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[alpinedynamics]

Sorry if this answer is posted elsewhere. If so, just direct me to there.

Here's what I want to do: 1) create a spreadsheet that has 2 fields: order ID and USPS confirmation number. 2) Then upload that spreadsheet to SM. 3) Then utilizing the export feature (which I know how to use) export that same information with all the fields that Amazon uses to upload to Amazon.

I need help with #2.

This may be problematic because a single order can have multiple shipments. But 90% of our amazon orders are for a single item.

Any suggestions? Maybe instead of #1 (self-create a spreadsheet) I export from SM a selected number of orders and use that format.

[alpinedynamics]

P.S. My objective is A) to not manually input shipping info into SM (click order, paste shipping confirmation number, save, etc), and B) to automate the shipping confirmation at Amazon. I think the import/export/upload is the answer. But maybe there's an amazon integration that SM has (like xml) that I'm unaware of. That would be even better than import/export/upload.

[David Johns]

alpinedynamics,

You can streamline both of these.  First of all you'll need to set up a simple import format to import the tracking IDs:

• Go to "View", "Program Settings" and select the "Import Formats" tab
• Click on "Add..." and enter a name for your new import format
• Set "This format imports" to "Shipments"
• Set the "Shipping carrier" to the carrier you most often use for shipping your orders.  You can have it import a different carrier for each shipment if you want, but if none is provided, this carrier will be
• If you have a header line before the actual order data, set "Header lines" to "1" (or more if you have more)
• Under delimiters, check "Tab"
• Check the option "Update Order Status After Import".  This will make it automatically upload tracking IDs to Amazon, Yahoo and other supported shopping carts right after importing
• In the big box at the bottom copy and paste the following line

Code Select Expand

shipment_id shipment_tracking_id

Then click "Ok" to save and close the program settings.

To use the import, save a file, such as an excel spreadsheet in tab delimited format and go in SuperManager to "File", "Import", "<import_format_name>".  After you select the file you created, it should give you a report showing the shipments that were imported and then ask you if you want to send out the shipment updates.  Choose "Yes" and your tracking numbers will be uploaded to Amazon.

Let me know if you get it working or if you have any questions.

Thanks,
David

[alpinedynamics]

Thanks! That works great. Two questions:

1) If I add "ship-method" (a field from SM's default Export-->Amazon.com Status Update file) to the fields you show above (both to my spreadsheet for import and to the "Export Formats" that I just created) will that update the shipping method on Amazon to whatever I indicate in the spreadsheet that I import?

2) This is less important, because it's rare for us, but if there are two shipments for the same order how does that work?

[David Johns]

1. Amazon does require some type of ship-method be sent with status updates.  One update we made in a recent beta release was adding the ability to set a custom name for that ship method.  However, currently its only supported to set one custom name per ship method.  So, for example, usually Amazon has kind of cryptic names for ship methods like "Std Cont US Street Addr".  You could set the alternative name that gets sent back to Amazon to "Standard Domestic Shipping".  Or if you always - or almost always use USPS First Class Mail, you could just set it to "USPS First Class Mail" if you want.  You can set this by going to "View", "Store Settings", selecting the "Custom Fields" tab and double clicking on each ship method and setting the "Alt Name" field.  I know this may not cover everything you might want to do with this field, but hopefully it helps.  We are certainly open for feedback about what you would like to be able to do.

2. You can append a -2 (ex: for order 1234 it would be 1234-2) for the second shipment and so forth.

[alpinedynamics]

I'll try it out Monday. Thanks much for the thorough reply.

[alpinedynamics]

Can you tell me the risk or the downside to trying the latest Beta? The upsides are obvious because you get the latest features.

Also, do you know if the ship-method required by Amazon is something the customer sees? Perhaps there's no huge benefit anyway to using a helpful description like "Priority Mail" (vs. "Std Cont US Street Addr" from Amazon) if the customer doesn't even see it either way.

[David Johns]

alpinedynamics,

The current beta has fairly innocuous changes in it other than around exporting orders to QuickBooks, where several improvements have been implemented.  I wouldn't expect new issues other than in that area, perhaps.

It is my understanding that the ship-method is visible to the customer, bit honestly I can't confirm that from firsthand experience.

Thanks,
David

[alpinedynamics]

I just updated to the beta and did as you instructed. My alt name field is "USPS Priority Mail".

Please confirm my understanding: if I go through the process you described in your first reply to this thread (now that I'm using the alt name field), now all my shipping uploads to Amazon will show "USPS Priority Mail" as the ship-method? If I have a one-off First Class mail shipment, I should probably do that manually instead of importing a spreadsheet?

Is there anyway to use the spreadsheet to show the ship-method individually for each shipment? (This isn't a big deal since 90% of our stuff goes Priority, but thought I would ask).

[David Johns]

Yes, it will use the same ship-method for all orders having that same ship method selected by Amazon and the user.  What you could do is create another ship method manually and switch the order to that ship method before updating from the spreadsheet and allowing SuperManager to send the update back to Amazon.  So you could create a ship method in your store settings on the custom fields tab called first class mail, switch any orders that need to be to that, then import your spreadsheet and allow SuperManager to upload the shipment updates. This would require a little manual work, but much less than manually doing everything in seller central.

[alpinedynamics]

Thanks