Listings Management Workflow Migration

This guide explains how to migrate listings management workflows from XML and flat file listings submissions to the Listings Items API and JSON_LISTINGS_FEED. This is necessary to prepare for the deprecation of legacy feed types.

Review the Building Listing Management Workflows Guide prior to this migration guide.

Benefits

The guidance offered here describes the following benefits for both sellers and vendors:

• Full data requirements in product schemas
• Availability of pre-submission validation rules
• Sync and async feedback mechanisms
• Up-to-date product type data requirements that ensure you are using the latest version, unlike XMLs
• Uniformity in schemas across data requirements, unlike XML in the past that led to errors for developers uploading multiple categories
• Reducing the effort required to map flat file or XML attributes to Listings APIs and the JSON_LISTINGS_FEED
• Reducing human/manual input errors leading to submission errors and abandoned selections
• Easier management of large catalogs and sending of full selections with no upload constraints

API versions

This guide references operations in the following Selling Partner API sections. For more detailed information about building workflows using these sections, refer to the Building Listings Management Workflows Guide. For more detailed information about the individual API sections, follow the referenced links.

Feed types

This guide references the following feed types used with the Feeds API. For more detailed information about feed types, refer to Listings Feed Type Values.

Terminology

• JSON Schema: JSON is the serialization format used by the APIs, notifications, and feed formats described in this guide. JSON Schema is a vocabulary for annotating, describing, and validating JSON content and is used by the Product Type Definitions API to describe the data model for Catalog Items and Listings Items. Refer to http://json-schema.org/overview/what-is-jsonschema for more details about JSON Schema.
• JSON_LISTINGS_FEED: The JSON_LISTINGS_FEED is a bulk feed format contractually compatible with the Listings Items API and is interchangeable with the individual Listings Items API operations.
• XML Schema (XSD): XML is the serialization format used by some listings feed types (for example, POST_PRODUCT_DATA). XML Schema (XSD) is the specification for describing and validating XML content. Refer to https://www.w3.org/XML/Schema for more details about XML Schema (XSD).
• Category XSDs: Category XSDs define the category-specific data modeling for POST_PRODUCT_DATA XML feed submissions.
• Listings Item: Represents an item (that is, a listing) in a selling partner catalog that is uniquely identified by a selling partner-provided SKU and represents the product facts and sales terms for an item sold on or fulfilled by Amazon.
• Variation Family: A variation family is a collection of similar items that vary by color, size, or other attributes used to provide a single detail page experience for buyers on Amazon. For example, a clothing article can come in multiple colors, multiple sizes, and multiple styles. Each unique combination of color, size, and style is represented by a separate item in the variation family.
• FBA: (Fulfilled by Amazon) Items sold on Amazon and fulfilled by Amazon.
• MFN: (Merchant Fulfillment Network) Items sold on Amazon and fulfilled by the seller.

Migration tutorial

The steps to migrate your listings workflow depend on your use case and business needs. Follow these steps to determine the strategy appropriate for you:

1. Understand your use cases and review the iterative workflow migration strategies.
2. Select the migration workflow that will help you migrate your use case:
   • Iterate on the migration by data type. For example: product, inventory, or images.
   • Onboarding to new API and notification features.
   • Create offer-only workflows.
   • Expand to product types and marketplaces.
3. Review and navigate to the individual workflows that apply to the Feed type you are planning to migrate. Legacy Product Feeds types can be XML-based or flat file based:
   • For XML-based Feeds type migration, follow the appropriate workflow:
     • Migrating product feeds workflows: This guide will help you migrate from POST_PRODUCT_DATA feed type.
     • Migrating inventory feeds workflows: This guide will help you migrate from POST_INVENTORY_AVAILABILITY_DATA feed type.
     • Migrating pricing feeds workflows: This guide will help you migrate from POST_PRODUCT_PRICING_DATA feed type.
     • Migrating image feeds workflows: This guide will help you migrate from POST_PRODUCT_IMAGE_DATA feed type.
     • Migrating relationship feeds workflows: This guide will help you migrate from POST_PRODUCT_RELATIONSHIP_DATA feed type.
     • Migrating shipping override feeds workflows: This guide will help you migrate from POST_PRODUCT_OVERRIDES_DATA feed type.
   • For flat file based Feeds type migration, follow the Migrating flat file feeds workflows. This guide will help you migrate from flat file based POST_FLAT_FILE_LISTINGS_DATA and POST_FLAT_FILE_INVLOADER_DATA feed types.
4. Create a mapping file to map product attributes from category and flat file feed types to Listings Items API and JSON-based feeds using the data mappings provided in Mapping product attributes to the Listings Items API.