Amazon and Icecat Finalize Pilot to Automate Upload of Product Content

Pilot to automate the upload of product content to Amazon Vendor Central is finalized. Icecat as Content Partner for Amazon Vendor Central finalizes AFS program pilot and Starts the Scale-up Phase. Icecat is one of the few, selected content partners of Amazon. That means, we can automatically push a brand’s product content through Amazon Feed Specification (AFS) program into Amazon Vendor Central. In addition, to the use by Amazon of the Icecat XML interface. And the automated generation of so-called NIS (New Item Setup) templates on behalf of brands selling through Amazon.

Some of the brands that participated in the AFS pilot through Icecat are Electronics brands Denver and Smartwares. Second, Groupe SEB (domestic appliances). And also puzzles and toys brands Jumbo and SES Creative.

What is the value add of AFS?

AFS enables vendors to fully automate item lifecycle management and procurement through Amazon Vendor Central, and thus replaces the cumbersome manual data-entry in Excel, and upload through the mentioned NIS templates. Now, vendors, brands, and distributors with a Vendor Central account, can automatically create items from their systems, and directly submit additional product content to Amazon via Icecat. Also, vendors receive an automated report. That informs them about the acceptance of their items. And what content needs to be improved. 

AFS rolls out category by category, and country by country. Icecat is supporting all AFS main categories. For example, Computers and Electronics, TVs and Monitors, Toys, Office supplies, Domestic Appliances, Sports & Recreation, Pet Care, and Entertainment & Hobby.

How does Icecat help vendors?

Icecat offers a delivery module that aggregates all the required product information from the Icecat database. It merges with additional Amazon-specific information. Such as price and ASINs (Amazon Standard Identification Numbers), transforms this data into the required Amazon format. And publishes it all to Vendor Central. Icecat’s automated solution helps vendors to reduce the time to market of their products. But also the internal resources to manually fill in the NIS templates. Furthermore, Icecat pushes product information to many other sales and marketing channels. Thus optimizing the entire syndication process of the brand.

New countries are added

Next to the initially supported countries like the USA, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. The AFS program expands to the Netherlands, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Mexico and Canada. All “hardline” categories are supported and softlines (fashion & apparel) will be launched soon.

Include images and enable push without price

What data types support the NIS templates? Currently, all product data entered through NIS templates. This includes images that replace the more efficient input via the AFS-API. Further, there is a pilot possibility to push data without prices and add this later on in Vendor Central.

A+ page content is not yet submitted through AFS and still needs to be inputted manually in Vendor Central. The expectation is that AFS will allow for the automated upload of rich media assets in a later stage.

Who can participate? All vendors holding a Vendor Central account can participate in the AFS program through Icecat.

Content Completion Projects

Despite the automate interfaces. Currently, AFS requires to gather the data. This still requires a hands-on project-based approach. It’s not only about pushing existing rich product content and combining it with price and availability files, but also about completing the product data to meet the mininimum requirements of Amazon. At the moment, Syndy is working with such Amazon data completion projects. They provide an interface to brand editors to review the data that will be sent to Amazon.

See for more details the Manual for the Icecat Amazon Upload through AFS.

Emre Tan

Managing Director of Icecat, MSc. in International Finance, investor via E-nvest., ex- IBM, PwC, McKinsey