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Amazon upload only
works in versions 3.6 or later.
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To change settings on
the Amazon tab in BookTrakker for Amazon.ca and Amazon.co.uk go Here, then return to this page for upload
instructions.
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1. Set up new Amazon service
REQUIRES AMAZON EMAIL ADDRESS
2. Amazon Upload File Formats
3. Set Amazon Field Mapping
4. Set upload options
5. Uploading to Amazon
6. Upload failure
7. Checking your upload status
8. Purge/Replace
9. Minimum and Maximum Pricing
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Setting up a new service for Amazon using
the Online Service Wizard.
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Click the Online button at the top of your
screen:
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Click
the New Service button at the bottom left of your screen:
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The
Online Service Wizard form will appear. You want to click the
dropdown
button on the upper right for the new service:
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Notice
there are three choices for Amazon.
1.
Amazon CA is Amazon.ca Canada Marketplace
2. Amazon UK is Amazon.co.uk UK Marketplace
3. Amazon US is Amazon.com United States Marketplace
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Place
your cursor over the Amazon selection:
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Left
Click once. You should get:
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This method applies for
whatever Amazon selection you choose to use, or
even if you setup multiple Amazon accounts.
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Amazon
uses a fixed URL that cannot be changed by the user, thus the field
for this, which is visible for the other services, disappears when Amazon
is
selected. Click the Next button, lower right corner:
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Click Finish to setup the
Amazon Service.
After
you click the Finish button you will see Amazon appear in the
Online Services table below:
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To
set Amazon as an Active service, place your cursor over the check box in
the
Active column, and left click once to activate the service.
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AMAZON MWS REGISTRATION: IMPORTANT!
After setting up your Amazon service (s) for upload you close
BookTrakker and register each Amazon service with Amazon MWS:
Double click the App Manager icon on your desktop to open it. It will
load in the lower right corner of your taskbar, with a message asking you
to click it to open. Do so.
App Manager opens. At the lower left is the Amazon MWS Seller Account
Registration button. To the right is another button leading to online
help for this if necessary. Click the Amazon MWS Seller Account
Registration button. The AmazonMWS form
appears. The selection defaults to Amazon US, if this is where you list
click the Register with Amazon button at the bottom. Otherwise select a
different Amazon and click the Register with Amazon button. (If you sell
on multiple Amazon sites you have to do this for each service.)
The Sign in page opens up, fill in your
Amazon email and password and click the Sign In button. The Amazon
license page will open. Both check boxes on the left side need to be
checked to go onto the next step. Reading the license/page is optional.
Check the boxes, click Next.
A new page opens explaining that BookTrakker can now access Amazon.
A success message pops up confirming this. Click the OK on the message,
close the page and close the AmazonMWS form.
(If you have more than one Amazon service then select
it and click the Register with Amazon button at the bottom and repeat the
registration.)
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Amazon File Formats (Templates)
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During
ordinary operation BookTrakker uploads to Amazon using up to four upload
file formats found in the C:\BTPro\Transfer folder:
Inventory Loader: For all product lines, a tab-delimited file
type for loading inventory to match to existing product pages in the
Amazon.com catalog.
AmazonUpload_1.txt
is the name of the Inventory Loader file. CA or UK added to the name for
Amazon.ca or Amazon.co.uk.
If you have an ASIN or ISBN
then BookTrakker uploads that plus the Condition set on the Amazon tab,
subject if selected, your shipping choices, your Rec# (SKU) and whatever
you set for the Comments on Amazon via Amazon Field Mapping. (see below)
CAVEAT: Your
upload record MUST match the product detail page for the ASIN or ISBN you
are using. Amazon buyers are NOT required to read Seller's Comments, so
if you list something that is different from the product detail page you
may have to accept a return and issue a refund, and possibly suffer bad
feedback as well. To avoid this happening to you search Amazon for the
correct ASIN or ISBN, then use that in BookTrakker in the ASIN or ISBN
field during New Record data entry.
