Amazon sales channel stopped sending shipping info back to Amazon

[Christopher_Cr2]

I have been online with support for about an hour. Thought I would post here to see if anyone else is having this problem. On 7/5 the Amazon sales channel stopped sending shipping / tracking info to Amazon. I currently have 150+ shipped orders processed through shopify that show unshipped in Amazon.

Really hoping I dont have to copy/paste all those tracking numbers over.

Anyone else having this issue?

[omegacanuck]

Yes, having the same issue.  We're actually having a double issue.  Fulfilled items won't transmit fulfillment info to amazon (can be worked around, but annoying) but also, new inventory listings won't publish on Amazon.  

Noticed things getting slow on both fronts last week, now it's completely stopped.  Tried to chat with help support but 'oh gee, noone else is having this problem'. 

[Christopher_Cr2]

I am tempted to disconnect my Amazon sales channel and reconnect but do not know if I will lose all my settings. Have you tried that? 

[omegacanuck]

No, I thought about the same thing, but the idea of having to re-load all my inventory to Amazon again is terrifying.

[Christopher_Cr2]

Spent some time on the phone with Amazon (at least they have phone support unlike Shopify). They are blaming Shopify. Shopify is blaming Amazon.

I would not be surprised to eventually learn this is Amazons way of making us buy shipping through Amazon. They probably realized they were losing on shipping. Amazon and SHopify make about 100% profit on every label we purchase. If you ship USPS and cab get your hands on a USPS internal tracking detail it shows what was actually paid for the label.  I had a lost shipment and went to my post office. They printed up the detail internal tracking and I walked off with it much to their objections 🙂

[omegacanuck]

Don't think any shipping conspiracy is our issue.  We are in Canada and Amazon Canada does not do shipping labels at all.  Gotta do it yourself.

As far as who's end the problem is on, I'm not surprised the blame game is being played.  However, I would put it more on Shopify.  If Amazon has indeed changed something on their end, Shopify needs to adjust their coding to fix it.  Amazon is the largest retailer on the internet, and while I'm sure they value the merchants who come in from Shopify, the golden rule applies.  Whoever had the gold, makes the rules.  If Amazon has a need to change something, Shopify's job is to adapt or die.

[Christopher_Cr2]

Just a heads up if youre manually entering a lot of tracking numbers,

You can select (check box) orders then click the tab "confirm shipment". Only due as many at a time as you are willing to lose. I had about 30 done and mis-clicked openeing an order and lost all the tracking I had entered. Only doing 10 at a time now.

[Christopher_Cr2]

Anyone know how/ if you can pull a report off Shopify showing Amazon order number and tracking number? 

I m not seeing it as an option for a report. Would def make this easier.

[TimberlineVik]

That was my first thought, did an export, and nope, no tracking info included. Seems like that should be a standard export column! Couldn't find anything in the reports section either. Your method of just doing it while printing labels seems to be the easiest/quickest method so far.

[djakinson77]

At this point I am deep in the weeds of migrating all of my fulfillment and inventory management off of Shopify and onto ShipStation.

I can't run a multi-channel ecommerce business on a platform that I cannot trust, and Shopify has 100% demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to provide a stable cross-channel fulfillment platform. I'm pleased with ShipStation so far, but migration is going to be a lot of work.

I'm sure ShipStation will appreaciate all of the shipping label revenue I'm about to reallocate to them from Shopify.

[TimberlineVik]

Ooof, that's what I was trying to avoid, but it may end up coming to that. Shopify used to have multi-channel nailed and it was one of the features that made it such an appealing platform to base our operation on (we run a small brick and mortar too), but their multi-channel offering has gone the wrong direction the past few years. Too much focus on useless projects like "Shop" that were funded by starting to overcharge for their bread and butter. 

[Dr_Satan]

Best way I've found to get tracking information out of Shopify is an app called Matrixify (formerly Excelify, had to change their name for obvious reasons). I've used that app for a little over a year now to import our marketplace orders from other channels, and to get tracking info out to send ASNs. Got tracking numbers out of Shopify and imported into Amazon for our open orders when the connector broke.

