Our support team has provided answers to some of the most frequently asked questions below. If you are having a problem, you can navigate to solutions on a specific topic below or search all the solutions. To search all the solutions use the Search box in the upper right of the page

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Marketplaces Questions

How can I Detect if a SKU is a child or parent for use in a Business Rule?

$ISCHILD and $ISPARENT will evaluate to True or False, accordingly.

A list of other fields can be found on this How To page:

http://ssc.ChannelAdvisor.com/howto/common-inventory-fields-use-business-rules

Can you cancel amazon fba orders in CA?

No you can not cancel amazon FBA orders through our software. We receive the order from Amazon after it has been shipped. At that point the order can not be canceled.

Here is a link on amazon that discusses FBA cancellations.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200275270

If a product exists on Amazon.com (US), does that mean it exists on other Amazon locales, like Amazon.fr?

ChannelAdvisor offers support for Amazon Seller Central US, UK, FR, DE, CA and IT. Each Amazon locale has its own catalog, which is not shared. Products are not necessarily transferable from one locale to another and will need to be listed as a "new listing" on the other locale.

When will Amazon remove bad feedback?

Amazon will remove feedback only in the following cases:
* The feedback includes obscene language.
* The feedback includes personally identifiable information.
* The entire feedback comment is a product review.
* The entire feedback comment is regarding fulfillment or customer service for an order fulfilled by Amazon.

What do I need to do before sending a manual email to Amazon?

Before sending manual emails to amazon turn off the ChannelAdvisor footer.
Go to ebay > settings > sales notification.
Then in settings, turn off "Display the ChannelAdvisor footer in email messages".

You may also want to check what emails Amazon will send for you so you are not duplicating an email that already will be sent.

Amazon blocked my account. How can I get listings to Amazon again now since they have unblocked it?

First, go to the Marketplaces > Amazon > Settings page and update and verify your Amazon credentials.

Next, you will need to unblock your SKUs within your Amazon Seller Central account.

Once this is done you can re-enable your Amazon feed on the Marketplaces > Amazon > Settings page, if you disabled it when your account was blocked, and the feed will begin processing your items back out to Amazon.

Should I configure my shipping rates on Amazon or send rates via the shipping override fields in the Amazon template?

In general shipping rates for Amazon should be set up in Amazon Seller Central. Sending a value in ChannelAdvisor via the Shipping Override portion of the template is seen as an "override" to the table on Amazon. This option will work but Amazon suggest that overrides should be used for exception cases, not for general shipping settings.

What shipping carrier will be indicated on the All Sales view for purchases made at Amazon?

The shipping option that shows up on Amazon invoices in the all sales view depends on the shipping service your customer selects at checkout. They will be one of the following two methods:

* Amazon Merchants@ - Expedited
* Amazon Merchants@ - Standard

I am a Jewelry seller using Amazon US. What does the error "item_display_dimensions is/are not provided" mean?

This error message only applies to Jewelry sellers using Amazon US. The entire error message reads:

Amazon tried to match SKU to an existing item on Amazon but was unable to because of the following reason given by Amazon: item_display_dimensions/width is/are not provided;

In the error message "Width" may be replaced with "Length" or "Height" as well depending on which value(s) your item is missing.

In the Jewelry category, Amazon now requires that if any of the item dimension fields (length, width, or height) on the "Common" page of the template are provided that all 3 item dimensions must be provided. This error is referring to at least one of the fields in the "Item Dimensions" section on the "Common" page of the Amazon template:

Length
Length Unit of Measurement
Height
Height Unit of Measurement
Width
Width Unit of Measurement

You should only send these item dimensions if an item has all 3 dimension values populated. Otherwise, you should send blank values for all 3 dimensions. To accomplish this, use several business rules. You'll need different rules for the "Length", "Width", and "Height" fields. The 3 business rules will look like this:

Length:
IF (ISBLANK ($Length), "", IF (ISBLANK ($Height), "", IF (ISBLANK ($Width), "", $Length)))

Width:
IF (ISBLANK ($Length), "", IF (ISBLANK ($Height), "", IF (ISBLANK ($Width), "", $Width)))

Height:
IF (ISBLANK ($Length), "", IF (ISBLANK ($Height), "", IF (ISBLANK ($Width), "", $Height)))

Where "$Length", "$Width", and "$Height" are the names of the variables for the inventory fields that contain your length, width, and height values respectively.

If all of your dimensions are the same unit of measurement (mm, cm, m, in, ft) then you can use a single business rule for the "Length Unit of Measurement", "Width Unit of Measurement", and "Height Unit of Measurement" fields. The rule would look like this:

IF (ISBLANK ($Length), "", IF (ISBLANK ($Height), "", IF (ISBLANK ($Width), "", "IN")))

Where "$Length", "$Width", and "$Height" are the names of the variables for the inventory fields that contain your length, width, and height values respectively. Replace "IN" with the unit of measure appropriate for your items or use a variable there to pull the unit of measurement from an inventory attribute.