Book Loader: For
booksellers who want to create product detail pages in bulk or who don't
have ISBNs in their inventory records and want to take advantage of
Amazon's automatic title matching feature. The Book Loader File also
allows sellers to upload special listing attributes and offer-specific
images for Collectible books. Book Loader instructions
for BookTrakker.
AmazonUploadBL_1.txt is the name of the Book
Loader file. CA or UK added to the name for Amazon.ca or Amazon.co.uk.
No ASIN or ISBN uploads the
same data as above plus Author, Title, Publisher, Cover and Date. Edition
and Illustrator are optional. See Book Loader instructions.
BookTrakker can also upload in
Book Loader format a record that has an ISBN not found on Amazon to
create a new product detail page the that ISBN. See Book Loader instructions.
Listing Loader: For uploading
images for New or Used if Image URL is selected in UploadIt on the Online
page. Listing Loader allows for up to six images as long as a
full URL is in the ImgURL field on the Optional
tab in BookTrakker and the record has an ASIN or ISBN..
You do not need to create additional image URL's for Amazon. Images must
be uploaded to your hosting site prior to the Amazon upload.
AmazonUploadLL_1.txt is the name of the Book
Loader file. CA or UK added to the name for Amazon.ca or Amazon.co.uk.
In normal operation BookTrakker will upload to Amazon first using
Inventory Loader for ASIN or ISBN records, followed by Book Loader when
and ASIN or ISBN is not present, followed by Listing Loader if Image URL
is checked in UploadIt.
After a successful upload of all three files the success message
for Amazon might look like this:
Inventory Loader: 4 Records Uploaded-> 3 New 1 Modified ; BookLoader: 11 Records Uploaded-> 8 New 3 Modified
; Listing Loader for Amazon Images: 3 Records Uploaded-> 2 New 1
Modified
There is a fourth file that
is only used when GrabIt is used for repricing Amazon records:
Price & Quantity: A file that can be used to modify the price
or quantity of existing inventory quickly by supplying only SKU, price
and/or quantity fields. The Price & Quantity file is not used for
creating new listings.
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Amazon Field Mapping
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Next,
you need to set up the Export Field Mapping for Marketplace.
Default
Mapping is supplied with 3.7. Click the Inventory button at the top of
your
screen:
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Click
on File at the upper left, then Export, followed by Amazon Field Mapping:
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To
get this:
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This
dialog box allows the user to set up Field Mapping to map various
Inventory
Fields into the Amazon Item Note Field (Seller's Comments) in the
Amazon
upload file, AmazonUpload_1.txt. (AmazonUploadCA_1.txt for Canada
and
AmazonUploadUK_1.txt for the UK)
If you use the Item-Note field on the Amazon tab for this purpose then
BookTrakker
ignores the Amazon field Mapping and gets the Item-Note content
(Seller's Comments) for the upload file from the Item-Note field on the
Amazon tab.
Most users who have imported from either an Amazon Open Listings Report
or Seller
Engine will start out using the default Item-Note field on the Amazon
tab, you only
need the Amazon Field Mapping if you use the other fields in BookTrakker,
and do
not update the Item-Note field on the Amazon tab for new listings. This
is NOT
automatic on manual data entry.
A variety of fields may be mapped for concatenation into the Amazon
Item-Note field
in the Amazon upload file by clicking on the dropdown arrow at the right
of the column
in the grid. You can also use the up and down arrows to move a
selected field to a different
location
in the list.
To delete a field from the mapping simply click on the gray square on the
left of the
row to be deleted and press the 'Delete' key on the keyboard.
The Field Separator provides a Text Box to indicate what character should
be inserted between fields.
The
Amazon Item-Note button will create a Catalog definition in Catalogs
named Amazon Item-Note
that will replace the List View
Template in Tools > Options > Records that defines what you see in
the
large field at the bottom of List View.
