Merchant API: Getting Big With E-commerce Data. Part 2: Amazon API
We have recently introduced the third version of Merchant API! You can learn more about Amazon API v3 in our documentation.
As we have already mentioned in the first part of ‘Getting Big With E-commerce Data’, online shopping has become an essential part of our lives. With the number of people who make purchases online increasing, so are the opportunities for merchants selling products on the web. Looking to grow revenue and online visibility, many retailers place Amazon and Google Shopping in the core of their digital advertising and marketing strategies.
Amazon vs Google Shopping
While Google remains the top search engine, its e-commerce platform is less popular among retail businesses. Amazon offers a lower CPC for advertising and helps to reach a highly-targeted audience, more likely to buy the advertised product.
Customers being aware of what they are willing to buy will first go to Google to learn more about the desired product. Mostly, Google serves us educational content, and we can get informed about, let’s say, a pair of shoes quickly and comprehensively.
We tend to read about the best shoes for running, walking, hiking, etc., but when it comes to learning about the prices and alternatives (aka competitors) people in the U.S. prefer Amazon e-commerce platform to Google’s. However, in Brazil, for example, people are more likely to use Google Shopping rather than Amazon, according to Statista.
Another thing, however, is that Google Shopping offers opportunities to market products in more countries than Amazon. At the same time, while Google provides a wider reach, Amazon has more versatile advertisement options. And if Google decides when to display your ad based on your product title, description, and category, on Amazon you can manually target certain keywords.
Nonetheless, the best option for retailers is using both platforms to their advantage. Diversifying the marketing channels will help to maximize the customer reach and increase sales. However,managing huge amounts of data still creates many issues.
Software for product information management, product listing optimization and competitor research is what helps to handle exactly that. But building a data management platform requires a great deal of effort, especially for the data collection.
Scraping data from Amazon
There are many approaches to crawl Amazon pages and extract useful e-commerce data.
Usually, the data is scraped using a lot of proxy servers and VPNs. However, the first problem that appears when you try to collect Amazon data is that your IP gets blocked once you exceed the number of requests, let’s say, a million.
Building your own scraper may not always be the right solution for your business. Another reason why web scraping is so complicated, apart from captchas and IP blocks is that you need a decent team of developers to adjust the software to any changes in the structure of the scraped website.
You must hire at least 3 people to run all the operations effectively. You need a data scientist to do research and analyze big datasets, data engineers to deal with data storage and computing, and, finally, you need a project manager who will establish a good level of understanding and communication between the data scientist and data engineer. Having all those people in your team will cost you a lot. This is where many services fail at building their own scraper.
But you shouldn’t get frustrated! We know first-hand about the challenges of scraping Amazon data. While there is a solution to use IP rotations to crawl Amazon pages, we have concentrated on another algorithm and found a way to avoid captcha and IP blocks all together. This algorithm allows us to extract and structure Amazon data consistently and effectively which is now available to you through our Amazon API!
Learn more about how APIs work >>
If you prefer a proprietary solution, check out our Amazon Products Database.
Amazon API: seamless data collection solution for e-commerce software
With DataForSEO, you can handle data retrieval much easier. We have designed Amazon API as part 2 of Merchant API which you can use in combination with Google Shopping API to shape your own e-commerce software and help retailers make better business decisions.
Amazon Products endpoint will supply you with Amazon product listing data. It supports the ‘editorial recommendations’, organic and paid elements. With each type of element, you will get product ranking, title, rating, regular and upper-limit prices, product page URL, and you’ll also know if the product is marked with “Amazon’s Choice” label. This data is essential for competitor analysis and price comparison, product assortments creation, product rankings monitoring, and more.
Amazon ASIN endpoint is designed for obtaining a full list of ASINs that are assigned to various product modifications. Amazon Standard Identification Numbers (ASINs) are used for identifying items offered on the platform. It makes the foundation of the Amazon product catalog structure. The list of ASINs is useful for reverse ASIN research, which is a way of looking into competitor’s actual pay-per-click keywords.
Check our step-by-step guide for extracting ASINs in bulk >>
Working with Amazon API, you’ll need to configure and send a POST request, and then collect the results through a GET request.
Learn more about technicalities >>
Our APIs return data in the JSON format, which is easy to read and understand with no coding know-how. Below you can review the examples of Amazon API requests and response data.
