Product Advertising API - Developer Guide

503 Pages·2017·3.52 MB·English

Product Advertising API
Developer Guide
API Version 2013-08-01
Product Advertising API Developer Guide
Product Advertising API: Developer Guide
Copyright © 2015 Amazon.com and its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Product Advertising API Developer Guide
Table of Contents
Welcome........................................................................................................................................... 1
Overview of Product Advertising API ............................................................................................ 1
Audience................................................................................................................................... 1
Required Knowledge and Skills ............................................................................................ 1
How This Guide Is Organized ....................................................................................................... 2
Programming Guide........................................................................................................................... 3
Getting Started.......................................................................................................................... 4
Sign up as an Amazon Associate .......................................................................................... 4
Sign up for the Product Advertising API ................................................................................ 5
Reading the Licensing Agreement........................................................................................ 6
Using the Product Advertising API Scratchpad ....................................................................... 7
Migrating your Product Advertising API Account from your AWS Account ................................... 8
Managing your Existing AWS Security Credentials for the Product Advertising API ....................... 9
E-Commerce and Web Services.................................................................................................. 11
What Is E-commerce? ....................................................................................................... 12
What Is a Web Service? ..................................................................................................... 12
What Is XML?................................................................................................................... 12
What Is a WSDL?.............................................................................................................. 14
What Is a Schema?........................................................................................................... 20
Product Advertising API Terminology and Basic Concepts .............................................................. 21
The Marketplace............................................................................................................... 22
What Is the Product Advertising API? .................................................................................. 22
How Do I Make Money Using the Product Advertising API? .................................................... 22
Items for Sale.................................................................................................................. 23
Summary of Product Advertising API Operations .................................................................. 25
Visual Introduction to Product Advertising API ............................................................................. 27
Search for Items ............................................................................................................... 27
Find More Item Information ............................................................................................... 28
Create a Shopping Cart ..................................................................................................... 29
Organization of Items on Amazon.............................................................................................. 29
Browse Nodes.................................................................................................................. 29
Search Indices.................................................................................................................. 34
Requests................................................................................................................................. 40
Anatomy of a REST Request .............................................................................................. 41
REST Syntax.................................................................................................................... 43
SOAP Requests................................................................................................................ 45
Request Authentication..................................................................................................... 47
Batch Requests................................................................................................................ 60
Parameters Common to All Product Advertising API Requests ................................................ 62
Responses....................................................................................................................... 64
Paging and Sorting Through Responses .............................................................................. 69
Find Items to Buy..................................................................................................................... 71
Search Operations............................................................................................................ 71
Items You Cannot Buy ...................................................................................................... 72
Items Sold by Merchants ................................................................................................... 74
Common ItemSearch Parameters ........................................................................................ 75
Power Searches................................................................................................................ 80
Use Search Bins to Find Items ............................................................................................ 83
Find Items with Browse Nodes ........................................................................................... 89
Request and Response Examples ........................................................................................ 93
Motivate Customers to Buy...................................................................................................... 116
Promotions.................................................................................................................... 116
Reviews......................................................................................................................... 119
Suggest Similar Items to Buy........................................................................................... 120
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Top Sellers..................................................................................................................... 127
New Releases................................................................................................................. 129
Sort by Popularity, Price, or Condition ............................................................................... 130
Returning Price and Availability Information .............................................................................. 132
Returning Prices............................................................................................................. 132
Determining Availability.................................................................................................. 137
Working With Remote Shopping Carts ...................................................................................... 140
Shopping Cart Concepts .................................................................................................. 140
Remote Shopping Cart Tasks ........................................................................................... 144
Add to Cart Form ........................................................................................................... 151
Purchase Items in a Remote Shopping Cart ................................................................................ 152
Order Pipeline................................................................................................................ 152
Implement the Proceed to Checkout Button ....................................................................... 153
PurchaseURL.................................................................................................................. 153
Troubleshooting ..................................................................................................................... 154
Syntax and Parameter Errors ............................................................................................ 154
Retrieving Errors............................................................................................................. 156
Troubleshooting Applications........................................................................................... 156
Error Codes and Messages ............................................................................................... 157
Best Programming Practices .................................................................................................... 163
Read the Product Advertising API Terms and Conditions ...................................................... 164
Use the Latest API Version ............................................................................................... 164
Understand Available Operations ...................................................................................... 164
Use the Right Response Group ......................................................................................... 164
Use Your Associate Tag in Product Advertising API Requests ................................................. 165
Handling Errors.............................................................................................................. 165
Use Caches Carefully ....................................................................................................... 165
Use the Correct AWSAccessKeyId ...................................................................................... 165
Locale Considerations............................................................................................................. 165
Locales.......................................................................................................................... 166
Associate IDs.................................................................................................................. 167
General Differences......................................................................................................... 167
Shipping Restrictions...................................................................................................... 167
API Reference................................................................................................................................. 169
