Tutorial: Create a shipment when the seller knows the carton-level information up-front

This tutorial describes how to create a shipment when the seller knows carton-level information.

Prerequisites

To complete this tutorial, you need:

• Authorization from the selling partner for whom you are making calls. For more information, refer to Authorizing Selling Partner API applications.
• Approval for the Amazon Fulfillment role and the Product Listing role in your developer profile.
• The Amazon Fulfillment role and Product Listing role selected in the App registration page for your application.
• To have created your listings and understand whether your items are eligible to be shipped to Amazon's fulfillment network (instructions included in optional step section)

Workflow

The following table outlines the steps to create a shipment when the seller knows carton-level information. This table is an illustrative example and does not include all of the optional operations.

Step 1. Create an Inbound Plan

Create an Inbound Plan by calling the asynchronous createInboundPlan operation. An Inbound Plan represents a collection of items that you intend to inbound into Amazon's fulfillment network. By calling the createInboundPlan operation, a seller must specify:

• The address from which the inbound shipments will be sent
• The marketplace where the product would be shipped
• A summary of the items that they intend to inbound

The item summary must include MSKU, quantity, and an indication of who will prepare and label the item. Note that AMAZON can only be selected as the label owner if you are enrolled in the FBA Label Service. For more information about the FBA Label Service, refer to Seller Central Help for your marketplace.

Make sure each item you're shipping conforms to Amazon's product packaging requirements. For more information, refer to Packaging and Prep Requirements in Seller Central Help. For more information about Amazon's product packaging requirements for your marketplace, refer to Seller Central URLs. Note that sellers can set the Prep Category for SKUs on Send to Amazon. This can be done one by one or up to 25 at a time. This is a one-time activity per SKU that carries over to all future inbound plans.

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Note

Multiple expiration dates per SKU on a single inbound plan is not supported. To send a SKU with multiple expiration dates to the fulfillment network, you need to create multiple plans.

Optionally, a seller can include each item's expiration date and manufacturing lot code. A successful response includes an inboundPlanId that uniquely identifies the inbound plan, synonymous with the concept of "workflow ID", which is generated on Send to Amazon (the shipment creation workflow on Seller Central).

Check the status of a call

Check the status of an inbound request by using the getInboundOperationStatus operation. For asynchronous operations, this operation provides the processing status. We omit this step for other asynchronous operations in this tutorial. By calling getInboundOperationStatus, a seller passes the operationId, which is a Universal Unique Identifier (UUID) for the operation.

A successful response includes the request status and any non-blocking errors associated with the request. Non-blocking errors are warnings that can be ignored (for example, when the address is suspected to be wrong, but progression is allowed anyway).

Step 2. Determine which SKUs can be packed together

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Warning

As of February 20, 2025, partial shipment splits are not available on the Send to Amazon workflow for standard-sized products. Partial shipment splits remain available for large bulky products. For more information, refer to 2025 FBA inbound placement service fee.

This step is necessary to determine which items can be packed together. Some items cannot be packed together due to differing handling or fulfillment center requirements. There might be a discount for further separating items.

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Note

There are only discounted options for Small Parcel Delivery (SPD) shipments in the EU. These discounted options can include additional requirements, including that each package must weigh less than 15 kilograms.

To determine which SKUs can be physically packed together, use the following operations:

• generatePackingOptions
• listPackingOptions
• listPackingGroupItems
• confirmPackingOption

A PackingGroup represents a set of SKUs that can be packed together. SKUs that cannot be packed together go into different pack groups. For example, SKUs that are classified as dangerous goods cannot be packed with other SKUs, because dangerous goods SKUs are shipped to special fulfillment centers that can receive them safely. Other factors that determine which SKUs can and cannot be packed together include SKU weights and dimensions, prep and labelling requirements, and barcode requirements.

The PackingOptions object represents the set of options for how items are mapped to packing groups. Each PackingOption includes a set of PackingGroups, which each contain a list of SKUs. Each of these options can have discounts or fees associated with them. Also, each option can be limited to a subset of all possible shipping modes. These packing operations enable the seller to review and select an option.