Additional Tips:

1. Length, Width, and Height values must be separated out. Amazon will not accept a value of "2 x 3 x 5". Each dimension must be in a separate attribute.

2. The Length, Width, and Height attributes should contain numbers only! No units of measurement or other words should be included in that attribute. For example, "22" is a valid value for Length, Width, or Height while "22 cm" or "Twenty two" are not valid.

3. There are also Length, Width, and Height fields on the "Jewelry and Watches" page of the Amazon template. The above instructions are for the "Common" page of the template only.

Can we send .gif images to Amazon UK?

No, Amazon does not accept images submitted as GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) files.

They will, however, accept the following two file types for product images:

- TIFF/TIF (Tagged Image File Format)
- JPEG/JPG (Joint Photographic Experts Group).

Can I refund an Amazon order for the full amount more than once?

If you requests that more than one refund is processed for an order, the system will request more than one refund be processed by Amazon.

This can cause multiple refunds to be processed for the same order. We have some safety measures in place to stop this if you accidentally submit the same refund twice within 5 minutes. However outside that time period more than one can go through.

However we advise you to be careful when refunding and check the order details page to ensure one has not already gone through.

As long as the two refunds are less than or equal to the order total they are valid.

How can I sell on the Jewelry category for Amazon UK?

Currently we only support the selling of existing jewelry items for Amazon UK. To set this up you will have to set the Product ID and Product ID Type fields in the Common section of the Amazon template to send ASIN data. If you require a list of ASIN's for your items, Amazon support will be able to provide you with a master list as they are taken from their catalog.

What causes an Element 'Description' posting error for Amazon Merchants@ items?

When posting to Amazon Merchants@ we send your items to their system in batches instead of individually like other marketplaces. When an error occurs for a single item in the batch, Amazon rejects all of the items in that batch. One error that we see from time to time is the following.

Error description:
Error: XML parse error at line [x], column [x]: Element 'Description' is not valid for content model

The most likely cause of this error is that no title is present for one or more items in the batch of ads that was sent to Amazon. You will need to check any items that were rejected and make sure that the title is configured properly in each SKU and then try posting the items again.

What does the error "product_type is/are not provided" mean?

This error refers to the Product Type field that is present on each Category page of the Amazon template. For example, Toys and Baby. This field has a select list of acceptable values which are unique to each category. You can see what the acceptable values are if you hover over the "?" icon on each category for the field. To resolve this error, edit this field on the category page and input an accepted value.

Please note that this is not the same field as the Product ID or the Product ID Type from the Common section of the Amazon template.

How does ChannelAdvisor deal with Charge when Shipped when a buyer requests a refund for an Amazon order before the order is shipped?

The order will appear as ?paid? in the All Sales view but in actuality the money has not changed hands yet and does not until the order is marked as shipped by CA/Seller on Amazon. Before Amazon sends the order, they will validate the credit card and ensure it is a legitimate order that could be paid for, but then holds off on charging the card until the shipping confirmation arrives.

Amazon always will give a buyer 30 minutes to cancel without any problem. In those cases, the order will never appear in the All Sales view in CA. If the buyer chooses to cancel after 30 minutes then they are told they need to contact the seller directly with the seller's contact information provided to Amazon as part of their account information. In that case, the order still shows in the All Sales view and the buyer/seller have to discuss ?offline? from Amazon to cancel. You can then submit a cancellation via CA to Amazon with a reason of buyer canceled.

Can I allow customers to backorder a product that would most certainly be back in stock within a given time frame?

Unfortunately, there is not a good way to do that and we recommend against it, but implementation methods depend on the marketplace. On Amazon, you could do that by having a long lead time to ship but could run afoul of other Amazon policies. On eBay, the buyer is going to pay at time of checkout so you may have unhappy buyers even if you put in the expected lead time, resulting in lower feedback and potential demotion in search results or suspension.

Here is some eBay commentary on the topic:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/delivery.html
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/pre-sale.html
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-practices.html#handling

Is there a way to see from the All Sales view if an order is Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)?

In Sales > Orders/Transactions > All Sales view, orders fulfilled by Amazon will have an "a" icon in place of the "shipping box" icon in the "Status" column. Also, you can select the "Orders Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA)" default filter.

How do you resolve the error message: "Please make sure the parent SKU "17514" has a valid value for the Category field and resolve any errors for the product...."