Operations............................................................................................................................. 169
ItemSearch.................................................................................................................... 169
BrowseNodeLookup........................................................................................................ 182
ItemLookup................................................................................................................... 185
SimilarityLookup............................................................................................................. 191
CartAdd ......................................................................................................................... 194
CartClear....................................................................................................................... 199
CartCreate..................................................................................................................... 202
CartGet......................................................................................................................... 207
CartModify.................................................................................................................... 211
Common Request Parameters .................................................................................................. 215
Response Groups.................................................................................................................... 217
Accessories..................................................................................................................... 218
AlternateVersions........................................................................................................... 219
BrowseNodeInfo ............................................................................................................. 220
BrowseNodes................................................................................................................. 223
Cart.............................................................................................................................. 225
CartNewReleases............................................................................................................ 227
CartTopSellers................................................................................................................ 228
CartSimilarities............................................................................................................... 230
EditorialReview............................................................................................................... 231
Images.......................................................................................................................... 233
ItemAttributes................................................................................................................ 235
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ItemIds.......................................................................................................................... 238
Large............................................................................................................................ 240
Medium......................................................................................................................... 244
MostGifted..................................................................................................................... 248
MostWishedFor............................................................................................................... 250
NewReleases.................................................................................................................. 251
OfferFull........................................................................................................................ 252
OfferListings.................................................................................................................. 255
Offers........................................................................................................................... 256
OfferSummary............................................................................................................... 260
PromotionSummary........................................................................................................ 262
RelatedItems.................................................................................................................. 264
Request......................................................................................................................... 266
Reviews......................................................................................................................... 268
SalesRank...................................................................................................................... 269
SearchBins..................................................................................................................... 271
Similarities..................................................................................................................... 276
Small............................................................................................................................ 277
TopSellers...................................................................................................................... 278
Tracks........................................................................................................................... 280
Variations...................................................................................................................... 281
VariationImages.............................................................................................................. 284
VariationMatrix............................................................................................................... 286
VariationOffers............................................................................................................... 288
VariationSummary.......................................................................................................... 291
Response Elements Common to All Response Groups .................................................................. 293
Response Elements................................................................................................................. 294
Locale Reference for the Product Advertising API ....................................................................... 314
Locale Information for the BR Marketplace ........................................................................ 315
Locale Information for the CA Marketplace ........................................................................ 317
Locale Information for the CN Marketplace ........................................................................ 331
Locale Information for the DE Marketplace ........................................................................ 345
Locale Information for the ES Marketplace ........................................................................ 365
Locale Information for the FR Marketplace ........................................................................ 382
Locale Information for the IN Marketplace ......................................................................... 398
Locale Information for the IT Marketplace ......................................................................... 413
Locale Information for the JP Marketplace ......................................................................... 429
Locale Information for the MX Marketplace ....................................................................... 447
Locale Information for the UK Marketplace ........................................................................ 454
Locale Information for the US Marketplace ........................................................................ 474
ItemSearch Sort Values ........................................................................................................... 496
Sort Values.................................................................................................................... 496
Resources...................................................................................................................................... 500
Document History.......................................................................................................................... 501
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Overview of Product Advertising API
Welcome
Topics
• Overview of Product Advertising API (p. 1)
• Audience (p. 1)
• How This Guide Is Organized (p. 2)
Overview of Product Advertising API
Amazon has developed a world-class web service that millions of customers use every day. As a
developer, you can build Product Advertising API applications that leverage this robust, scalable, and
reliable technology. You get access to a lot of the data used by Amazon including the items for sale,
customer reviews, seller reviews, as well as most of the functionality you see on Amazon.com, such as
finding items, displaying customer reviews, and product promotions. Product Advertising API operations
open the doors to Amazon's databases so that you can take advantage of Amazon's sophisticated e-
commerce data and functionality. Build your own web store to sell Amazon items or your own items.
Best of all, Product Advertising API is free. By signing up to become a Product Advertising API developer,
you join the tens of thousands of developers who are already realizing financial gains by creating
Product Advertising API-driven applications and web stores.
How Product Advertising API works
1. Your application uses the Product Advertising API to display item descriptions, images, and reviews
to your customers.
2. Customers shop and add items to their shopping cart.
3. When the customer is ready to purchase the items, your application sends an HTML form to Product
Advertising API and Amazon completes the purchase by getting purchase information, such as
payment method and shipping address. Amazon then fulfills the order by shipping the items.
Audience
This guide is intended for developers who want to build an e-commerce storefront that sells items listed
on Amazon.com, or an application that helps others build e-commerce storefronts.
Required Knowledge and Skills
Use of this guide assumes you are familiar with the following:
• XML (For an overview, see W3 Schools XML Tutorial.)
• Basic understanding of web services (For an overview, see XML Web Services.)
If you are an Amazon Associate and are looking for general information, see Amazon Associates Tools for
Every Site.
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How This Guide Is Organized
How This Guide Is Organized
Information Topics
Learn the basics about the Product Advertising Terminology and Basic Concepts (p. 21)
API
See the Programming Reference, which provides Programming Reference (p. 3)
task-oriented descriptions of how to use and
implement Product Advertising API operations.
See the API Reference to learn more about API Reference (p. 169)
Product Advertising API operations, response
groups, locales, and parameter constraints.