Setting Amazon Products Tasks
Request Sample
POST https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/merchant/amazon/products/task_post
[
{
"priority":2,
"language_code": "en_US",
"location_code": 2840,
"keyword": "men running shoes"
}
]
Response Sample
{
"version": "0.1.20200422",
"status_code": 20000,
"status_message": "Ok.",
"time": "0.0865 sec.",
"cost": 0.002,
"tasks_count": 1,
"tasks_error": 0,
"tasks": [
{
"id": "04241440-1535-0209-0000-1bdb664c1f28",
"status_code": 20100,
"status_message": "Task Created.",
"time": "0.0116 sec.",
"cost": 0.002,
"result_count": 0,
"path": [
"v3",
"merchant",
"amazon",
"products",
"task_post"
],
"data": {
"api": "merchant",
"function": "products",
"priority": 2,
"language_code": "en_US",
"location_code": 2840,
"keyword": "men running shoes",
"se_type": "organic",
"se": "amazon",
"device": "desktop",
"os": "windows"
},
"result": null
}
]
}
Retrieving Amazon Products Results
Request Sample
GET https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/merchant/amazon/products/task_get/advanced/04241440-1535-0209-0000-1bdb664c1f28
Response Sample
{
"version": "0.1.20200422",
"status_code": 20000,
"status_message": "Ok.",
"time": "0.3419 sec.",
"cost": 0,
"tasks_count": 1,
"tasks_error": 0,
"tasks": [
{
"id": "04241440-1535-0209-0000-1bdb664c1f28",
"status_code": 20000,
"status_message": "Ok.",
"time": "0.2600 sec.",
"cost": 0,
"result_count": 1,
"path": [
"v3",
"merchant",
"amazon",
"products",
"task_get",
"advanced",
"04241440-1535-0209-0000-1bdb664c1f28"
],
"data": {
"se_type": "organic",
"se": "amazon",
"api": "merchant",
"function": "products",
"priority": 2,
"language_code": "en_US",
"location_code": 2840,
"keyword": "men running shoes",
"device": "desktop",
"os": "windows"
},
"result": [
{
"keyword": "men running shoes",
"type": "organic",
"se_domain": "amazon.com",
"location_code": 2840,
"language_code": "en_US",
"check_url": "https://www.amazon.com/s/?field-keywords=men%20running%20shoes&page=1&language=en_US",
"datetime": "2020-04-24 11:42:53 +00:00",
"spell": null,
"item_types": [
"amazon_paid",
"amazon_serp"
],
"se_results_count": 13301,
"items_count": 120,
"items": [
{
"type": "amazon_paid",
"rank_group": 1,
"rank_absolute": 1,
"xpath": "/html[1]/body[1]/div[1]/div[2]/div[1]/div[1]/div[1]/span[4]/div[1]/div[1]",
"domain": "www.amazon.com",
"title": "Men's Charged Pursuit 2 Running Shoe",
"url": "https://www.amazon.com/gp/slredirect/picassoRedirect.html/ref=pa_sp_atf_aps_sr_pg1_1?ie=UTF8&adId=A0330473PEBIHA2MHXTB&url=%2FUnder-Armour-Charged-Pursuit-Running%2Fdp%2FB07PYYSBQK%2Fref%3Dsr_1_1_sspa%3Fdchild%3D1%26keywords%3Dmen%2Brunning%2Bshoes%26qid%3D1587728561%26sr%3D8-1-spons%26psc%3D1&qualifier=1587728560&id=6949233399296397&widgetName=sp_atf",
"price_from": 69.95,
"price_to": null,
"currency": "USD",
"data_asin": "B07PYYSBQK",
"rating": {
"type": "rating_element",
"position": "left",
"rating_type": "Max5",
"value": "4.6",
"votes_count": 65,
"rating_max": "5"
},
"is_amazon_choice": false
},
{
"type": "amazon_paid",
"rank_group": 2,
"rank_absolute": 2,
"xpath": "/html[1]/body[1]/div[1]/div[2]/div[1]/div[1]/div[1]/span[4]/div[1]/div[2]",
"domain": "www.amazon.com",
"title": "Men's Charged Rogue 2 Running Shoe",