Clicking the Amazon Item-Note button will enable an Amazon
seller to see a close approximation of what
their Seller’s Condition Description will look like on Amazon,
in the large field at the bottom of List View,
when in Browse Details mode.
IMPORTANT: Book/DJ
must be present if you want either one, Book followed by DJ. (Book/DJ are
stored
in the main inventory table as numbers) If Book = VG and DJ = G then they
will display in comments on
Amazon as Very Good in Good dust jacket. If only one of the term is present in Amazon mapping then
only the number in the inventory table is displayed. So if DJ = none than
-1 is what the buyer sees.
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To set your Field Order for Marketplace
listings do the following:
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Select
the first field you want to add into the Item-Note field in the upload
file,
followed by the next, and the next, and so on. An example of a finished
field
mapping is:
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If you want to change the order of the fields
themselves you select the field you
want to move by clicking into is, then click the up or down arrow until
you have the
field where you want it. If you
want to delete a field name then select the field by
clicking the gray square to the left of the filed so the row is
highlighted.
Then press the Delete key on your keyboard, then
click the Yes button.
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NOTE: Amazon increased the Comments to 2000
characters, which for most users
probably means you can use any or all of the larger description fields,
as well as
additional fields. A suggested order might be: Place, Publisher, Date,
Edition,
Printing, Size, Cover, Type, Book, DJ, Defects, Features.
As long as the combination
does not exceed 2000 characters then all of the information will be
included in
Comments on Marketplace.
The purpose of Amazon Field Mapping for Marketplace is to provide the
buyer with a description of the book you are listing. So you want to
restrict what you put in here to descriptive fields ONLY. You do not need
Author, Title, Subtitle, Status, ISBN or Price. Amazon supplies the first
five, and Price is uploaded separately.
If you want to use Item-Note instead, you can. You
want to confine your selection to
that which will fit into 1000 characters and include what you consider
most important
from the viewpoint of a potential buyer. Condition should be included,
but NOT from the Amazon Condition field on the Amazon tab, this is
uploaded separately by BookTrakker.
Amazon will clip off from the end of this field any characters exceeding
their 2000
character limit for Marketplace. You have to decide what field is least
important to
you and make that the last field. Keep in mind that you are limited to
2000
characters; so do not add in all of the available fields, since most will
not be utilized
by Amazon.
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Amazon Defaults in Options
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Click
on Tools > Options:
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To
bring up the Options form:
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Options
are where you set many of the defaults for operations in
BookTrakker.
Click on the Amazon button in the middle to bring up the Amazon Settings
form.
At the
top is the Amazon Price Selection group. There are
three choices, one each
for each Amazon service. Click the dropdown
button to select
which price field to upload to each Amazon service. (If you only upload
to one
then select for that one only. If you upload to more than one then you
can
select a different price field for the second or third choice, which
allows you to
use a different price because of currency differences or postage
remuneration.
We set the Retail field for default, since most users will use the Retail
price for
Amazon listings, either by design or because this is the field used
when
importing from an Active Listings Report.
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Click
the Close button at the bottom, then click OK at the bottom of the main
Options
form, then Yes to close BookTrakker. Restart
BookTrakker.
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Uploading Your Book Records
to Amazon
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What
should happen with a successful upload to Amazon and/or other services:
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1.
Click Online button
2. Click Process and Upload Records button.
3. Loading Amazon Upload Engine box appears.
4. Exporting Amazon Records box appears, Amazon Upload file(s) are
created.
5. Uploading to Amazon box appears, upload goes
through.
6. Export form appears, yellow bar moves across bottom of form.
7. Process ends, unless you have other active services, in which case:
8. BookTrakker connects to each service, uploads the file for that
service,
verifies success, and moves on to the next service.
9. When the upload is done BookTrakker takes you to the Export Log screen
so you can check the success of your uploads.
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1.
Click on the Online button at the top of your screen:
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2.
