Amazon Web Services Launches Amazon Fulfillment Web Service

[Kristijntje]

The Amazon Fulfillment Web Service (Amazon FWS) allows merchants to tap in to Amazon’s network of fulfillment centers and our expertise in logistics. Merchants can store their own products to our fulfillment centers and then, using a simple web service interface, fulfill orders for the products. 

That’s right – make a web service call, ship a product to a customer!

Amazon FWS builds on our existing Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) service by adding programmatic access to the fulfillment process.

There are two sets of APIS – Inbound and Outbound.

The Inbound service gives merchants the ability to create and send shipments to an Amazon fulfillment center (FC). The getInboundShipmentPreview function is used to locate one or more Amazon FCs to receive a particular product. The service may choose to send products to a variety of FCs in order to balance supplies across the entire network. Next, the putInboundShipment function is used to inform Amazon that the merchant will be shipping the product to the indicated FCs. Once the products have been shipped, the setInboundShipmentStatus function is used to inform Amazon that the product is actually on its way.

The Outbound service gives merchants the ability to ship products from Amazon FCs to their customers. This service revolves around the concept of a fulfillment order. The order contains a destination address, a shipping speed, and a list of item/quantity pairs to be shipped. The createFulfillmentOrder function is used to initiate the shipping process. There are also functions for listing all orders, cancelling orders, and getting the status of an order...

full announcement: http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2008/03/our-most-fulfil.html
more info: http://aws.amazon.com/fws