A purchase order is an official document that a buyer offers a seller in which the buyer commits to pay a nominal fee for specific products that need to be delivered. On Amazon vendor central, a purchase order is identified using a unique number that pertains to the number of items, SKU, and other product details. On vendor central, PO or purchase orders are sent from Amazon to a vendor, usually when there is a peak in demand for a particular product.
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Orders: Here, vendors provide information regarding the shipment and have to click on the “receive purchases orders” tab on vendor central.
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Items: Here, vendors need the product information on the product and can upload images, edit pricing, and other such details.
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Merchandising: Here, vendors can access features like Amazon Vine and A+ Premium content. Vendors can also market their product listings.
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Payment: Here, vendors need to keep track of invoices and remittances.
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Processing the Purchase Order Form
An Amazon vendor can either be a manufacturer or a supplier who delivers products to Amazon directly. Amazon vendors can also be third-party merchants wherein they can deliver products to Amazon’s warehouses on behalf of the supplier. Amazon vendors won’t receive purchase orders immediately after setting up a product especially since the ordering process is automated by Amazon. Before deciding whether to order a product or not, Amazon’s system will look at the sales history as well as the current market demand for that specific product. If the sales performance is low, PO will be minimum and once this increases or becomes a high-demand product, the purchase orders will grow larger subsequently.
Sometimes there might be a situation where a vendor may not possess enough stock to fulfil a purchase order so in such a case there are two options: either you can cancel the PO or you can place it on backorder till your product supply is fulfilled. In order to make sure you don’t receive a heavy PO, while you have limited or no stock, always remember to mark those items temporarily or permanently unavailable. As a vendor, you cannot issue too many backorders since there’s a certain percentage set by Amazon, and in case you do this, you’ll be issued a chargeback for the non-delivery of items. Amazon vendor central relies heavily on EDI for its purchase order, advance shipping notice (ASN), and other shipping & packaging data for appropriate data filing.
Is It Important?
EDI (electronic data interchange) is a technical exchange of data between the vendor and Amazon that is electronically transfigured, and it relates to processing the purchase orders and invoices one receives on vendor central. EDI documents consist of the following documents: Purchase Order, PO Confirmation Receipt, Advance Ship Notice, Invoice and 128 Label. You can either hire Amazon Human resources to manage your purchase orders on vendor central, or you can integrate EDI using reliable network services. Whether you’re a first/ second or third-party seller, it is important to streamline certain processes for quick shipment & delivery to Amazon fulfilment centres. Your business should include the ability to transmit or receive necessary EDI-compliant documents from Amazon vendor central.
Amazon Chargebacks for Vendor Central
For Vendor central customers, Amazon places chargebacks on items that have not been processed properly, once the POD is generated. It is important you understand how chargeback works, to avoid loss of time and money, especially once the PO is received. Each Amazon chargeback is unique and there are two categories for this: Shipping and Packaging
Purchase order issue is one of the most common Amazon chargebacks, which involves the failure to confirm PO forms in time, shipping extra/ lesser units, or violating Amazon guidelines by delaying the shipment.
If the designated shipments that arrive at Amazon’s fulfilment centres violate certain guidelines, such as missing labels or barcode issues, it is an issue of receiving the shipment, and a chargeback is issued.
If the items are not properly packaged, especially items that are delicate, or are made of glass or any other breakable material, then this calls for Amazon chargeback.
Vendors are supposed to send the ASN correctly from Vendor Central or through EDI while shipping items to Amazon’s fulfilment centre. If there is any error with the ASN, it can incur an Amazon chargeback.
If there is any failure in setting up routing requests for the products, or any specified shipping and delivery fee policies occur, then it can also result in an Amazon chargeback, especially if the vendor hasn’t paid additional fees for the delivery.
PO Processing
On vendor central, the process of making the PO and generating an order confirmation slip from/ as a supplier is a necessary step once you receive the PO from Amazon on your account. In order to do this, you need to do the following:
1. On your Vendor Central account, find the “Order” tab and select
2. Next, click on the “Purchase Order” tab and wait for the PO to open
3. Click on “Confirm New PO” and extract this file onto a Microsoft excel sheet
4. To confirm new PO: Go to Orders > Purchase Orders, in the Action items section, select “Confirm New Po”.
5. Select the check box in the left column for each purchase order you want to confirm and open the selected PO.
6. Before you confirm your purchase orders, you can make changes to the availability in the fields table.
7. Once confirmed and downloaded, click “Submit”.
Availability Acknowledgement Code on Amazon
The availability acknowledgement code you select impacts Amazon’s buying decision. In some cases, if you are unable to process certain items due to stock unavailability, Amazon will add this to the next PO, and reorder again. Orders will be suspended for 30 days unless you don’t change the status or until you restock. Selecting the “Permanently Unavailable” status indicates that you will not have this product available in the foreseeable future.
It’s important for vendors to understand that by confirming items on a PO, you agree to deliver those said products within that delivery window. If you deliver products outside of the designated delivery window, the PO can be cancelled and items could be rejected and subject to chargebacks. If you no longer anticipate fulfilling a PO-lined item within the delivery window, we encourage you to cancel it.
Add SKU or Other Process
This includes a process where the vendor needs to fill in the necessary information after downloading the PO from his/ her vendor central account. Vendors make a new document that includes product details like the brand name, SKU, quantity, and shipping estimates, and remove the ASIN of each product.
In the case of third-party merchants, the document needs to be sent across to the supplier as well for confirmation or else you can order the products directly from their webshop. Vendors/ suppliers keep with them a confirmation slip while sending the products to Amazon fulfilment centres either via a merchant or directly. Once you’ve ordered the products (either via mail or webshop), and generated an order confirmation slip/ packing slip, only then should you accept & confirm the PO on Amazon. This ensures you get a good amount of time, well in hand, to ready the shipment while it reaches the vendor’s warehouse. Once items reach a vendor’s warehouse, the items are cross-checked using the “Order Confirmation Slip” against the PO form provided by the vendor.
Downloading Order Confirmation Slips
All vendors have gone through the nightmare of processing POD while submitting the invoice to Amazon for every PO that’s generated and completed. And sometimes, vendors fail to ensure a 100% guarantee, and it’s mostly related to the proof of delivery (POD). Once the products are shipped to the respectable Amazon fulfilment centre, your next task is to provide transportation details/ shipping documents and order confirmation slips.
This means that to avoid any kind of chargebacks, POD is important since it consists of necessary details regarding shipment. Most vendors use domestic/ international courier services that offer tracking details of the order, and also issue order confirmation slips (sent by the supplier) to avoid mishaps like missing items, the wrong quantity of products, or the wrong brand/ label.
Quick Tip: Once you understand which products are most ordered on the PO forms, you should make sure the suppliers are informed well in advance. Some merchants keep track of stock by regularly getting updates from their suppliers or they hire amazon human resources to do this task. The benefits of having Amazon Human resources are that you can perform multiple functions, avoid chargeback fees (because your account is ready for any mishaps), and the paperwork needed to prevent shipping & packaging issues, can all be dealt with at one time.
This is where BIE can provide a single virtual platform to its customers. You can leave all the paperwork to the pros! And we don’t just supervise PO processing but also help resolve issues like failure to accept POD, invoice-related issues, and much more!