Step 2a. Generate packing options

Generate packing options with the generatePackingOptions operation.

Step 2b. List packing options

Review a list of the packing options with the listPackingOptions operation. Packing options contain sets of pack groups that a seller can choose, along with additional information that can help a seller choose between these options. Additional information includes fees/discounts associated with each option, shipping modes supported by each option, packing modes supported by each option, package weights supported by each option, and the expiration date of each option.

Step 2c. List items in each packing option

To view the items in each packing group, use the listPackingGroupItems operation.

Step 2d. Select a packing option

Choose a packing option with the confirmPackingOption operation.

Step 3. Provide box content information

To provide information related to the items that will be packed into each box, use the setPackingInformation operation. Providing this information ensures that the shipment splits generated in the subsequent step (generatePlacementOptions) are accurate. If no box information is provided at this step, the shipment splits generated in the next step are based only on the unit information passed to Amazon as part of createInboundPlan. By calling setPackingInformation, a seller must pass the following information for each box that they intend to inbound:

• Packing group ID
• Box content information source
• Box contents (items, item quantities, prep/label owners for each item)
• Box information (dimensions, weight, and quantity of boxes)

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Note

If a seller provides box packing information using setPackingInformation, generates placement options, and then edits their box packing information using setPackingInformation, then the seller needs to call generatePlacementOptions again prior to calling confirmPlacementOption. If a seller inputs their box packing information using setPackingInformation and then decides that they want to discard this information entirely, they need to start a new inbound plan with createInboundPlan. Discarding packing information is not currently supported.

Box content information source indicates how the seller intends to provide box content information, which could be through one of three options:

• Populating the Contents field (BOX_CONTENT_PROVIDED)
• Paying Amazon a fee to enter this information during the receiving process (MANUAL_PROCESS)
• Affixing 2D barcodes to the boxes (BARCODE_2D)

The seller must also provide box dimensions, box weight, and the quantity of each box. When boxAttribute is set toBARCODE_2D or MANUAL_PROCESS:

• You don't need to provide SKUs and quantities.
• You must leave items empty (provide a null value).

A successful response includes the operationId that can be used to determine the status of the operation using getInboundOperationStatus.

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Note

In this flow, pass in the PackingGroupId but omit the ShipmentId.

Step 4. Generate and view options for destination fulfillment centers

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Warning

As of February 20, 2025, partial shipment splits are not available on the Send to Amazon workflow for standard-sized products. Partial shipment splits remain available for large bulky products. For more information, refer to 2025 FBA inbound placement service fee.

Generate placement options for an inbound plan by calling the generatePlacementOptions operation. The PlacementOptions object represents the set of available placement options for an inbound plan, where each placement option describes the destination FCs and shipping options for each item in your inbound plan. These options help reduce the time it takes to receive a seller's items and make them available for sale. Refer to Seller Central Help for more details.

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Note

This operation generates initial shipment IDs for the shipments within each inbound plan. These IDs are different from the shipmentConfirmationIDs that confirmPlacementOption generates. The shipmentConfirmationID is the ID that is present on labels (for example, FBA1234ABCD). You can retrieve both of these shipment ID types with the getShipment operation.

Some of your options can include multiple destinations (refer to Seller Central Help for details). Each option can include fees or discounts, which are determined when your shipment is being created, and is not calculated using a set rate. The rebate value and ship-to location depend on multiple factors, including expected volume, the availability of carrier appointments, and fulfillment speed. The rebate that your shipment is eligible for is provided during shipment creation.

The terms and conditions can change. Review the current Seller Central terms and conditions, including the Amazon Services Business Solutions Agreement.

To view the options for shipment splits, call the listPlacementOptions operation. This operation provides the list of available placement options, which include:

• A placement option ID
• The option status ("offered" or "accepted")
• Any fees/discounts associated with this option
• The expiration date of the option
• The shipment IDs associated with each option

When a placement option expires, you must regenerate placement options by calling generatePlacementOption. The placement option ID is required to generate transportation options with generateTransportationOptions, while shipment IDs are used to understand the contents of each shipment using getShipment.

