Overview

Amazon's Order Acknowledgement feed is a critical tool for sellers who manage orders through data feeds rather than the Seller Central interface. This feed lets you confirm that you've successfully received and downloaded an order, flag orders you couldn't process, or cancel orders entirely when specific circumstances arise. Understanding how this feed works is essential for any seller using automated order management systems.

Key Points / What Sellers Need to Know

• Order acknowledgement confirms receipt — The feed tells Amazon whether you successfully downloaded and integrated an order into your fulfillment system, keeping both sides in sync.
• You can cancel orders through this feed — Under specific circumstances, such as a customer-requested cancellation, damaged inventory on single-item orders, or system integration failures, you can use the feed to cancel an order before it ships.
• Custom order IDs are supported — Sellers can map their own internal order IDs and order item IDs to Amazon's identifiers, making it easier to reference orders across subsequent feeds and internal systems.
• Status codes drive the outcome — A "Success" status code confirms the order was received, while a "Failure" status code signals a processing problem and automatically cancels the order without charging the customer.
• Cancellation reasons must be specified — When sending a failure status code, you need to include a reason from a predefined list of options such as customer cancellation, address issues, or inventory problems.

How the Feed Works

The Order Acknowledgement feed operates through Amazon's XML-based feed submission system. Each submission references the Amazon Order ID, which is the unique identifier Amazon assigns to every order regardless of how many items it contains. When you submit the feed, you include a status code indicating whether the order was successfully processed on your end. A success code confirms you've received the order and are moving forward with fulfillment. A failure code tells Amazon that you encountered a problem integrating the order into your system and cannot process it. It is important to note that the failure code should only be used for genuine system integration problems, not for fulfillment issues like being out of stock on a particular item.