1. ShipStation Help U.S.
  2. Integrations Help Guide
  3. Stores A-C

Amazon Merchant Fulfilled Prime Orders

Avatar

ShipStation Content Team

Updated

How to manage Amazon Merchant Fulfilled prime orders in ShipStation.

Merchants shipping Amazon Merchant Fulfilled Prime orders through ShipStation can now ship these orders using any carrier, as long as the selected service will deliver the shipment in the Prime-specified time frame. You are no longer required to create labels for Prime orders using Amazon-specified carriers.

If you connected your Amazon store to ShipStation on November 3, 2023 or later, there is no additional setup to do. Your Prime orders will import into Awaiting Shipment just like any other order.

For any account that connected an Amazon store to ShipStation prior to November 3, 2023, Merchant Fulfilled Prime orders import into the Pending Fulfillment status by default, which is a view-only status. To ship these orders with ShipStation, you must import your Prime orders into the Awaiting Shipment status. To import your orders into the Awaiting Shipment status, you can do either one of the following:

Limitations for Merchant Fulfilled Prime Orders

Before you start shipping your Merchant Fulfilled Prime orders in ShipStation, make sure you are aware of the following limitations:

  • Merchant Fulfilled Prime orders should not be split or combined in ShipStation.

  • Amazon will always use the Ship To Address in Amazon when creating labels. Updating the Ship To Address in ShipStation will have no effect on the label.

  • If shipping via the Amazon Buy Shipping API:

    • If Amazon determines the selected service will not guarantee the shipment's arrival in the required time frame, Amazon will return an alert and prevent you from creating the label for that order. In these cases, you will need to select a faster service.

    • End of Day forms, return labels, and multi-package shipments are not available when creating labels through the Amazon Buy Shipping API. Multi-package shipments and End of Day forms can be created directly through Amazon Seller Central.

    • Delayed notifications are not available for shipments created with the Amazon Buy Shipping API. Since the label is created through Amazon's system, Amazon is aware of the shipment as soon as the label is generated.

    • If using ChannelAdvisor to import your Amazon Merchant Fulfilled Prime orders, the Amazon Buy Shipping API integration will only function for orders from a single Amazon account.

      ShipStation will use the most recently created Amazon store when determining which credentials to submit to Amazon in reference to ChannelAdvisor orders.

Import Prime Orders

You can import and create labels for Amazon Merchant Fulfilled orders that import from either an Amazon store or ChannelAdvisor store.

Review the sections below for details on importing from each store.

Import from Amazon

For any account that connected an Amazon store to ShipStation prior to November 3, 2023, Merchant Fulfilled Prime orders from a connected Amazon store will import into the Pending Fulfillment status by default, which is a view-only status. To ship these orders with ShipStation, you must import your Prime orders into the Awaiting Shipment status.

To import these orders into the Awaiting Shipment status, you can either enable the Amazon store setting to do so in ShipStation, or you can connect an Amazon Buy Shipping or Amazon Shipping carrier to your ShipStation account (currently only available for US- and UK-based ShipStation accounts).

If you connected your Amazon store to ShipStation on November 3, 2023 or later, no additional setup is required!

To enable the Amazon store setting for Prime orders:

  1. Go to Account Settings.

    Closeup of ShipStation toolbar with outline marking the Settings icon.

  2. Select Selling Channels from the sidebar, then choose Store Setup.

    Settings page selections, with outline marking the Selling Channels Store Setup option.

  3. Click the Actions menu Actions menu next to the store you want to update, then choose Edit Store Details.

    Store Setup page with arrow pointing to the ellipsis icon and dropdown menu showing Edit Store Details option highlighted

  4. Click the Edit Amazon Settings button.

  5. Enable the setting Import Prime Orders into Awaiting Shipment and save your changes.

Prime orders from this point on will import into the Awaiting Shipment status.

Import from ChannelAdvisor

If you have an Amazon store that is approved for Merchant Fulfilled Prime orders connected to ChannelAdvisor, Amazon Merchant Fulfilled Prime orders will import into ShipStation from ChannelAdvisor just like standard merchant-fulfilled orders.

The Amazon-ChannelAdvisor order flow would look something like this:

Flowchart showing how orders import from Amazon to ChannelAdvisor to ShipStation to create Seller Fulfilled Prime labels

Once imported, you can ship these orders just like any other.

