Zoho Inventory - Amazon UK Integration

Watch this video for in-depth understanding of the integration.

Setup

1. Generate your account identifiers

1. Go to sellercentral.amazon.com
2. Log into your Amazon Seller Central account.
3. Go to the Appstore menu and click Manage Your Apps.
4. Click the Authorize new developer button.  
5. Enter ‘Zoho Inventory’ for Developer Name, and ‘556617177700’ for Developer ID.
6. Click Next to proceed to the license agreement page.
7. Accept the Amazon MWS License Agreements and click Next.

Your account identifiers (Seller ID and MWSAuthtoken ID) will be generated. Note them down as they’re essential to establish the integration between Zoho Inventory and Amazon UK.

2. Integrate with Amazon UK

Prerequisite:

• The base currency in Zoho Inventory and your Amazon UK marketplace must be the same.
• Enable VAT in Zoho Inventory. To do so, go to Settings, then VAT.

To integrate Zoho Inventory with Amazon UK:

1. Log in to your Zoho Inventory organisation.
2. Go to Settings, Integrations, then Marketplaces.
3. Click the Set Up Now button under amazon.co.uk.
4. Enter your account identifiers (Seller ID and MWSAuthtoken ID).
5. Click the Connect button to proceed.

After a brief authentication, your amazon account will be successfully integrated with Zoho Inventory. You can start tracking inventory for every sale you make in Amazon UK.

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How it works

Your data will be synced in 15 mins from successful authentication. After that, an automated sync takes place every four hours.

Items

• If a sales channel item matches an item in Zoho Inventory in terms of SKU or item name, they’re linked automatically.
• If a sales channel item does not match any item in Zoho Inventory, it’s categorised as an Unconfirmed Item. You can link it to an existing item or add them as a new item. Learn more about managing sales channel items.
• Item groups from amazon with more than three attributes will not be synced, as Zoho Inventory only supports up to three attributes.

Sales Orders & Customers

• When a customer places an order for your item on amazon, a sales order is generated automatically in Zoho Inventory as well.
• All guest customers who place an order through your amazon store will be recorded as Customers in Zoho Inventory.
• A marketplace customer is mapped to an existing customer in Zoho Inventory by matching their email address. If email address is not available, they are matched based on customer name.
• VAT Treatment for the customer will be set based on the taxing region provided by amazon in every tax applied order. The following are the applicable VAT treatments:
  • Taxing Region is UK: United Kingdom VAT
  • Taxing Region is among the EU countries and VAT Registration Numer is present: EU - VAT Registered
  • Taxing Region is among the EU countries and VAT Registration Numer is NOT present: EU - Non VAT Registered
  • Taxing Region is NOT one among EU countries: Non - European Union

Stock

• When stock syncing is active, stock update gets triggered whenever the stock level of the marketplace item changes in Zoho Inventory.
• If you have disabled automatic sync, then the stock will no longer be updated to your marketplace.

Shipments

• When shipments are created for your amazon orders in Zoho Inventory, the shipping ​information gets updated to your amazon account automatically.

Payments

• The payment status of an inbound order from amazon can be found as a comment under the sales order.
• As amazon supports only paid orders, the payment status would be indicated as Paid.

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Fulfilment by Amazon

Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) facilitates sellers to rent Amazon’s storage space to keep their goods, while also fulfiling online orders and handling customer services.

How FBA works

1. The seller ships his goods to Amazon’s storage facility where they sort and store the products.
2. When a customer orders an item, Amazon picks and packs it from their nearest warehouse.
3. They ship the packages and share the tracking information with the seller.
4. Post delivery, Amazon handles customer feedbacks and services.
5. On a biweekly basis, Amazon deposits the seller’s share of profit in their bank account after deduction.

Advantages of using FBA:

• Access to unlimited storage space.
• Your products will be showcased to Prime customers.
• You only have to pay the holding cost and shipping fees.

Setting up FBA in Zoho Inventory

In Zoho Inventory, you can designate a warehouse to track your FBA goods and orders.

