Selling Partner API migration for private developers

by Hina V., Solutions Architect, Selling Partner Developer Services, and Anuj R., Global Leader Solutions Architecture, Selling Partner Developer Services | July 18, 2022

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Updates to MWS Migration Dates

Starting August 31, 2023, Merchant Fulfillment (MFN) API, Orders API, Reports API will no longer be available on MWS. Additionally, the Restricted Data Token (RDT) requirement for Developers whose SP-API applications use Direct-to-Consumer Fulfillment, Tax, Shipping, or Reports use cases will not require use of this new access protocol until August 31, 2023.

All other MWS API sections, including Products API, will not be available after March 31, 2024.

For more information about public and private developer migration, refer to the SP-API Migration Hub.

Recently, Amazon announced end of life dates for Amazon Marketplace Web Service (MWS). This announcement applies to all developers, including private developers. Private developers are developers who build applications that integrate their own company with Amazon APIs. This blog post offers guidance to private developers on how to migrate from MWS to Selling Partner API. Selling Partner API (SP-API) is a REST-based API that helps Amazon selling partners programmatically access their data on listings, orders, payments, reports, and more.

Overview

Amazon Marketplace Web Service (MWS) will no longer be available after December 31, 2023 March 31, 2024. The following MWS sections will not be available after July 31, 2023 August 31, 2023:

• Merchant Fulfillment (MFN)
• Orders
• Reports
• Products

In addition, all developers whose Selling Partner API applications have SP-API roles for Direct-to-Consumer Fulfillment, Shipping, Tax, or Reports must use the new Restricted Data Token (RDT) via the Tokens API to make a successful API call for some operations. For more information, refer to Authorization with the Restricted Data Token.

Those who have a legacy integration with MWS can choose either of the following two options for migration based on their business needs:

Replace your integration with a third-party app

You can choose to adopt a vetted third-party application available through Amazon Selling Partner Appstore. The Amazon Selling Partner Appstore is a one-stop shop where small and medium-sized businesses that sell on Amazon can easily discover quality applications to help them automate, manage, and grow their businesses. Accessible from Seller Central, the Selling Partner Appstore features applications created by Amazon and third-party developers that cover a range of functionalities across the selling life cycle.

Retiring your application eliminates the IT overhead to create and maintain a new integration with SP-API. Using a third-party vetted application may also reduce your compliance scope under the Amazon Data Protection Policy since many of these compliance requirements would now fall on the adopted application.

Amazon Selling Partner Appstore offers many applications to serve various use cases such as listing, automated pricing, and inventory management. If you maintain your own storefront using technologies such as Adobe Magento, Shopify, or WooCommerce, you can browse through Ecommerce Solution Connectors to find applications that can help you integrate with the technology stack of your choice. Lastly, Amazon Selling Partner Appstore features reviews from other sellers and filters to help you narrow your choice across categories, marketplaces, and programs supported to help you find the application that best fits your need.

Migrate to SP-API

Adopting a third party application won't work for everyone. You may have a complex use case that isn't addressed by any third-party app. If you decide to migrate you can choose from several options:

Migrate with the same functionality: Migrating with the same functionality is the fastest option and is used when a seller's IT department is looking to quickly migrate to SP-API. MWS endpoints are updated to SP-API endpoints without major refactoring or new functionality. Some refactoring, however, may be necessary because of differences between MWS and SP-API. See Mapping APIs from Amazon MWS to the Selling Partner API for more details.

Migrate with the same functionality, adding some SP-API features: This option is best when a seller's IT department is looking to quickly migrate to SP-API but at the same time wants to add new functionality to take advantage of the operational and functional improvements in SP-API. For example, Selling Partner API has batch capabilities in certain APIs that let you access the same data with fewer calls. As described in strategies to optimize rate limits for your application workloads, SP-API enables various strategies to optimize your workloads to better scale and avoid throttling pitfalls. Functionally, SP-API features newer report types such as Business Reports (Seller Retail Analytics Reports) to help you gain business insights like views on your listings, your page views, total sales, conversion rate, profit margins, unit session percentage, or daily sales.

Migrate and rearchitect: Fully rearchitecting gives the most opportunity to optimize and redesign the application architecture from ground up. This presents an opportunity to deliver features using cloud-native technologies as well as using new functionality available in SP-API. This strategy is often driven by a strong business need to add features, scale, or improve performance that would otherwise be difficult to achieve in the existing environment. This strategy takes the most time and often involves moving technology stacks/cloud infrastructure providers. If you choose this strategy you should start sooner rather than later to make sure that your integration meets the MWS sunsetting deadlines.

Hiring external help vs. internal IT resources

Whether you should hire external help or perform the migration yourself depends on the migration strategy you choose and the current state of your IT resources.

If you use an infrastructure cloud provider you can look up IT providers for your cloud service provider using their respective partner networks. You can contact an AWS Partner specialist or explore AWS service partners that match your needs.

If your application is not hosted in the cloud you should work with the service providers closest to your technology stack. Your technology stack providers will have a list of providers that specialize in their technologies to help you get started.

Migrating using internal IT resources

If you have IT resources that feel comfortable taking on migration, then the migration guide and the tutorial on creating a private selling partner API application are good starting points.

Supplementary resources

• Strategies to optimize rate limits for your application workloads
• Getting started with Selling Partner API for vendors
• Automating your SP-API calls using Java SDK

Conclusion

This blog post provided guidance to private developers who have a legacy integration with MWS on how to migrate from MWS to Selling Partner API. Amazon MWS will no longer be available to developers after December 31, 2023. For more information on migration dates and timelines, see the Migration Hub.

For any issues, contact us at Developer Support.

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