Step 5. Input transportation data and generate transportation options

Generate transportation options with the generateTransportationOptions operation. A transportation option represents the list of shipping mode and carrier options that are available for each shipment within each placement option. By calling generateTransportationOptions, a seller must pass the following information:

• Placement option ID
• Shipment ID
• Ready to ship date
• Ship from address

Step 6. Generate delivery window options

Call generateDeliveryWindowOptions with the shipmentID of the shipment for which you intend to generate delivery windows.

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Important

Sellers must confirm transportation options for all shipment types. For non-partnered shipments, sellers must also specify a delivery window.

Delivery windows are periods during which a seller can deliver their shipment to the destination fulfillment center. If the seller uses a non-partnered carrier, they must specify a seven-day delivery window for domestic shipments or a 14-day window for international shipments. The window is used to provide a shipment's expected arrival date and time at an Amazon fulfillment center. An available delivery window option is necessary for shipments that don't have an appointment slot with a fulfillment center. For example, shipments through non-partnered carriers need a confirmed delivery window.

Step 7. Review shipment splits and transportation options

Review shipment and transportation options by calling the following operations:

• listPlacementOptions
• listTransportationOptions
• listDeliveryWindowOptions
• getShipment

listPlacementOptions provides the list of available placement options, which includes a placement option ID, the status of the option (that is, offered vs. accepted), any fees/discounts associated with this option, the expiration date of the option, and the shipment IDs associated with each option.

To call listTransportationOptions, a seller needs to pass the placement option ID and shipment ID for which they want to view transportation options. If transportation options are not available for a placement option, call listTransportationOptions again for an alternative placement option. A successful response includes all available transportation quotes for all available ship modes and carrier options. Shipping modes include:

• Ground small parcel
• Less-than-truckload freight
• Full truckload freight (palletized)
• Full truckload freight (non-palletized)
• Less than container load ocean
• Full container load ocean
• Air small parcel
• Air small parcel express

Carrier options include Amazon-partnered and non-partnered carriers. Quotes include:

• Cost
• A void window (the period where a seller can cancel a shipment and receive a refund for their transportation quote)
• Expiration

In regions where fulfillment center appointments are mandatory (for example, India), we provide available appointment slots.

Where the Partnered Carrier Program (PCP) is available, sellers can take advantage of discounted rates by using an Amazon-partnered carrier for their inbound shipments. To use an Amazon-partnered carrier for an inbound shipment, select the transportation option where shippingSolution is AMAZON_PARTNERED_CARRIER.

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Note

Before you use an Amazon-partnered carrier for an inbound shipment, you must read the Seller Central Help about Amazon's PCP to help ensure that you successfully follow the program instructions and guidelines (Europe) (US).

In the EU region, you must first review and accept the terms and conditions of the carrier and the terms and conditions of Amazon's PCP. You can do this on Seller Central. If you attempt to use Amazon Selling Partner APIs to create an inbound shipment by using an Amazon-partnered carrier before accepting these terms and conditions, the service returns an error.

If a seller doesn't want to participate in the PCP, they can view Choose your own carrier transportation options and available shipping modes.

Amazon filters out partnered carrier transportation options in certain situations. For example, if there is a partnered carrier transportation option at a lower price for a placement option that has identical shipment splits, then Amazon filters out the more expensive transportation option. If you plan to use a partnered carrier, call listTransportationOptions for each placement option to see the available partnered carrier options.

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Note

You can include a mix of Small Parcel Delivery (SPD) and LTL shipments in one inbound plan. You can also include a mix of PCP and non-PCP shipments in one inbound plan if:

• The different carrier selections are assigned to different shipping modes (for example SPD and LTL).
• All shipments in the inbound plan are eligible for PCP.

