Amazon Vendor Central is the 1P wholesale relationship: Amazon issues a purchase order, owns the goods and sets the price. AIMS360 runs the EDI natively, from the 850 through the ASN and invoice, on the same record as your other retailers.
Amazon sends a purchase order, takes ownership of the goods, sets the retail price and pays you on vendor terms. Everything that goes wrong in that relationship goes wrong at the seam between what you shipped and what you told Amazon you shipped. AIMS360 removes the seam by generating both from the same scan.
Vendor Central is Amazon's first party wholesale program. Amazon issues a purchase order at an agreed cost, you ship the goods to a fulfillment center, and Amazon takes ownership. Amazon then sets the retail price and appears as the seller of record, so the listing reads ships from and sold by Amazon.com. It is invite only, with no public signup.
Operationally it is the most familiar of the Amazon programs to an apparel brand, because it is a wholesale account. A buyer commits to units, you ship pallets, you invoice. What is unfamiliar is the enforcement. Amazon measures the relationship continuously and prices every defect, which is where brands used to a forgiving department store relationship get caught.
Payment commonly runs Net 60 to 90, which is worth planning against if you are also running Seller Central, where money arrives on a very different rhythm.
The shape of the relationship. Your vendor agreement decides which are required for your specific programs.
| Document | Direction | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| 850 | Amazon to you | The purchase order. Units, cost, ship window. |
| 855 | You to Amazon | Purchase order acknowledgment. Confirms what you will actually fill. |
| 856 | You to Amazon | Advance ship notice. Must land before the freight does, and carries the carton data. |
| 810 | You to Amazon | Invoice. Paper invoices are a chargeback category in their own right. |
| 846 | You to Amazon | Inventory advice. Critical, and frequent, if you run Direct Fulfillment. |
| 860 | Amazon to you | Purchase order change. Quantities and dates move. |
| 753 / 754 | Both | Routing request and carrier routing instructions on collect freight. The 754 returns the Amazon reference number. |
| 997 | Both | Functional acknowledgment. The document whose absence is your first warning. |
| 820 | Amazon to you | Remittance advice. What was actually paid, and what was deducted. |
Every carton needs an SSCC-18 serial shipping container code, printed as a GS1-128 barcode, unique, non duplicated, scannable at receipt, and matching the 856 exactly. That last word is doing the work. A label that scans but describes different contents than the ASN says is worse than no label, because it produces a receiving discrepancy Amazon prices.
If your routing guide calls for a UCC 128 label, that is the same thing. UCC 128 is the legacy name for the standard now formally called GS1-128, after the Uniform Code Council became part of GS1, and the SSCC-18 is the 18 digit serial number the barcode encodes. Vendor guides still use both names interchangeably, Amazon's included, which trips up brands who go looking for two different label formats. UCC 128 label printing is built into AIMS360 rather than bolted on beside it.
That matters more than it sounds. An EDI translator sitting next to the ERP has to be told what shipped. The warehouse knows what shipped. Any drift between those two is a chargeback waiting for a receiving dock.
In AIMS360 the UCC 128 carton label and the 856 come from the same scan, so the carton and the file cannot drift apart.
Apparel orders are a matrix. The UPC per size has to be right on the PO, the carton, the ASN and the invoice, which is native data in AIMS360 rather than a flat SKU list.
The 856 has to arrive ahead of the freight. Generating it at pack time rather than as an end of day task is what keeps that true on a heavy shipping day.
The 810 is built from scanned quantities, not ordered quantities, which is the single biggest lever on shortage claims.
Amazon publishes a set of named vendor chargeback categories, roughly fifteen across North America and the EU, covering ASN accuracy, carton content accuracy, carton information compliance, oversized and overweight cartons, prep issues, paper invoices, no shows, rejected deliveries and PO on time accuracy, among others. Chargebacks are disputable, generally within thirty days of appearing in Vendor Central, so somebody has to be watching for them.
The change worth knowing about: Amazon raised the on time shipment expectation for North American vendors from 90 percent to 95 percent in early 2026, with defects surfaced from late January and invoiced from late February. Reported penalties include 3 percent of cost of goods for shipments that are not on time. Confirm the current thresholds and rates against your own vendor terms, because these are set per vendor and change.
Separate from chargebacks, and usually larger. Amazon deducts the difference between the units you invoiced and the units it says it received. Root causes cluster in a short list: an ASN that does not match the cartons, labels that do not scan or repeat, catalog data mismatches, in transit loss, and receiving errors at the fulfillment center.
Only the first three are yours to fix, and all three are fixed the same way. If the ASN, the label and the invoice all derive from the same scan event, the only shortages left to argue about are the ones that genuinely happened after the goods left you, and those are the ones you can actually win.
Direct Fulfillment is Amazon's 1P dropship program, available only to Vendor Central accounts. You hold the inventory in your own warehouse and publish availability to Amazon, usually by 846 inventory feed. When a customer orders, Amazon issues a dropship purchase order and you ship the parcel direct to the consumer on Amazon's prepaid label. Amazon still sets the price, still shows as seller of record, and still pays you wholesale on vendor terms.
| Bulk Vendor Central | Direct Fulfillment | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the stock sits | Amazon fulfillment center | Your warehouse or 3PL |
| What you ship | Pallets and cartons on a PO | Single parcels to consumers |
| Freight | Collect or prepaid per your terms | Amazon's prepaid label |
| Inventory signal | The PO is the signal | 846 feed, kept close to real time |
| Warehouse chargeback surface | Full, including shortage claims | Largely does not apply |
| Who absorbs pick and pack | Amazon | You |
This one gets conflated constantly, and the reason is fair: on the packing bench the two are indistinguishable. You hold the stock, you pick a parcel, you ship it to a consumer. The difference is who you are in the transaction.
