Businesses that seek to sell directly to Amazon itself typically will be invited to join their platform: Amazon Vendor Central (VC). VC products bought by consumers are sold by Amazon itself, having already agreed commercial terms with you and purchased stock from you to keep in their DCs to fulfill orders. Amazon Seller Central is an alternative, self-service model whereby your business may sell directly to consumers as a third-party.
In either platform, businesses are usually established sellers, or a quality brand with strong product demand on Amazon as well as exceptional product quality and shipping standard; generally all of Amazon’s service standards are high and actively monitored and enforced.
Amazon invites sellers to join their Vendor Central platform via email and provided you accept their Terms and Conditions, a Vendor Central account will be created in your business name and you can provide pricing information for the products that you agree with Amazon.
Amazon Vendor Central Procurement, was founded when Amazon started their brand sales program for brands such as like Adidas, Puma etc; it involves purchasing high quality products directly from manufacturers or brand stores, storing goods in an Amazon warehouse in optimum conditions, and selling to customers with some significant benefits particularly fast shipping, an Amazon Prime- delivery option - gives a product extra prominence in the buy-box if included as well as easier returns, directly to Amazon. Amazon is heavily invested in the goods quality - fast pick, pack and shipping, all of which has lifted customer satisfaction to an unprecedented high benchmark. To achieve this, it required eliminating multiple 3rd party sellers of the same products to keep the quality at the highest level possible. When you are involved with vendor central procurement, you are selling a brand sought after by amazon, with good product quality accepted by them and selling wholesale so you have to keep up with incoming large orders. This is similar to the FBA program, except, (1)this is for vendors, (2)you are selling directly to amazon not to customers and (3)you are selling for a wholesale price.
Amazon Vendor Central Direct (aka Consumer Direct Fulfilment) was introduced as an supply option around peak trading i.e. when Amazon’s sales were projected to be higher that the capacity in it’s fulfillment centers, and was also helpful during COVID health measures, which created a similar effect but for different reasons. Ultimately it was introduced to protect its industry-leading service commitments. 1P sellers realized Amazon is falling back on orders fast and they started looking for new ways to take matters into their own hands by means of fulfilling orders. When an order is placed in amazon for a sought brand, amazon forwards the order to the fulfillment party, and have you fulfill the order. This sounds like the FBM option with a difference, FMB is for third party sellers and in this case you are a vendor to Amazon.
Both Amazon Vendor Direct and Vendor Procurement integrations can accept price and quantity data from StoreAutomator.
How to connect Vendor Central Platform using StoreAutomator
To be able to connect Vendor Central channels:
Navigate to Settings > Channel
Click Add Channel on the top right of the screen
You will see Amazon Vendor Direct and Amazon Vendor Procurement channels next to each other, which can then be added by clicking on the respective icon.
After clicking on the channel that you want to connect to, you will be prompted to select the country. For example, after selecting to add Vendor Direct, you must select the country - e.g. Amazon US in the example below.
Next, please add your preferred channel name in the Channel Name input box. You do not need to add a channel code as the system will generate this automatically so simply click the +Create button.
This channel will be added to your channels, next click on the gear icon which will direct you to the Amazon Vendor Direct channel.
You need to click Channel>Channel Settings>API Connection and give permission to StoreAutomator by clicking on the blue link, which will redirect you to your Amazon account. After you give permission in Amazon it will be connected to StoreAutomator and the channel color will be shown in orange rather than red. If you do not see that, please refresh your page on StoreAutomator.