"url": "https://www.amazon.com/gp/slredirect/picassoRedirect.html/ref=pa_sp_atf_aps_sr_pg1_2?ie=UTF8&adId=A095657510J8XJ34IXTW1&url=%2FUnder-Armour-Charged-Rogue-Running%2Fdp%2FB07PYYSFGK%2Fref%3Dsr_1_2_sspa%3Fdchild%3D1%26keywords%3Dmen%2Brunning%2Bshoes%26qid%3D1587728561%26sr%3D8-2-spons%26psc%3D1&qualifier=1587728560&id=6949233399296397&widgetName=sp_atf",
"price_from": 80,
"price_to": null,
"currency": "USD",
"data_asin": "B07PYYSFGK",
"rating": {
"type": "rating_element",
"position": "left",
"rating_type": "Max5",
"value": "4",
"votes_count": 8,
"rating_max": "5"
},
"is_amazon_choice": false
},
{
"type": "amazon_paid",
"rank_group": 3,
"rank_absolute": 3,
"xpath": "/html[1]/body[1]/div[1]/div[2]/div[1]/div[1]/div[1]/span[4]/div[1]/div[3]",
"domain": "www.amazon.com",
"title": "Men's Running Shoes Sport Athletic Sneakers",
"url": "https://www.amazon.com/gp/slredirect/picassoRedirect.html/ref=pa_sp_atf_aps_sr_pg1_3?ie=UTF8&adId=A03841362UM13OHA4HIW7&url=%2FMAIITRIP-Running-Shoes-Athletic-Sneakers%2Fdp%2FB07QWK4K3Y%2Fref%3Dsr_1_3_sspa%3Fdchild%3D1%26keywords%3Dmen%2Brunning%2Bshoes%26qid%3D1587728561%26sr%3D8-3-spons%26psc%3D1&qualifier=1587728560&id=6949233399296397&widgetName=sp_atf",
"price_from": 31.99,
"price_to": null,
"currency": "USD",
"data_asin": "B07QWK4K3Y",
"rating": {
"type": "rating_element",
"position": "left",
"rating_type": "Max5",
"value": "4.2",
"votes_count": 606,
"rating_max": "5"
},
"is_amazon_choice": false
},
{
"type": "amazon_paid",
"rank_group": 4,
"rank_absolute": 4,
"xpath": "/html[1]/body[1]/div[1]/div[2]/div[1]/div[1]/div[1]/span[4]/div[1]/div[4]",
"domain": "www.amazon.com",
"title": "Men's Ultra Lightweight Breathable Walking Shoes(Size:US7-US14)",
"url": "https://www.amazon.com/gp/slredirect/picassoRedirect.html/ref=pa_sp_atf_aps_sr_pg1_4?ie=UTF8&adId=A0117523F58112IPBZZ2&url=%2FMAlITRIP-Running-Sneakers-Walking-Athletic%2Fdp%2FB07SZ21RN1%2Fref%3Dsr_1_4_sspa%3Fdchild%3D1%26keywords%3Dmen%2Brunning%2Bshoes%26qid%3D1587728561%26sr%3D8-4-spons%26psc%3D1&qualifier=1587728560&id=6949233399296397&widgetName=sp_atf",
"price_from": 31.99,
"price_to": null,
"currency": "USD",
"data_asin": "B07SZ21RN1",
"rating": {
"type": "rating_element",
"position": "left",
"rating_type": "Max5",
"value": "4.2",
"votes_count": 543,
"rating_max": "5"
},
"is_amazon_choice": false
},
{
"type": "amazon_serp",
"rank_group": 1,
"rank_absolute": 5,
"xpath": "/html[1]/body[1]/div[1]/div[2]/div[1]/div[1]/div[1]/span[4]/div[1]/div[5]",
"domain": "www.amazon.com",
"title": "Men's Charged Assert 8 Running Shoe",
"url": "https://www.amazon.com/Under-Armour-Charged-Assert-Running/dp/B07G7TDPRL/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=men+running+shoes&qid=1587728561&sr=8-5",
"price_from": 52.47,
"price_to": null,
"currency": "USD",
"data_asin": "B07G7TDPRL",
"rating": {
"type": "rating_element",
"position": "left",
"rating_type": "Max5",
"value": "4.6",
"votes_count": 2927,
"rating_max": "5"
},
"is_amazon_choice": true
},
{
"type": "amazon_serp",
"rank_group": 2,
"rank_absolute": 6,
"xpath": "/html[1]/body[1]/div[1]/div[2]/div[1]/div[1]/div[1]/span[4]/div[1]/div[6]",
"domain": "www.amazon.com",
"title": "Men's Gel-Nimbus 22 Running Shoes",
"url": "https://www.amazon.com/ASICS-Gel-Nimbus-Running-Shoes-Peacoat/dp/B07Y29HWVJ/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=men+running+shoes&qid=1587728561&sr=8-6",
