What are Amazon APIs?

For ease of understanding, an Application Programming Interface (API) is like a software mediator that allows two or more softwares to interact with each other for better functionality. Between Amazon and Shopify, you  (the Shopify user), obtain access and license to  duplicate the functions and/or make use of database information from Amazon.

How are Amazon APIs relevant to your Shopify website?

Amazon APIs help you grow your Shopify business, integrating features that promote convenience for both you and your buyers. We can categorize Amazon APIs into three (3) according to the required type of Amazon Account: payment APIs, web service APIs (AWS APIs) and product advertisement APIs.

1.      The Amazon Pay API

Lets your customer pay for your Shopify products using their Amazon account. This will automatically retrieve their shipping and payment information and gives you, the seller, authority  to implement payment-related measures (e.g. refunds).

2.      The Amazon Web Service API (AWS API)

Category is the most popular among website developers. These are APIs that are used for cloud software creation and management.  For Shopify sellers like you, it allows you to track and manage incoming and outgoing data in your Shopify website; allows you to  secure your database and contents from threats; allows you to transcode media to other platform formats, and much more.

3.      The Amazon Product Advertisement API

Gives you access to Amazon’s product inventory and allows you to monetize your Shopify website via paid advertisements. You basically give consent to Amazon to advertise within your Shopify website for a certain fee.

How can you integrate Amazon API’s into your Shopify Website?

Before you can make use of these API’s, you first have to create an account on Amazon depending on what type of API you are going to use. Let’s breakdown these procedures according to the categories mentioned above.

Amazon Pay API

Amazon pay has been pre-integrated into Shopify. Unlike other websites wherein you’ll need further programming, Shopify sellers only need to activate Amazon pay on their Shopify admin  account.

1. Sign up for an Amazon Seller Account if you still don’t have one
   
   

2. Sign in to your Shopify Admin Portal
   
   

3. On the lower left hand corner, click “Settings”, then click “Payment Providers”
   
   

4. Scroll down to the Amazon Pay box, then click “Activate Amazon Pay” (You’ll be redirected to the Amazon Merchant Log-in Page)
   
   

5. Input your Amazon Seller log-in information.
   
   

6. Enter your Shopify website URL under “Domain” field. Likewise, enter your Privacy Policy URL.
   
   

7. Allow Shopify to access your Amazon merchant account credentials by clicking the “Transfer Credentials” button. When you’re redirected back to the Shopify admin portal, this means that you have successfully activated Amazon Pay in your Shopify website.
   
   

8. You can double check this by navigating to the Amazon Pay box within the Payment Providers page and click “Manage”. You should see  your Amazon Seller details in the boxes. You can also enable payment test mode by checking the box on the lower sections (just make sure to uncheck it once you officially start  receiving payments).

Amazon Product Advertisement API

Before gaining access to the APP-API, sign up first for an Amazon Associate Account where you input a link to your Shopify website, specify product niches that you are open to advertise, choose the payment approach for which you want to receive your commissions through, and many more.

1. Once you have your Associate Account, it is now time for you to sign up for the Amazon Product Advertisement API.
   
   

2. On the associate portal, navigate to “Tools” and click on “Product Advertising API”
   
   

3. You will then see a “Put the Product Advertising API to work for you” box. Click on “Join”.
   
   

4. Input the necessary information
   
   

5. After such, navigate to the Download Credentials page and click on “download credentials”. These credentials will have to be inputted every time you make requests to the Amazon Product Advertising API (just like a password!). As an alternative to your credentials, corresponding access and secret keys will be generated for every set of credentials.

   
   

   
   

   Once you’re already eligible to advertise Amazon products, it’s time to embed the ads to your Shopify website.

Remember that for every ad you share, you need to log in to your Amazon Associate Account. There are 2 ways to generate Amazon ads for your Shopify website:

• Pre-generate links from your Amazon dashboard.

  Go to your Amazon dashboard, click on “quick links”, search for your product/niche, then select “get link”. You’ll be asked to specify the contents that you want to include in the ad (with a live preview). After which, an HTML code will be generated which you can embed on your Shopify website.

  
  

• Generate product links through the Amazon SiteStrip tool.

  You don’t need to navigate to your dashboard. The SiteStrip tool is  found on top of each product page. Again, you will be asked to customize your ad. Similar to option A, a link will be generated which you can copy and paste to your Shopify website.

  
  

Amazon Web Service (AWS API)

This API category encompasses all other Amazon API’s that help you manage and grow your Shopify business. You need not have an Amazon Seller account for this.

1. Create an Amazon Web Service Account through the Amazon Web Services Home page

2. Provide your company information and choose “Create Account and Continue”

3. Add a payment method, verify your contact details, choose an AWS support plan then wait for account activation.

Once your application for an AWS account has been approved, you’re now ready to buy or avail of all the other Amazon API’s.

Each AWS API product has its own set of protocols to follow for utilization. Make sure to read through their corresponding documentations available on the AWS portal itself.

What other Amazon APIs can you take advantage of for your Shopify Business/Website?

Apart from the Pay API and  Product Advertisement API, there are over 200+ Amazon Software Creation and Management APIs that software developers can use to optimize their products.  For the benefit of your Shopify website, here are other Amazon APIs you can checkout and their corresponding functions:

As a closing question for this brief tutorial, is it a MUST to use Amazon API’s on your Shopify website?

The answer is no, it isn’t a must. And this applies to all cloud API’s in general, not just to Amazon. However, there are a lot of API’s to cater to non-computer programmers. So if you’re looking for a faster, more convenient way to up your Shopify game, then Amazon API’s are your way to go!