The error we were getting was as follows:

The parent for SKU "17514" is not setup as a parent item on Amazon. Please make sure the parent SKU "17514" has a valid value for the Category field and resolve any errors for the product. <br><br> After you update your product information ChannelAdvisor will resend your data to Amazon. If you only made changes to the parent SKU you will need to signal to ChannelAdvisor to resend the child products. The easiest way to do this is to edit each child product with no changes and hit 'Save'.

After much back and forth with Amazon, they replied with this:

The root cause for this issue was that you were trying to update parent skus without retaining parent status.

Our technicians have investigated the issue and have informed us to let you know that you must either retain the parent status or remove child relationships first.

This means either submit your feed operations as a "PartialUpdate" rather than a full "Update" or you will have to need to remove all of the child relationships that currently exist on these erroring SKUs. Or you can submit a full "Update" and include the fact that these SKUs are a variation parent in their 101 feed.

**To fix this, export all the SKUs getting this error from the Needing Attention page and create an Inventory Uploader file to submit directly to Amazon. You can download the template by going to Inventory > Upload Products & Inventory, and selecting the Inventory Uploader file directly in Seller Central.

Then follow these steps:

-Change the product data in your Inventory Loader files for this SKU so that it matches the data from your last successful submission.
-Enter "0" (zero) in the quantity column.
-Enter "x" in the add-delete column.
-Submit your modified Inventory Loader file. This removes any active offerings from Amazon.com.

Amazon lists other steps after these; however, simply submitting your feed via CA will take care of the rest. If you continue to have trouble please contact Support:

http://ssc.ChannelAdvisor.com/support

Can I add a phone number for my Amazon customers to call me?

To add your Customer service phone number, log in to your Amazon Seller Central account and choose "Account Info" under the "Settings" tab. In the "Seller Information" section add your phone number to the "Customer Service Phone" field.

How do I charge extra shipping for areas such as Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico?

In order to charge more to the outer areas for eBay you will need to implement the eBay shipping surcharge table.
This is configured within your eBay account and then you need to select the option to use the surcharge table within your posting templates in CA.
You can find more detailed instructions on this process here:
http://ssc.ChannelAdvisor.com/howto/implementing-shipping-rate-table-ebay-listings

As for Amazon, the shipping is set up within your Amazon account also, but there is no need to alter anything within ChannelAdvisor.
Please go to the Settings > Shipping Settings in your SellerCentral account and you should see the region break down to charge more for the outer areas.

Why is there no "Browse Node" field in my Amazon US template?

The browse node field is not used for Amazon US. It is only used for the European Amazon sites so you will see it if you are posting from ChannelAdvisor to Amazon UK, FR, or DE.

In Amazon US the "Category" and "Item Type" fields serve the same purpose as the "Browse Node" field, however, Amazon always has the final call for the placement of any item in their catalog.

How often does ChannelAdvisor check Amazon for new orders?

Order information is retrieved from Amazon within 5 minutes of being made available by Amazon however they have to be cleared by Amazon's fraud check first which are subject to a 90 minute hold and can also take up to 15 minutes for Amazon to prepare the order report.

You can find more information on the Processing & Communication Frequency for each Marketplace on our Strategy and Support Center here:

https://ssc.ChannelAdvisor.com/howto/processing-communication-frequency-marketplaces

How can I resolve multiple match errors for Amazon?

To resolve these errors what you have to do is go to the Marketplaces > Amazon > Products > Needing attention view and click on the link in each sku called:

"click here to select which Amazon item best matches the sku that you are sending."

Choose an option in the next view by clicking "Use this item" and click "Accept". Once this is completed, you can re-submit the feed and the items will be sent to Amazon as intended.

This process is also detailed here:
http://ssc.ChannelAdvisor.com/howto/amazon-selecting-multiple-product-matches

If the multiple match errors persist you may not have provided enough information on the item for Amazon to make a proper match. Add more information to the item and template, specifically in the following fields:

Brand
Manufacturer
Manufacturer Part Number

How can I setup Amazon FR and DE?

The setup is much the same as Amazon US/UK but you will have to create a new posting account for the FR and DE posting locales.

The setup guide can be found here: http://ssc.ChannelAdvisor.com/howto/amazon-getting-started-on-your-own

You can request new posting accounts here: http://ssc.ChannelAdvisor.com/support/common-requests/request-new-posting-account

I have the error "Orders failed for unknown reason" but the order has come through?

This is pretty normal and is nothing to worry about. If we try to import the orders and fail once that error will occur. But we will keep trying for 48 hours. So if amazon is not available because of an update or downtime, or if we are doing an update, we should not miss anything.

If the error occurs several times, it may be wise to confirm that the sku on amazon is the same as the sku in our system.

If you are seeing this error continue for more than 48 hours, please let us know. You can file a support ticket here:

http://ssc.ChannelAdvisor.com/support