[guyintheback]

here is what i was told today.....feel like a can that got kicked down the road..

Thank you. So it looks like our technical team has been actively looking into this issue, and have deployed an update yesterday. It should begin to update and sync soon, however we are still monitoring this to confirm a full resolution/fix

[kdecosta]

Walmart's dashboard may be the worst design ever but at least their support is quick with replying and are aware of their issues. 😉

Had an order suddenly reappear on my dashboard to be shipped when it was sent days ago AND the Shopify tracking was sent (because now I look all day long!)

"I understand your concern is regarding the order dashboard.  i would like to tell you that this id a known issue and our internal team has worked diligently to resolve the order dashboard issue. We are happy to let you know that they have identified the root cause and are working on a permanent fix. In the meantime, they will be running syncs every few hours to make sure the order dashboard is working correctly. Please make sure you are refreshing your dashboard, so the most current sync is available.

We know that this has been frustrating and again, appreciate how patient and understanding you have been through this time. Please feel free to reach back out with any additional questions or concerns."

[Jason_Co]

Walmart's dashboard may be the worst design ever but at least their support is quick with replying and are aware of their issues.

Let's be real, the support for the Walmart sales channel is the same if not worse. Yes, they do acknowledge issues and respond but nothing is ever resolved.

You basically have:

1. Acknowledge the issue and do nothing about it

or

2. Ignore the issue and do nothing about it

[KnickKnack]

At least it is fixed now and tracking is loading into amazon

[Christopher_Cr2]

Its fixed

Halleluiah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't use them to track inventory since we are the manufacturer. I sincerely hope those of you using it for that are resolved as well. 

Pretty disappointing that I had to learn its fixed through another seller via this discussion and not from SHopify. 

[TimberlineVik]

Yep, ours started flowing back to Amazon yesterday too. Now to just keep working on Amazon seller support to fix my LSR stats...

[kdecosta]

@TimberlineVik Any luck on that? Amazon keeps telling me i need to show them XML files where amazon rejected the data transfer.

[TimberlineVik]

No luck so far. They are saying it was still my responsibility to mark
items as shipped, even if it was a technical issue...

[Christopher_Cr2]

If it shipped on time and you entered the tracking with the correct date it actually shipped I do not understand the problem. Face it, Amazon doesnt give a shit. I paid them deep into 6 figures last year and cant even get a simple answer when I have one. 

If anyone gets suspended over this I have some advice. Take full responsibility. I have been through two Amazon suspensions both times for complete BS. They will make you write an "action plan" of what caused it and how you will keep it from happening again. The first thing they will reject your appeal for is not taking 100% responsibility. Take responsibility and if you have to . lie about how you will keep it from happening again. The first action plan WILL BE REJECTED. The last time I finally told them we had hired someone to specifically review and check for the problem that caused the suspension (we didnt). It literally takes weeks. 

[kdecosta]

Has anyone noticed inventory counts being incorrect on Shopify?  I have found two items today that have been out of stock and today they have quantities on SHopify and that quantity has fed to other marketplaces. I dont know if any other products are effected, I just know these two in particular I saw had quantities and I know I dont have any in stock.  I am wondering if SHopify's fix was to load a prior backup.

[TimberlineVik]

Have you tried looking at the inventory history on the product detail page in Shopify admin? You should be able to see if anything, and if so what, changed the inventory count.

[kdecosta]

So I checked the inventory history and its odd.  It has where I added the qty of 12 on June 16 and the manual change i did yesterday to take the 12 out but it doesn't show the 12 sales that occurred between Jun 24 and Jul 5.  Those are still in the order history.  I'm actually hoping its something I did at least I can fix me.  lol

[TimberlineVik]

I believe the problem is that I marked them as shipped (with the correct actual ship date) after the time they were supposed to have had shipment info entered (once I discovered the problem). So it doesn't matter that they shipped on time, since I didn't let Amazon know that they had shipped in time, I still get dinged. And yes, I agree Christopher_Cr2, they don't care one bit. My support case just keeps getting kicked around from person to person in India, with cut and paste responses. If it's truly just a "warning" like they are stating, then fine, but I'm always overly cautious of how it might affect the buy box rate.