Over on the right, center, you will see a large, turquoise green button:
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Below
this button is a list of Upload Options
followed by check boxes. For your
first upload using the OneClick
upload system you should place a check in
the top option, All Online Inventory, then click the Process and Upload
Records
button. (This presumes that you have your Amazon services set up and
checked
as Active in the table below and to the left)
You may want to also check the Purge/Replace Amazon check box, as your
records
out of BookTrakker may have different record numbers then what you have
on
Amazon, and may also be in a different format.
Both of these choices are done just once, in the future you need on click
the
Process and Upload Records button without checking any of the boxes,
BookTrakker
will "know" which records to upload.
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3.
After you click the Process and Upload Records button the Loading
Amazon
Upload Engine file box will appear, followed by another box indicating
that
BookTrakker is exporting your records to the Amazon upload file:
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4.
Followed by:
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This
usually takes a lot less time than creating the upload file; there is
less work
to do. But sometimes it seems like it is going to take forever,
especially if you
already did an upload and want to follow with another. Uploading directly
to Amazon
using HTTP has limitations:
1. Bandwidth - sometimes a lot of booksellers are all uploading at the
same time,
so your upload may not get through.
2. Repeating or doing another upload on the heels of the first upload -
Amazon
does not seem to like this.
3. Internet errors between BookTrakker and Amazon.
With experience gained through uploading to Amazon you will get a pretty
clear
idea of how long any given upload should take, and if it seems like it
isn't working,
then it probably isn't.
If you think the upload is not going to go through then click the Cancel
Upload button:
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Like so:
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And
the upload process to Amazon will be aborted. It probably would not have
worked anyway, this saves you time waiting and
waiting. You will have to test this by trial and
error, all systems are different, and uploads depend not only on what
processor and
memory you have but connection speed as well.
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5.
After you either allow an upload to finish or you cancel, the Exporting
Records form appears:
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This
is the actual process that clears out your database of records to be
uploaded during
this upload session. The Amazon file has already been created.
After this form goes away BookTrakker will proceed to upload to any other
services you list on, one after the other, until you get a completion
message in the middle window on the Online page:
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If
your upload was successful you can verify this by clicking on the Export
Log tab along the left side of your screen:
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The first line says you started the Amazon
upload process, followed by confirmation of the Amazon upload. Then
BookTrakker began the upload process for other services you might be
listing on, in this case ABE. Placing
your cursor over the message across from Amazon Upload Processed and
waiting a few seconds brings up a tool tip explaining what was in the
Amazon upload file(s). In the example the first file that went to Amazon
was the Inventory Loader, being ASIN/ISBN records without bibliographical
information. The second file was the Book Loader file, with or without
ASIN's or ISBN's, but including full bibliographical data for matching or
new product detail page creation. (You must have CheckIt
installed for the second upload file to work.)
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Amazon Upload Failure
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If
the Amazon upload failed then select the Amazon service:
Then click the Reupload File to
Selected Service button above. The Loading Amazon Upload Engine will
reappear, followed by Uploading to Amazon. Keep in mind that under normal
upload circumstances there may be one to three upload upload
files: AmazonUpload_1.txt, AmazonUploadBL_1.txt and AmazonUploadLL_t.txt.
(Add CA or UK to the name for CA or UK files) You need to upload all that
you find. After doing the first file you can click in the field where is
says AmazonUpload_1.txt, click the dropdown button to the right, then
select AmazonUploadBL_1.txt and Reupload that
file as well. Repeat for AmazonUploadLL_t.txt if you uploaded image URL's
in your last upload.
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Verifying Your Amazon Upload Results
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If
your upload to Amazon through BookTrakker was successful, then you need
to connect to your Amazon account to confirm your upload success, or
click on the Browser button in BookTrakker:
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Then
click on the a to bring up the Amazon upload page, after you login. This
may take a few moments, but once you do get to the Amazon Upload Results
page you click View Processing Report for more information about your
upload.
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You can also get to this page via the Go to
Upload Processing Page on Amazon button in CheckIt.