For example, you can create an inbound plan with one PCP SPD shipment and one non-PCP LTL shipment, assuming that all shipments within the inbound plan are eligible for PCP.

For more information about PCP eligibility, refer to the PCP help page.

Review available delivery window options for each shipment within an inbound plan using the listDeliveryWindowOptions operation. To make this call, a seller passes the shipmentID. A successful response provides the startDate and endDate for each available delivery window and the level of congestion (availabilityType) for each option.

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Important

Sellers must confirm transportation options for all shipment types. For non-Amazon partnered shipments, they must also specify a delivery window.

Each option has an expiration date (validUntil). You must confirm the delivery before this date. If you don't confirm the window by the validUntil date, you must generate a new window using listDeliveryWindowOptions.

Review details related to the contents of a shipment within an inbound plan using the getShipment operation. To call getShipment, a seller needs to pass the inbound plan ID and shipment ID. A successful response includes the following:

• Placement option ID
• Shipment confirmed ID (the ID that shows up on labels)
• Shipment ID (the identifier for a shipment prior to the confirmPlacementOption operation)
• Amazon reference ID (identifier for scheduling fulfillment center appointments for truck deliveries)
• Selected transportation option ID
• Name
• Source
• Destination FC
• Ship date
• Estimated delivery date
• Status
• Tracking details
• Pallet information
• Contact information
• Destination region
• FC appointment details

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Note

If the seller selects a partnered carrier, meaning that destinationType is AMAZON_OPTIMIZED, then the destination fulfillment center address may differ from the actual address, or this field may be empty. Refer to the carton label for the correct address.

Step 8. Select shipping option

Select shipment option (that is, shipment splits) with the confirmPlacementOption operation. This operation selects the placement splits for an inbound plan and creates confirmed shipment IDs for shipments within the inbound plan. The shipmentConfirmationID is the shipment identifier that appears on labels (for example, FBA1234ABCD). This ID is different from the shipment ID that is generated with createInboundPlan, which is used as an input to other operations, such as getShipment. This option cannot be reversed after it is selected. To call confirmPlacementOption, a seller must pass the inbound plan ID and the selected placement option ID.

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Note

createInboundPlan generates initial shipment IDs for the shipments in each inbound plan. These IDs are different from the shipmentConfirmationIDs that confirmPlacementOption generates. The shipmentConfirmationID is the identifier that is present on labels (for example, FBA1234ABCD). You can retrieve both types of shipment IDs with the getShipment operation.

Step 9. Select transportation options

Select delivery windows for each shipment within a plan using the confirmDeliveryWindowOptions operation. To call this operation, pass the shipmentID and deliveryWindowOptionId (provided by listDeliveryWindowOptions).

You must confirm a placement option for the shipment before you call this operation. After you confirm the delivery window, new delivery window options cannot be generated. However, you can update the selected delivery window option before shipment closure. For all transportation options that have the program DELIVERY_WINDOW_REQUIRED, you must confirm a delivery window before you confirm the transportation option. If you need to update your delivery window after you confirm the transportation option, you can call confirmDeliveryWindow.

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Warning

For non-partnered carrier shipments, sellers must confirm their anticipated delivery window by calling confirmTransportationOptions before they book their fulfillment center (FC) appointment.

Sellers should ask their non-partnered carrier to book an FC appointment that is within their anticipated delivery window. If the FC appointment date does not fall within the delivery window, the seller can call confirmDeliveryWindow to select another delivery window that does contain their FC appointment date.

This mandatory step allows you to select transportation options for each shipment within an inbound plan using the confirmTransportationOptions operation. For Amazon-partnered transportation options, this operation confirms that the seller accepts the Amazon-partnered shipping estimate, agrees to allow Amazon to charge their account for the shipping cost, and requests that the Amazon-partnered carrier ships the inbound shipment. Before this call, a seller must confirm a placement option for their inbound plan. To call confirmTransportationOptions, a seller must pass the shipment ID, selected transportation option ID, and contact information (needed for partnered carriers for LTL shipments). When a transportation option is confirmed, new transportation options cannot be generated or confirmed for an inbound plan. You must confirm a transportation option before printing labels.