To designate an FBA warehouse:

1. Go to Settings, then Integrations.

2. Open Marketplaces.

3. If you’ve already integrated with Amazon, click Set FBA Warehouse. Otherwise, you can set up FBA during integration.

   

4. In the pop-up, select the warehouse and click Confirm.

   

Marking FBA Items

Products that are handled by Amazon can be marked as FBA items in Zoho Inventory. Also, ensure that you have actively listed them on Amazon.

To mark FBA item:

1. Go to the Items module on the left sidebar.

2. Select the items you want to mark as as FBA.

3. Click on the Bulk Actions button at the top.

4. Select Mark as FBA Item option from the drop-down.

   

Alternatively,

1. Go to the Items module on the left sidebar.
2. Open the item you want to mark as as FBA.
3. Click on More and select Mark as FBA Item from the drop-down.

If you no longer want the item to be FBA tracked, follow the steps above and select Mark as MFN item from the drop-down.

Link FBA and MFN items

Some sellers project one item as several items on amazon(Amazon fulfilled and seller fulfilled). If you are one of those sellers, then you can link multiple FBA and MFN items to a single Zoho Inventory item. This not only helps maintain a master stock for multiple online items but also allows you to dispatch shipment from the nearest warehouse while cutting down on the FBA processing charges.

To link an FBA/MFN item to a Zoho Inventory item:

1. Go to the Zoho Inventory Dashboard.
2. Under the Product Details section click on Unconfirmed Items.
3. Click on an amazon item to view its details.
4. Click the Link to existing item button in the item details page.
5. Select an item in Zoho Inventory to which you want to link this sales channel item.
6. Click Merge.

Stock Sync

When you mark an item as FBA, its current stock in Amazon gets fetched into Zoho Inventory. If there is a mismatch, you can record the difference as an adjustment.

To view the FBA stock for an item,

1. Go to Items in the left sidebar

2. Click on the FBA item to view its details.

3. Go to the Associated Sales Channels section.

4. Click the sync icon next to Stock Details to fetch the current stock from Amazon. If there is a difference in stock between the two platforms, it’s indicated as Mismatch.

5. Click on Mismatch to drill-down the details.

6. Click Adjust Stock to update the stock difference in your FBA warehouse.

   

Inbound Shipment

An Inbound Shipment is Amazon’s term for sending your items from your warehouse to an Amazon Fulfillment Center, where it will be stored and delivered to your customer by Amazon.

Learn More

FBA Orders

When a customer places an order for an FBA item on Amazon, it gets recorded as a force-fulfilled order in Zoho Inventory. You will not be able to edit the order or change its shipping status, since it is shipped and tracked by Amazon.

Outbound Shipment

If you sell an FBA item offline or on other marketplaces, you must create an outbound shipment for that item.

To create an outbound shipment:

1. Log in to your Zoho Inventory organisation.
2. Open the sales order with the FBA item.
3. Click Create, then click Outbound Shipment from the drop-down.
4. A fulfilment request is sent to Amazon for the FBA items in the order.
5. Amazon picks, packs and ships the consignments and updates the shipping status in Zoho Inventory. You can also fetch the status manually.

The non-FBA items in the order must be shipped separately by you.

Change FBA Warehouse

To change your FBA warehouse in Zoho Inventory:

• Go to Integrations, then Marketplaces.

• Click the Show Details option under Amazon.

• Scroll down to the Stock Syncing section.

• Click Change and select the new warehouse under which you want to track your FBA goods and orders.

  

Disable FBA

To disable FBA in Zoho Inventory:

1. Go to Integrations in the left sidebar, then Marketplaces.

2. Under Amazon, click Disable FBA

   

You will no longer be able to track your FBA items or create outbound shipments in Zoho Inventory.

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Warehouse Mapping

After setting up the integration, orders from Amazon UK are tracked in the primary warehouse and stock updates take place in the organisation level. You can designate a warehouse specifically to track orders and update stock to this sales channel.