[Christopher_Cr2]

I got lucky. I had a customer contact me asking to cancel an order. I messaged him back stating it had shipped and he said it showed it had not. Thats how I discovered the problem and it was only a couple days in. 

Does anyone know if there were actual Amazon suspensions because of this? 

[JoesIdeas]

This is common, it's temporary (annoying, but temporary). Occasionally Amazon fails to send the tracking info back to Shopify. I notice it probably 3-4 times per year.

The solution we developed (within our app Order Automator) is to monitor orders daily and if there are unfulfilled orders older than X days, staff gets notified by email so they can check it out and grab the tracking from Amazon to update the order manually.

As for an automated way to have Amazon send the fulfillment information back to Shopify, I believe you'd need some functionality on the Amazon seller central side to handle that (assuming that your order's line item status is set to open / pending). So far our best solution for this is to create an SOP for your support staff / store manager to grab tracking from Amazon and enter into Shopify.

You can try contacting Amazon support to investigate the server logs on their side to see if the request was sent and why it didn't complete. They may just take the easy route and blame Shopify but you might also get a helpful support agent. With Amazon seller central it really depends on the support agent that answers your case, whether they want to dive deep or not.

[omegacanuck]

Our problem is more the other direction.  We fulfill in Shopify, and then Shopify will not update to Amazon.  Same with inventory.  We list through the Amazon channel on Shopify, and it goes to Amazon.......except it isn't.

[JoesIdeas]

@omegacanuck ahhh I see. I've had a lot of problems with the Amazon Sales Channel in the past, it's always been buggy so I don't use it.

Instead I do:

- Use Shopify's Amazon Fulfillment Service instead, to handle fulfillment. Resources: Shopify's documentation here, and a guide I wrote here about setting it up / integrating it with automatic fulfillment for Shopify.

- Upload / update products in Amazon via spreadsheet. Resource about this from Amazon here.

Using the amazon fulfillment service instead of the amazon sales channel I don't recall every having any problems (other than Amazon occasionally failing to send the tracking back)

[Christopher_Cr2]

I have prob processed 40k orders in the last 24 months using the Amazon sales channel through Shopify and never once had an issue. 

The orders are still importing from Amazon into Shopify but once fullfilled, the shipping information is not being sent back to Amazon.

Yes I realize I can do it manually but its a very time consuming process. 

While I am at it, the new changes to Shopifys shipping page are absolute garbage. 

[JeanniePence]

Since the Shopify Amazon Sales Channel is going away, which app will you use?

[gidgetgadget]

I haven't been paying attention... is it really going away?

I signed up with Shopify and picked this tier service solely because they said it supported 3rd party selling.  Blergh.

[Christopher_Cr2]

It appears to be fixed now but it took quite awhile and Shopify never acknowledges there was a problem or notified us when it was fixed.

[TimberlineVik]

I received a notification that it will no longer be supported as of Sept. 27. Not sure yet if that means it will stop functioning on that day or if they will just stop making updates to it and if Amazon changes something and breaks it that will be the end of it. 

[gidgetgadget]

I didn't get that message.  Where did they send it to?  Are you in the US or a different country?

[OniRetail]

Shopify will no longer support the existing Amazon sales channel as of September 20, 2021. After this date, you must use new partner apps to integrate your store with Amazon.