Identify & Ship Your Prime Orders

ShipStation will automatically identify Prime orders that import from an Amazon store and tag them with an Amazon Prime Order tag. You can use the Amazon Prime Order tag to help identify your Prime orders quickly, use it as a filter criterion, and trigger Automation Rules.

You can then ship these orders as you normally would, with any carrier you prefer. ShipStation will send a shipment notification back to Amazon once you create the label so Amazon and your customers can track the order to delivery. Amazon will use this information to ensure you meet your contracted Prime SLA.

Due to Amazon's requirements for Merchant Fulfilled Prime orders, you may want to use the Amazon Buy Shipping API or Amazon Shipping services for these labels (available for US and UK accounts only at this time). If so, you'll simply connect the account to ShipStation and the available services will appear in your Services drop-down menu.

Services drop-down, partial list of Amazon Buy Shipping services.
List of Amazon Buy Shipping available services.

US and UK Amazon Buy Shipping API services in the ShipStation Services menu.

If using Amazon Buy Shipping API or Amazon Shipping carrier and Amazon determines the selected service will not guarantee the shipment's arrival in the required time frame, Amazon will return an alert to ShipStation and prevent you from creating the label for that order. In these cases, you will need to select a faster service.

Prime Orders Imported from ChannelAdvisor

You can ship these orders just like any other order. Unlike Prime orders imported directly from Amazon, ShipStation does not automatically tag these orders with a Prime tag. However, you can create an automation rule to tag these orders so you can more easily identify them.

Create Rule to Tag Prime Orders from ChannelAdvisor

ShipStation includes an "Amazon Prime Order" tag that you can use to tag these orders. However, to get ShipStation to auto-tag these orders, you must create an automation rule.

For Merchant Fulfilled Prime orders, the Requested Shipping Service will always include the word Prime, so you can use this as the Criteria in the rule.

  1. Go to Settings > Automation > Automation Rules.

  2. Click Create a Rule.

  3. Set the criteria to:

    • Only apply these actions to orders that match specific criteria

    • Marketplace :: Equals... :: ChannelAdvisor

    • Requested Service :: Contains... :: Prime

  4. Set the action to Add a Tag... and select the Amazon Prime Order tag from the list of available tags.

  5. Name the rule and save.

    ShipStation Automation Rule applies Amazon Prime Order tag to ChannelAdvisor orders with Prime as the requested service

Going forward, all prime orders that import from your ChannelAdvisor store will be automatically tagged (orders that have already imported will not be tagged unless you click the Reprocess Automation Rules button).

Ship CA Orders with Amazon Buy Shipping API

Due to Amazon's requirements for Merchant Fulfilled Prime orders, you may want to use the Amazon Buy Shipping API services to ship your ChannelAdvisor orders (available for US and UK accounts only at this time).

Before you can create Amazon Buy Shipping API labels for Merchant Fulfilled Prime orders imported from ChannelAdvisor, you'll have to first connect the Amazon store to ShipStation and add your email address to its Branding settings. Once connected, set the Amazon store to inactive to avoid importing the same orders more than once.

  1. Connect the Amazon.com account with access to Merchant Fulfilled Prime orders directly to ShipStation.

    You can review the instructions for connecting an Amazon seller account to ShipStationShipStation, if needed.

  2. Go to the Branding tab in Store Settings, enter your email address into the Email field, and Save Changes.

    SET_STORE_BRND_Email_Amazon_MRK.png

  3. Click the link to Verify this email address.

    In the pop-up that appears, click Send Confirmation Email. You should receive an email to that address shortly.

  4. Follow the instructions in that email to complete the email verification process.

  5. Refresh the browser page.

    The note under the email address will update to read, This email address has been verified for your account.

  6. Go to the Store Settings tab, uncheck the Is Active? setting, then Save Changes.

    Important

    This step ensures you do not import the same orders into ShipStation from both ChannelAdvisor and Amazon.

    Please note, this process is specific to ChannelAdvisor's integration. If you are NOT using ChannelAdvisor, these steps do not apply.

  7. Connect your ChannelAdvisor account to ShipStation, if you haven't already done so.

    You'll use ChannelAdvisor to import orders into ShipStation and you can then use the Amazon Buy Shipping API to create labels for these orders.

Didn't find what you were looking for?