Prerequisite: Make sure to enable the Multi-warehouse feature in Zoho Inventory before proceeding.

To map a warehouse:

1. Log in to Zoho Inventory.

2. Go to Settings, Integrations, then Marketplaces.

3. Under amazon.co.uk, and click the Show Details button next to your store name.

4. Go to Modules in Sync.

5. Click the Enable button under Choose a warehouse to track your orders and stock updates from Amazon UK text.

   

6. In the following pop-up, choose a warehouse to associate with your Amazon UK marketplace.

   

7. Click Save.

All stock updates and orders received henceforth from this sales channel will be tracked under this warehouse.

• To change your warehouse selection, click on the pencil icon near the warehouse name and select another warehouse.
• To disable warehouse mapping for this sales channel, click Disable. On doing so, your orders from this sales channel will go back to being tracked in the primary warehouse, and the stock available on the organisation level will be updated to the marketplace.

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Sync Preferences

To modify your sync preferences for this marketplace integration:

1. Go to Settings, Integrations, then Marketplaces.

2. Click the Show Details button under amazon.co.uk.

   

Sync Cycle

• By default, automated sync is set to take place between Zoho Inventory and the sales channel every four hours.

• To modify the sync cycle, click Change and choose a preferred sync interval from the drop-down.

  

Sync History

The sync history page logs every sync that takes place between Zoho Inventory and the sales channel. The details include, date and time of sync, sync type, and number of records synced. To view the complete sync history of a sales channel:

1. Click the Overall Sync History option near the Modules in Sync section.

   

2. Click on the records to view the details of items or orders that were fetched in the particular sync.

3. Click the Resync button against a task to re-initiate a sync for it. All items and orders that were synced or failed to sync first time will be fetched again from the marketplace.

   

Manual Sync - Items & Orders

• You can initiate an instant sync between Zoho Inventory and the sales channel at any time by clicking the Sync Manually button for Items and Orders. Be aware that initiating a sync in one channel will trigger a sync in other sales channels as well.

• The arrow indicates the direction of sync. Items and orders are fetched into Zoho Inventory from the sales channel, and stock update is pushed to the sales channel from Zoho Inventory.

  

• To set your order sync preferences, click the pencil icon near Orders to be synced and select your sync preferences from the drop-down. You can choose to fetch either Confirmed orders or Confirmed and Fulfilled orders from your sales channel.

  

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Disable integration

If you no longer want to fetch items and orders from Amazon UK, you can disable the integration. To do so:

1. Navigate to Settings, Integrations, then Marketplaces.

2. Click on the Show Details button under amazon.co.uk.

3. Click the Disable Integration button at the top-right corner.

   

4. Confirm your action.

Note:

• On disabling the integration, your Amazon integration will be moved to the Inactive state.
• To reactivate the integration, follow step 1 and 2, and click Enable Integration on the top-right corner.

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Data Protection

Amazon’s Data Protection Policy dictates strict standards to protect sensitive information from known or reasonably anticipated threats or hazards to its security and integrity, accidental loss, alteration, disclosure, and all other unlawful forms of processing. We at Zoho Inventory have implemented the following changes to protect customer data:

• Orders synced from Amazon will be associated with a default customer name (Amazon UK - Customer). The actual customer information obtained from Amazon will be concealed at application sections where contact information is displayed and revealed only on demand.

• The PII (Personally Identifiable Information) of customers will be deleted 30 days post fulfilment. This applies to void orders as well.

• When an unfulfilled order is fulfilled again, the PII expiration time will be reset as per the new date of fulfillment.
• Cases where PII sharing has been restricted:
  • While cloning customers or sales orders synced from Amazon, PII will not be carried forward.
  • Export files, Sales Order PDFs and existing GET APIs of sales order, package and shipments will not contain PII. However, contact information will be displayed on PDFs of package slips and shipment slips for fulfillment purposes.
  • PII will not be shared with integrated applications except shipping carriers for shipment creation purposes.
• The above changes take effect only on the orders synced post implementation of the new security standards. Existing orders will remain unaffected.