To continue managing Amazon directly from Shopify, our partners have developed new integrations that will continue to reliably import and fulfill Amazon orders in Shopify. With these new apps, you’ll be able to:

• Sync all order information within Shopify in real-time, including orders fulfilled on Amazon
• Create listings and offers in all available Amazon categories
• Edit published products and offers individually and in bulk within Shopify

[OniRetail]

Mind you, the two apps on offer are not cheap.  I am looking at needing to spend extra $600-$800 a year on something that was previously free.  And there is no guarantee these apps will work seamlessly.  Based on their reviews, they don't really work as well as the current solution that comes with the regular Shopify subscription.

[TimberlineVik]

Yeah, Shopify continues to erode their value by taking away/charging for features. Here's hoping their product team sees this. They had a solid competitive edge on all the other platform alternatives, that edge is waning.

[hender45]

I'm pretty sure Amazon manages the Amazon Sales Channel, so what isn't
being said is Amazon is done helping Shopify because of competition.
Shopify has no other choice but to throw us a couple of app options.
Investors in Shopify have no clue about this and how much damage it will do
to Shopify's value.

[Don9]

I could be wrong, but I'm guessing the soon-to-be-retired Shopify Amazon app was built on the old Amazon MWS platform.

Amazon is now pushing developers to a more modern REST-based API. It's good to (finally!) see a new API from Amazon.

However, the entire Shopify/Amazon app would need to be rewritten to use the new API.

Shopify seems to have made a business decision that this work wasn't worth the investment. Perhaps they will reconsider.

[TimberlineVik]

Has anyone migrated to a new solution yet? The clock is quickly ticking and so far I don’t like my alternative options. 

[kdecosta]

I tried both options and I wasn't too happy with them.  I have been using Sellbright for Shopify for about two weeks now.  I like this one.  I sell ebay, walmart, amazon and shopify and Sellbright can do all 4.  Since I had to pay for amazon now anyway, i looked at something that could help with Walmart too which is a huge pain to work with.

[TimberlineVik]

That's useful information, thank you @kdecosta. I'll give it a look.

[Don9]

Haven't migrated yet, but a Shopify support agent recommended this one to meet our needs at a very reasonable cost:

https://apps.shopify.com/amazon-3

We're only looking for order syncing, so the extra features (listings, etc.) of the other apps are overkill. If you need more functionality, the other apps may be better.

[Christopher_Cr2]

I responded to this and it disappeared.

I am using the "Amazon Integration Plus" app and the transition was pretty straight forward. I only use it for the most basic feature of importing my Amazon orders into SHopify so I can create all my labels in one place. I do not even have my amazon listing linked to Shopify listings. They just come in as "generic" order from Amazon with the product description etc. Works great.

I do 500-2000 imported orders a month depending on the time of year. The app being recommended by SHopify would cost me $100 month and this one is $20. Definitely worth a look.

When you make the switch, disconnect your Amazon sales channel in Shopify. Fulfill any open order from Amazon (create your labels), then set up the app.  If you dont, you will end up with duplicate amazon orders and could potentially ship twice if you didnt catch it. Ask me how I know (I caught it though).

I did it late at night expecting a train wreck and it was pretty straight forward. 

[TimberlineVik]

Thanks for the reply @Christopher_Cr2 and @Don9. I've actually used that app in the past when I was trying to get my FBA orders into Shopify too, just so I had a global reporting view of sales across all channels. Even though it wasn't really designed to do it, with some finagling, it actually ended up working. The developer was responsive and the app was stable. Your suggestions are a good reminder to take a look again at that one as well for this situation.

[Christopher_Cr2]

Amazon Integration plus has been a real problem. The app is down constantly. 

[Christopher_Cr2]

Don( thats the same app I am using. Happy so far. 

[john2131]

Yes, I am experiencing the same issue. Basically, we're dealing with two problems at once. Amazon will not receive fulfillment information about fulfilled items (it can be worked around, but has to be done manually) but they will also not publish new inventory listings.

Last week, things started getting slower on both sides, now they have stopped. Help support did not have a similar problem, so I tried chatting with them.

[rlmauton]

We are having the same problem, also starting on July 5th.  Inventory sync seems to be affected too.  I'm hoping we don't have to relink our 250+ listings.