"price_from": 149.95,
"price_to": null,
"currency": "USD",
"data_asin": "B07Y29HWVJ",
"rating": {
"type": "rating_element",
"position": "left",
"rating_type": "Max5",
"value": "4.7",
"votes_count": 193,
"rating_max": "5"
},
"is_amazon_choice": false
},
{
"type": "amazon_serp",
"rank_group": 3,
"rank_absolute": 7,
"xpath": "/html[1]/body[1]/div[1]/div[2]/div[1]/div[1]/div[1]/span[4]/div[1]/div[7]",
"domain": "www.amazon.com",
"title": "Men's Gel-Venture 7 Trail Running Shoes",
"url": "https://www.amazon.com/ASICS-Gel-Venture-Running-Shoes-Electric/dp/B07JH5LBRZ/ref=sr_1_7?dchild=1&keywords=men+running+shoes&qid=1587728561&sr=8-7",
"price_from": 52.94,
"price_to": null,
"currency": "USD",
"data_asin": "B07JH5LBRZ",
"rating": {
"type": "rating_element",
"position": "left",
"rating_type": "Max5",
"value": "4.5",
"votes_count": 1880,
"rating_max": "5"
},
"is_amazon_choice": false
},
Setting Amazon ASIN Tasks
Request Sample
POST https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/merchant/amazon/asin/task_post
[
{
"priority":2,
"language_code": "en_US",
"location_code": 2840,
"asin": "B07PYYSBQK"
}
]
Response Sample
{
"version": "0.1.20200422",
"status_code": 20000,
"status_message": "Ok.",
"time": "0.0898 sec.",
"cost": 0.003,
"tasks_count": 1,
"tasks_error": 0,
"tasks": [
{
"id": "04241502-1535-0192-0000-e4196501f929",
"status_code": 20100,
"status_message": "Task Created.",
"time": "0.0059 sec.",
"cost": 0.003,
"result_count": 0,
"path": [
"v3",
"merchant",
"amazon",
"asin",
"task_post"
],
"data": {
"api": "merchant",
"function": "asin",
"se": "amazon",
"priority": 2,
"language_code": "en_US",
"location_code": 2840,
"asin": "B07PYYSBQK",
"se_type": "shopping",
"device": "desktop",
"os": "windows"
},
"result": null
}
]
}
Retrieving Amazon ASIN Results
Request Sample
GET https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/merchant/amazon/asin/task_get/advanced/04241502-1535-0192-0000-e4196501f929
Response Sample
{
"version": "0.1.20200422",
"status_code": 20000,
"status_message": "Ok.",
"time": "0.0982 sec.",
"cost": 0,
"tasks_count": 1,
"tasks_error": 0,
"tasks": [
{
"id": "04241502-1535-0192-0000-e4196501f929",
"status_code": 20000,
"status_message": "Ok.",
"time": "0.0231 sec.",
"cost": 0,
"result_count": 1,
"path": [
"v3",
"merchant",
"amazon",
"asin",
"task_get",
"advanced",
"04241502-1535-0192-0000-e4196501f929"
],
"data": {
"se_type": "shopping",
"api": "merchant",
"function": "asin",
"se": "amazon",
"priority": 2,
"language_code": "en_US",
"location_code": 2840,
"asin": "B07PYYSBQK",
"device": "desktop",
"os": "windows"
},
"result": [
{
"asin": "B07PYYSBQK",
"type": "shopping",
"se_domain": "amazon.com",
"location_code": 2840,
"language_code": "en_US",
"check_url": "https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PYYSBQK?language=en_US",
"datetime": "2020-04-24 12:02:28 +00:00",
"item_types": [
"amazon_product_info"
],
"items_count": 1,
"items": [
{
"type": "amazon_product_info",
"rank_group": 1,
"rank_absolute": 1,
"position": "left",
"xpath": "/#document",
"title": "Under Armour Men's Charged Pursuit 2 Running Shoe",
"details": "Shipping Weight: 8.6 ounces ( View shipping rates and policies )\nASIN: B07PVQKZQ3\nDate first listed on Amazon: March 22, 2019",
