Virgin Telco and Auxitec Push Product Content and Prices in Amazon

Virgin Telco uses Icecat’s AFS connector to push, in co-operation with vendor Auxitec, its product content and prices towards the Amazone e-commerce platform. Virgin Telco is the biggest internet and mobile subscription service in Spain, part of Euskaltel who got a license to use the Virgin brand of serial entrepreneur Richard Branson. The AFS connector enables Virgin Telco to fully automate its product lifecycle management in Amazon Vendor Central, whereby Auxitec acts as the vendor for handling fulfillment. AFS replaces the cumbersome manual data entry in Excel templates.

Icecat is supporting all AFS categories, including the computers & electronics categories that are relevant for this project. Moreover, the latest AFS connector enables Icecat to publish a high volume of products in single batches. This is useful if the complete catalog of Auxitec needs to be supported one day. AFS supports image publication. So vendors are no longer required to upload their images separately via the Vendor Central user interface. We expect new versions of the AFS connector to allow for other rich media assets. The so-called A+ content. We upload Auxitec’s price information as a separate file, which we combine with the product messaging of Virgin Telco, before sending it to Amazon.

Mapping and ASINs

Icecat takes care of the mapping of its taxonomy to the Amazon taxonomy. Required for creating an item in Amazon. After the successful creation of the item, Amazon is returning a so-called ASIN: the Amazon Standard Identification Number. We store ASIN in the AFS connector to use it when updating existing items in the Amazon environment.

Further, all imported data becomes visible in Amazon Vendor Central for manual enrichment by brand owners with so-called A+ content, i.e., rich media assets. Over time A+ content can also be sent through the AFS connector. Icecat’s automated solution helps vendors to reduce the time to market for their new products and make updating easier. It also replaces the manual resources involved in manually filling in the obsolete excel templates. Besides, Icecat pushes product information not only to Amazon but to any other sales and marketing channel of a brand. Thus optimizing the entire global syndication process.

Apart from vendors, also distributors or wholesalers like Auxitec can use Icecat’s automated content push to Amazon Vendor Central. In the end, they are all potential vendors on Amazon. Finally, an exciting new development is that also item creation and rich product content for Amazon marketplace sellers can be handled through the push-API.

If you want to push data towards Amazon, please register online, contact your local Account Manager, or contact us online.

Edorta Gorria