See additional resources. Resources (p. 500)
See the latest documentation changes. Document History (p. 501)
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Programming Guide
The Programming Guide provides task-oriented descriptions of how to use and implement Product
Advertising API operations. For a complete description of these operations, refer to the API
Reference (p. 169).
The following table describes the sections in the programming guide.
Section Description
Getting Describes the tasks you must complete before using Product Advertising API.
Started (p. 4)
E-Commerce and Web Introduces technologies central to Product Advertising API, such as e—
Services (p. 11) commerce, WSDL, and schemas.
Product Advertising API Introduces terms and concepts central to Product Advertising API.
Terminology and Basic
Concepts (p. 21)
Visual Introduction to Introduces Product Advertising API functionality by visually comparing it to
Product Advertising functionality seen on Amazon's retail web site.
API (p. 27)
Organization of Describes how items are organized in Amazon databases.
Items for Sale on
Amazon (p. 29)
Requests (p. 40) Introduces you to making Product Advertising API requests and processing
Product Advertising API responses.
Finding Items to Describes the operations and response groups required to find items to buy.
Buy (p. 71)
Motivating Customers Describes the operations and response groups required to motivate
to Buy (p. 116) customers to buy. Topics include displaying images, customer review, and
seller reviews.
Returning Price Describes the operations and response groups required to get pricing and
And Availability availability information of the items for sale.
Information (p. 132)
Working With Describes the operations and response groups required to create a shopping
Remote Shopping cart, add items to it, and modify the number of items in the cart.
Carts (p. 140)
Purchasing the Items Describes the operations and response groups required to purchase the
in a Remote Shopping items in a shopping cart.
Cart (p. 152)
Handling Errors and Describes errors returned by Product Advertising API.
Troubleshooting
Applications (p. 154)
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Getting Started
Section Description
Best Programming Provides programming tips to maximize your Product Advertising API
Practices (p. 163) application's functionality.
Locale Addresses locale-specific issues.
Considerations (p. 165)
Getting Started
Join the Amazon Associates program and then sign up for the Product Advertising API.
Topics
• Sign up as an Amazon Associate (p. 4)
• Sign up for the Product Advertising API (p. 5)
• Reading the Licensing Agreement (p. 6)
• Using the Product Advertising API Scratchpad (p. 7)
• Migrating your Product Advertising API Account from your AWS Account (p. 8)
• Managing your Existing AWS Security Credentials for the Product Advertising API (p. 9)
Sign up as an Amazon Associate
Associates earn commissions by using their own websites to refer sales to Amazon.com. To get a
commission, an Associate must have an Associate tag. The Associate tag is an automatically generated
unique identifier that you will need to make requests through the Product Advertising API.
When you register for the Product Advertising API, note the following:
• You must register for Amazon Associates before you sign up as a Product Advertising API developer.
The Product Advertising API returns an error if you are not a registered or a valid Amazon Associate.
• You can only use the Product Advertising API for the marketplace that you registered for as an Amazon
Associate. For example, if you are an Amazon Associate in the US marketplace, you can't access the
Product Advertising API in the UK marketplace if you are not an Amazon Associate in the UK.
To sign up as an Amazon Associate
1. Using the following Locale table (p. 5), choose the Amazon Associates URL for the locale that
you want.
2. Follow the instructions to create an Amazon Associates account. One of the requirements for
becoming an Associate is that you provide the URL of your site. If your site is not yet public but you
want to test against the API, you must still provide a URL during registration.
3. After the sign up process, an Associate tag is sent to you in email. When you sign in to Amazon
Associates for your locale, the home page shows your email and Amazon Associate tag.
The following example is an Amazon Associate tag for the US marketplace (www.amazon.com).
Note
Your Amazon Associates tag works only in the locale in which you register. If you want to be an
Amazon Associate in more than one locale, you must register separately for each locale.
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Sign up for the Product Advertising API
Locale URL
Brazil https://associados.amazon.com.br
Canada https://associates.amazon.ca
China https://associates.amazon.cn/gp/advertising/api/detail/main.html
France https://partenaires.amazon.fr
Germany https://partnernet.amazon.de
India https://affiliate-program.amazon.in
Italy https://programma-affiliazione.amazon.it/gp/advertising/api/
detail/main.html
Japan https://affiliate.amazon.co.jp
Mexico https://afiliados.amazon.com.mx/gp/associates/join/landing/
main.html
Spain https://afiliados.amazon.es
United Kingdom https://affiliate-program.amazon.co.uk
United States https://affiliate-program.amazon.com
Sign up for the Product Advertising API
Note
Before you can sign up for the Product Advertising API, you must sign up for Amazon Associates,
For more information, see Sign up as an Amazon Associate (p. 4).
With the Product Advertising API, you can advertise products from the Amazon marketplace in which you
signed up as an Amazon Associate.
To sign up for the Product Advertising API
1. After you sign in your Amazon Associates account, in the Amazon Associates page, choose Tools and
then choose Product Advertising API.
Note
Only the primary account owner of the Amazon Associate account can sign up for the
Product Advertising API.
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