Cancel a shipment

If a seller confirms the transportation request, then decides they don't want the Amazon-partnered carrier to ship the inbound shipment, you can call cancelInboundPlan to cancel the transportation request.

For Small parcel shipments, the seller has 24 hours after confirming a transportation request to void the request. For Less Than Truckload / Full Truckload (LTL/FTL) shipments, the seller has one hour after confirming a transportation request to void the request. After the relevant time period expires, the seller's account is charged for the shipping cost.

Step 10. Print labels

Call the getLabels operation to request unique shipping labels for your inbound shipments. Each shipping label returned by the getLabels operation should be affixed to the package in the shipment that it corresponds to, so the labels indicate the package contents. This helps to ensure that your shipment is processed at the Amazon fulfillment center quickly and accurately.

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Warning

The value of shipmentId in the getLabels request must be the shipmentId (from v0) or the shipmentConfirmationId (from v2024-03-20). Do not use the shipmentId from v2024-03-20.

To print labels for a specific box, specify the boxID (from the listShipmentBoxes response) as the PackageLabelsToPrint value.

Note that the shipment status does not become ready_to_ship if you retrieve carton labels with getLabels. For a shipment status to become ready_to_ship, you must generate labels on Send to Amazon.

Information included on shipping labels

In all circumstances, the getLabels operation returns shipping labels that include a unique bar code and Package ID (the string located directly under the bar code). Depending on the contents of the packages in your shipments, the labels can also include an ASIN and an expiration date.

Shipping labels include an ASIN and an expiration date in either of the following situations:

• Every item in the shipment shares the same ASIN and expiration date.
• The shipment includes multiple ASINs, but every package in the shipment contains items that share the same ASIN and expiration date.

Shipping labels include an ASIN and no expiration date in either of the following situations:

• Every item in the shipment shares the same ASIN. The ASIN does not have an expiration date.
• The shipment includes multiple ASINs, but every package in the shipment contains items that share the same ASIN. The ASINs do not have expiration dates.

Shipping labels do not include an ASIN or an expiration date when the shipment contains at least one package with items that do not share the same ASIN and expiration date.

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Construct a unique barcode for small parcel shipments

For Small Parcel shipments, the shipping label for each package should have a unique barcode. This helps ensure that your shipment is processed in a timely manner when it reaches Amazon's fulfillment network. To construct unique barcode values for each package in a shipment, do the following:

1. Start with the Shipment ID value and append U and 000001 to get the barcode value for the first package in the shipment.

2. To get the barcode values for each successive package in the shipment, increment the trailing numerical value of the previous package by one. For example, If you have three packages in a shipment with a Shipment ID value of FBA1MMD8D0, your three barcode values would be FBA1MMD8D0U000001, FBA1MMD8D0U000002, and FBA1MMD8D0U000003. A box label identified with its own unique numerical identifier must follow the 6-digit number format after U, printed and affixed to each carton you send to a fulfillment center (for example, U000001, U000002, U000003).

Step 11. Send your shipments to Amazon's fulfillment network

Send your shipments to Amazon's fulfillment network using an Amazon-Partnered carrier or a non-Amazon-Partnered carrier that is registered with Amazon. For more information about sending shipments to Amazon's fulfillment network, refer to the Seller Central Help for your marketplace.

As you prepare your shipment, you can retrieve all of the box-level information that you have entered for an inbound plan using the listInboundPlanBoxes operation.

Step 12. Providing tracking information

After sending a shipment to Amazon's fulfillment network using a non-partnered carrier, a seller must share the tracking ID using the updateShipmentTrackingDetails operation. To call this operation, a seller must pass the shipment ID and tracking details for their less-than-truckload or small parcel shipment. For less-than-truckload shipments, the seller must provide a PRO number (also known as Freight Bill number) and can optionally provide a BOL number. For small parcel shipments, the seller must share an array of box IDs and associated tracking IDs.