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Prepare your SP-API application for holiday shoppers

Tips and recommendations to get your SP-API application ready for the holiday season rush

by Olivia S., Solutions Architect, Selling Partner Developer Services and Adrian T., Developer Support | November 29, 2022

As the end of the year approaches, so does the holiday season. This could lead to big rush of shoppers making purchases on Amazon.com. Is your Amazon Selling Partner API (SP-API) application ready for the holiday shopping peak?

This blog post offers some tips to make sure your existing SP-API application is prepared for holiday shopping peaks that could potentially performance test your app.

Inspect your app for alerting mechanisms

To catch issues in a timely manner, the right metrics and alert mechanisms need to be in place for your system. Review your existing metrics and alerts for a regular traffic pattern and set monitoring alerts in anticipation of the expected holiday traffic. This approach helps alert engineers of any potential issues in advance so they can take the necessary steps to either resolve the issue or reach out to the proper internal or external parties.

Review client-side errors (4xx series errors)

Two indicators that your application is wasting resources are exceeded throttling rates and received malformed URLs. Use a rate limiter or notifications to efficiently use your bandwidth. Refer to the following blog posts for help with resolving these errors:

Manage your application

We recommend that you avoid making changes to your application during peak season. Changes to your application or developer profile are subject to review by internal teams. If you do need to edit or make changes, you can follow these steps in this section.

To request additional roles for an app or to edit your Developer Profile:

  1. Access Developer Central:
    • In Seller Central, choose Partner Network, then Develop Apps.
    • In Vendor Central, choose the Integration tab, then Develop Apps.
  2. Choose Your Developer Profile.
  3. For guidance on choosing roles, refer to Choosing Roles for Your SP-API Application and Roles in the Selling Partner API.

To edit your application listing:

  1. Access Developer Central:
    • In Seller Central, choose Partner Network, then Develop Apps.
    • In Vendor Central, choose the Integration tab), then Develop Apps.
  2. In Developer Central, next to the application you want to edit, select the drop-down menu and choose Edit Listing.

If the update you submit requires review, a case ID will be generated with your submission. Follow this case ID for updates on your submission.

Check for large scale issues affecting Amazon API Services

For issues or service updates regarding SP-API, check the Selling Partner API - Health Dashboard. If a large-scale issue affects MWS, check the status.mws.amazon.com for updates.

SP-API issues and service updates will also be posted on GitHub, Seller Central Forum, and SP-API Announcements page. In most cases, if there is no large-scale issue reported on these sites, then the issue may be isolated to your own application.

Troubleshooting tips for errors

If you receive invalid input, bad request, or internal errors, try the following actions to troubleshoot.

  • Locate the parameters in your request and compare them to the documentation for the API that you are using. For example, if you receive an Invalid Input error when making a request to the Tokens API, refer to the Tokens API documentation to verify accepted parameters.

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Note

Parameters are case-sensitive. For example, nextToken (correct) vs Nexttoken (incorrect).

  • Refer to the use case guides available on the SP-API Documentation site for examples of requests to a specific endpoint, as well as step-by-step instructions for required actions to make successful requests to SP-API APIs. For example, the Tokens API Use Case Guide provides five tutorials for the Tokens API.
  • To replicate calls and test, refer to the tutorial Using Postman for Selling Partner API models.
  • For frequently asked questions on errors, refer to the Errors FAQ page.
  • Check GitHub Issues and Discussions to see if your issue has already been reported and for any workarounds and advice from the community.

Contact Developer Support to receive assistance

If you need further assistance with the issue you are experiencing, reach out to SP-API developer support team via the Contact Us form. Make sure to fill out all requested fields as it will help speed up the process of the team gathering information about your issue.

Conclusion

This blog covered tips and recommendations to help you make the holiday season smoother for managing your SP-API application, and how to contact support for further assistance. If you found this blog helpful, please vote and leave a comment. Happy holidays!

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