"image_url": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61%2B48lHkawL._AC_UL1000_.jpg",
"author": "Under Armour",
"data_asin": "B07PYYSBQK",
"parent_asin": "B07PVQKZQ3",
"product_asins": [
"B07PVQLBWM",
"B07PXTYZN6",
"B07PYYSFB7",
"B07PXTW4WW",
"B07PYYSDTY",
"B07PYYLSX4",
"B07Q13HTXT",
"B07PXTVWVV",
"B07PVQKR8J",
"B07PXTYZSP",
"B07PXTZ2CY",
"B07Q2442N1",
"B07PXTZG5P",
"B07PVQKRPM",
"B07Q13HV18",
"B07PXTZ56S",
"B07Q249HHV",
"B07PYYLSTC",
"B07PXTZG8V",
"B07PXTZ29L",
"B07Q2442L2",
"B07Q24QWYC",
"B07Q24QX22",
"B07Z8RJ8ZT",
"B07Z7BWCPR",
"B07Z77TC5P",
"B07Z77TYY9",
"B07Z7121FC",
"B07Z8RVFC8",
"B07Z8RDXZP",
"B07Z8RQZSX",
"B07Z8RW23Q",
"B07PYYSDXJ",
"B07Z769Q12",
"B07Z78QC2V",
"B07Z8S2K84",
"B07Z8S5D8Z",
"B07Z75D7WR",
"B07PXTZHSP",
"B07PWNL6TZ",
"B07Q25754Z",
"B07NNTJJS1",
"B07PYYS8SZ",
"B07Q249HMD",
"B07PYYS8NY",
"B07PWNKV4C",
"B07Q13MCDN",
"B07PVQKT4N",
"B07PXTZ6RY",
"B07PXTZHQW",
"B07PVQKRRQ",
"B07PXTZ57Z",
"B07PWNL6TY",
"B07Q24FV13",
"B07Q13FYQY",
"B07Q249HFZ",
"B07PXTZG8L",
"B07NNTMYMV",
"B07Q24VWYL",
"B07NNTMVKD",
"B07Q2442MN",
"B07PVQKT7N",
"B07PYYLSTD",
"B07PVQKXJH",
"B07PVQKXJ6",
"B07Q249HHF",
"B07NNTFY62",
"B07PXTZ59M",
"B07PVQKRRD",
"B07PXTZ6RS",
"B07PWNL6V1",
"B07PXTZGF2",
"B07NNTJJPW",
"B07PYYSBQK",
"B07PYYSDTW",
"B07NNTFY6K",
"B07PVQKZQ9",
"B07PXTW4Y9",
"B07PXTZGB1",
"B07PYYKPGS",
"B07PYYKPHW",
"B07PYYSL2B",
"B07PXTZ7SL",
"B07Q24FTTY",
"B07PVQKTVG",
"B07Q24QWX3",
"B07PXTZ7SP",
"B07PXTZ7RQ",
"B07PYYSF84",
"B07PXTZ7WY",
"B07Q13HV17",
"B07PVQKT6X",
"B07Z75D3NJ",
"B07Z769Q15",
"B07Z71Q1HY",
"B07Z8RY7C5",
"B07Z76B1J8",
"B07Z8RQVPK",
"B07Z71JB2P",
"B07Z8S86T6",
"B07Z8RWYSB",
"B07Z8RQVPH",
"B07Z78QC2T",
"B07Z7CW2S5",
"B07Z8RSCVH",
"B07Z77HLL1",
"B07Z8RY9HZ",
"B07Q2442PQ",
"B07Q2442MS",
"B07PXTYZPH",
"B07PVQLBWG",
"B07PYYSBTV",
"B07PYYLSTR",
"B07PVQKW6V",
"B07PXTZ6S4",
"B07Q249HFN",
"B07NNTJJV9",
"B07Q24ZZ3N",
"B07Q24QWYZ",
"B07PXTZ57R",
"B07Q249HGF",
"B07NNTMVG3",
"B07Q24QWZ4",
"B07PYYS55P",
"B07Q24VWVY",
"B07PVQKW7Q",
"B07Q24VWYP",
"B07PVQKSVD",
"B07PVQKTWK",
"B07PYYSDT5",
"B07PXTZG8Y",
"B07PWNKRXL",
"B07PXTZ28X",
"B07Q245596",
"B07Q25751H",
"B07PYYLSX2",
"B07PVQKR7Y",
"B07Q13HTVS",
"B07Q249HGC",
"B07Q2574Y3",
"B07PWNKRYW",
"B07PYYSF7D",
"B07Q2442RK",
"B07PYYSDSR",
"B07PWNKV5C",
"B07Q13FYTJ",
"B07PYYKPG3",
"B07Z8RQVP5"
],
"price_from": 52.46,
"price_to": 70,
"currency": "USD",
"is_amazon_choice": false,
"rating": {
"type": "rating_element",
"position": "left",
"rating_type": "Max5",
"value": "4.6",
"votes_count": 65,
"rating_max": "5"
}
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
Wrap up
Amazon API will power up your e-commerce software with quality data and you’ll be able to deliver the best experience to your customers. Combining Amazon API with Google Shopping API, you can build a more convenient and comprehensive solution for retailers.
Moreover, we are against hidden costs, and so we have clear pricing plans about which you can learn on our Pricing page where all API methods and their costs are explained.
In order to simplify and make your experience with our platform better, we have API documentation that covers everything from A to Z. Of course, if you have any questions or are willing to clarify anything, do not hesitate to contact our support team which is available 24/7 and is always ready to assist you.