Click Online in BookTrakker, then select CheckIt from the Plugins dropdown list.
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To find out what the Amazon Error messages
mean, please go here.
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Amazon Purge/Replace using BookTrakker.
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Check Purge Amazon and All
Online Inventory on the Online page in BookTrakker, select Amazon in your
list of services, then click Process/Upload to
Selected Service. This is the brute force Purge/Replace method, it rarely
works well.
If you are going to
do a Purge/Replace on Amazon then you should make sure ALL records have
an ASIN or ISBN, otherwise you run the risk of creating new records on
Amazon that do not match what you have in BookTrakker.
This is for Pro or Network users only: Run CheckIt to download and process ASIN's and ISBN's
into BookTrakker.
Since the usual
Purge/Replace often fails on Amazon you may need to do it by doing the
Purge followed by Replace with one listing that is already on Amazon.
Once you are down to one listing you can
then upload your Available Amazon inventory by checking All Online
Inventory and do a second upload.
Do your usual
upload to all services,
to clear the
database of records set for upload, then go back to Inventory, find a
record that is Available and has an ASIN or ISBN on the Keywords tab
and the Marketplace box is checked or one of the CA or UK shipping
choices is selected, other than No CA or No UK. (Amazon.ca or
Amazon.co.uk sellers only)
Make sure the same
record with the same SKU is in your Amazon inventory account online. If
it is go back to BookTrakker:
Press A on your
keyboard, followed by Enter if your Rec# is numeric, or CTRL-A,
followed Enter if your Rec# is alphanumeric. This sets
that record for upload. Then do the following:
1. Set Amazon as an
Active service (Should be checked at all times by default)
2. Select Amazon by clicking on the service name in the list, so the
black arrow is pointing to Amazon > .
3. Place a check in Purge Amazon.
4. Click the
Process/Upload to Selected Service button:
5. Loading
Amazon Engine box appears, followed by Exporting to Amazon,
then Uploading to Amazon. May happen so fast you don't see it all.
6. Export form appears, yellow bar moves across bottom of form.
7. Export Log screen appears, so you can check the success of your
upload.
Check your Inventory account on Amazon to make sure only one record
is
present.
8. Because
Amazon cannot process more than 6000 uploaded records per
upload you need to set records for upload via an Action Hit List.
Create a Hit List via
these instructions
that totals ~6000 records. Once you
have them set for upload do the next step:
9. Go back to Online Control Panel page in BookTrakker. With the
Amazon
service selected, click the Process/Upload to Selected Service
button.
This will upload the ~6000 records set for upload from step
8.
Wait for the uploaded
records to process on Amazon before doing another upload.
Repeat steps 8 and 9
as necessary to get all your records onto Amazon.
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Minimum
and Maximum Prices for listings.
Amazon now requires
all sellers to set Minimum and Maximum prices for all listings. From
Amazon Help:
Starting
on January 14, 2015, you will not be able to use the Seller Central
preferences to select a blanket “opt-out” from all potential low- and
high-pricing error rules. This is aimed at reducing price error risks to
sellers and avoiding potentially negative customer experiences. Instead,
you will need to set a minimum and maximum allowed selling price for each
product in your inventory. If you do not chose pricing limits, Amazon’s
default potential pricing error rules will apply to that product.
We will notify you when we detect any potential pricing errors in your
Amazon.com listings and deactivate the affected listings.
We have added Minimum
and Maximum prices for each Amazon service in Tools > Options >
Pricing in BookTrakker. The default prices are .01 and 100000. The
purpose of Minimum and Maximum pricing is to protect you from listing an
item at too low or too high a price. Zero is not allowed.
Users can reload the affected records individually, or if they are Pro or
Network users they can run CheckIt off the
Online Apps button to find records in BookTrakker that are not active on
Amazon, and set them for upload. All records in an upload to Amazon will
include the Minimum and Maximum prices. You can also do an All Online
Inventory upload to Amazon.
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