Direct Fulfillment is the Vendor Central program described above. Amazon is the seller of record, Amazon sets the retail price, you ship on Amazon's prepaid label, and you are paid wholesale cost on vendor payment terms. FBM, or Fulfilled by Merchant, is a Seller Central option. There you are the seller of record, you set the price, you pay your own freight, and you receive the retail price less Amazon's referral fee.
Same operation in the warehouse. Opposite economics on the profit and loss. Amazon does not help by routing Direct Fulfillment through a portal called Drop Ship Central, since dropship is a word most people already associate with merchant fulfillment. The full side by side comparison is on the Amazon hub.
Whichever one you run, the operational requirement is the same: published availability has to match reality. If it drifts, Amazon sells units you cannot ship and you cancel consumer orders, which is the failure mode both programs punish hardest. Publishing from a live available to sell number, and holding a buffer, is the whole discipline.
The Amazon connection is part of AIMS360, not a separate subscription, and AIMS360 charges no per document or per kilocharacter fees of its own. See native EDI.
UCC 128 label printing is built in, so the carton label, the ASN and the invoice all come from one scan rather than three systems.
Amazon orders land in order management beside your other retailers, wholesale and DTC, rather than in a portal somebody remembers to check.
Vendor Central and Seller Central draw on the same available to sell number, so a marketplace sale cannot quietly consume units promised on a PO.
When an Amazon PO and another retailer want the same units, allocation rules settle it deliberately.
A third party warehouse maps to a real location, so the ASN and tracking come from wherever the freight actually left.
What brands ask when an Amazon PO shows up.
Vendor Central is Amazon's first party wholesale program. Amazon issues you a purchase order at an agreed cost, you ship the goods to an Amazon fulfillment center, and Amazon takes ownership. Amazon then sets the retail price and appears as the seller of record. The listing reads ships from and sold by Amazon.com. It is invite only, with no public signup.
The core flow is the 850 purchase order in, the 855 acknowledgment back, the 856 advance ship notice before the goods arrive, and the 810 invoice. Around that sit the 846 inventory advice, the 860 purchase order change, the 997 functional acknowledgment, the 753 and 754 routing request and instructions for collect freight, and the 820 remittance advice. Your own vendor agreement decides which are required for your programs.
Each carton carries an SSCC-18 serial shipping container code printed as a GS1-128 barcode, the standard still widely called UCC 128. The label must be unique, not duplicated across cartons, scannable at receipt, and must match the 856 advance ship notice exactly. Label and ASN mismatches are what drive carton content accuracy and ASN accuracy chargebacks.
Yes. UCC 128 is the legacy name for the barcode standard now formally called GS1-128, after the Uniform Code Council became part of GS1. Retailer vendor guides, including Amazon's, still use both names, and the SSCC-18 is the 18 digit serial shipping container code that the barcode encodes. If a routing guide asks for a UCC 128 label and your system prints GS1-128, that is the same label. See UCC 128 label printing in AIMS360.
Yes, over EDI, as part of the ERP rather than a separate subscription. Amazon purchase orders land in the same order queue as your other retailers, draw on the same style, color and size inventory, and the ASN is generated from the same scan that packed the carton. AIMS360 charges no per document or per kilocharacter fees of its own.
Amazon deducts the difference between what you invoiced and what it says it received. The usual root causes are an ASN that does not match what was actually in the cartons, carton labels that do not scan or are duplicated, catalog data mismatches, and receiving errors at the fulfillment center. The defense is the same in each case, which is generating the ASN and the invoice from scanned cartons rather than from the order.
Amazon raised the on time shipment expectation for North American vendors from 90 percent to 95 percent in early 2026, with defects surfaced from late January and invoiced from late February 2026. Note that Amazon does not use the term OTIF, which belongs to Walmart and Target. Amazon measures on time shipment rate, purchase order confirmation and ship window adherence. Confirm current thresholds against your vendor terms.
Direct Fulfillment is Amazon's 1P dropship program, available only to Vendor Central accounts. You hold the inventory in your own warehouse and publish availability to Amazon, usually by 846 inventory feed. When a customer orders, Amazon issues a dropship purchase order and you ship the parcel direct to the consumer using Amazon's prepaid label. Amazon still sets the price, still appears as seller of record, and still pays you wholesale on vendor terms.
No, although the warehouse work is identical. In both cases you hold the stock and ship a parcel to the consumer. The difference is the commercial relationship. Direct Fulfillment is this Vendor Central 1P program: Amazon is the seller of record, Amazon sets the retail price, you ship on Amazon's prepaid label and you are paid wholesale on vendor terms. FBM, or Fulfilled by Merchant, is a Seller Central 3P option: you are the seller of record, you set the price, you pay your own freight and you receive the retail price less Amazon's referral fee. Same operation on the packing bench, opposite economics on the P and L. There is a full comparison here.
Not with AIMS360. The EDI is part of the ERP, so the ASN comes from the system that scanned the cartons and printed the labels. A translator sitting beside the ERP has to be told what shipped, and that second copy of the truth is what eventually disagrees with the freight, which on Amazon becomes a shortage claim.
Last reviewed 17 August 2026. The EDI document set, carton labeling requirements, chargeback categories and on time shipment thresholds described here reflect publicly reported Amazon vendor requirements as of August 2026. Vendor terms are agreed per vendor and Amazon revises them regularly, so confirm current specifics against Vendor Central and your own vendor agreement rather than against any summary, including this one.
Bring your Amazon PO, your messiest size run and your chargeback history to a demo, and we will walk the documents, the labels and where the deductions are actually coming from.
