784-97506. No resolution so far, but this situation does not occur often in our store.

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Question on Amazon Marketplace

The bug identified in #4 is set to be fixed in 9.0005 when it's released later this month.

[lesliekirk]

Re: Question on Amazon Marketplace

May I add a question #6? Is there a way to bulk upload to Amazon? The store owner doesn't want to have to add Amazon products one by one by one. He's looking to be able to do it via a feed. (Amazon Marketplace may not even be what he's wanting).

Thanks,
Leslie

[oliverands]

Re: Question on Amazon Marketplace

Leslie, you can load listings and offers to Amazon with an uploader file. It's a really complicated file and the process can be glitchy. It took me many attempts and hours of time on the phone with Amazon to get my products uploaded the first time. But if he's selling items that are already listed on Amazon and he just wants to create offers, it may be easier.

You can find the uploader function in Seller Central under Inventory | Add Products via Upload. If he has all the data in Miva already and can export it into a spreadsheet, it's theoretically just a copy-paste into the right fields of the right uploader file.

Todd

[Kent Multer]

Re: Question on Amazon Marketplace

Some years ago I wrote an Amazon-export module that was used by a couple of clients. It automates the process of creating the product-data file for uploading to Amazon, so you don't need to manually edit the data file every time you add or change products in your store. If you're interested in that, you can drop me a line by email to discuss it in detail.

Thanks --

[oliverands]

I wanted to go back to revisit item 5 on the original list.

I am running the most recent version of Miva. I've determined that (for my store, at least) when importing from Amazon, the order comes in with a shipping method of "Unknown". Orders placed via my Miva site all have a shipping method assigned to them based on the method the customer selected at checkout.

I upload my shipment information to Miva using a flat file which includes all the standard information for Amazon orders that my other orders have (Country, OrderShippingMethod, ShippingCompany, CustomerOrderNumber, TrackingNumber, ShippingCost). But for some reason, the Amazon orders don't get all the information applied. Their status changes from picking to shipped, but none of the tracking data gets stored in Miva.

Then when I try to run the update shipping function on the Amazon Marketplaces page, I get a confirmation message that 0 orders have been updated. My log fills up with hundreds of error messages showing the same text:

Timestamp:	01/26/2016 03:25:08 EST
Account Name:	Oliver + S
Event:	SubmitFeed
Type:	Shipments
Status:	Error
Code:	MER-UTL-MP-AMAZON-00156
Message:	Tracking type 'None' is invalid for Amazon
Request ID:	N/A

Has anyone been able to get Miva to successfully save shipment information imported for Amazon orders and then to push shipment info up to Amazon?

[khansen]

I wanted to go back to revisit item 5 on the original list.

I am running the most recent version of Miva. I've determined that (for my store, at least) when importing from Amazon, the order comes in with a shipping method of "Unknown". Orders placed via my Miva site all have a shipping method assigned to them based on the method the customer selected at checkout.

I upload my shipment information to Miva using a flat file which includes all the standard information for Amazon orders that my other orders have (Country, OrderShippingMethod, ShippingCompany, CustomerOrderNumber, TrackingNumber, ShippingCost). But for some reason, the Amazon orders don't get all the information applied. Their status changes from picking to shipped, but none of the tracking data gets stored in Miva.

Then when I try to run the update shipping function on the Amazon Marketplaces page, I get a confirmation message that 0 orders have been updated. My log fills up with hundreds of error messages showing the same text:

Timestamp:	01/26/2016 03:25:08 EST
Account Name:	Oliver + S
Event:	SubmitFeed
Type:	Shipments
Status:	Error
Code:	MER-UTL-MP-AMAZON-00156
Message:	Tracking type 'None' is invalid for Amazon
Request ID:	N/A

Has anyone been able to get Miva to successfully save shipment information imported for Amazon orders and then to push shipment info up to Amazon?

Hello,

You are getting that error because the track type you are sending to Amazon is not valid. The following track types are allowed.
usps
ups
fedex
dhl
fastway
gls
go
royal mail
parcelforce
city link
tnt
target
sagawaexpress
nipponexpress
yamatotransport
hermes logistik gruppe

It seems you are sending 'None' as a tracktype. The track type is set on the Enter Tracking Information dialog under the Link Dropdown. Set it to a valid track type and it will send the shipping information successfully.

Let me know if this helps.

[oliverands]

Kyle,

It seems to be something upstream in the Miva import shipment information import process. I import a single file with shipment info for both my Miva-generated orders and my Amazon-generated orders. The file includes order number, shipment type (using methods above), tracking number, and cost. All the orders included in the file have their status changed from Picking to Shipped, but only the Miva-generated orders get the shipment type, tracking number, and cost data saved with them. The Amazon orders get their status changed to shipped, but the other data doesn't get saved to the order. And I think that's why nothing gets passed back up to Amazon.

I'll attach a screenshot of one of the Amazon orders after I run the import.

I'm wondering if this is due to the fact that when importing from Amazon, the order comes in with a shipping method of "Unknown" while all orders placed via my Miva site all have a shipping method assigned to them based on the method the customer selected at checkout.