Amazon provides sales data in several ways, each aligned to different use cases. This can be somewhat confusing since Amazon will often use the words "sales" and "orders" interchangeably.
There are some important differences at Amazon, which can impact where and how you look for certain data.
Order and Sales Reports
The are two primary classes of sales information;
Orders: Near real-time transactional orders used for operations, fulfillment, monitoring, and so forth. Order transactions operate like "streams" of data, which means there are no historical views.
Sales Reports: Reports are aggregated and summarized. They often reflect a settled period like a complete business day (i.e., all says for July 14th, 2022). As a result, you can request other closed report dates like July 1st, 2022, or April 30th, 2022. Reports reflect a snapshot of the period as defined by Amazon.
For reference, you can see how Amazon organizes this information in your Seller Central account.;
(A) reflects the near real-time Order transitions
(B) reflects sales reports.
Openbridge supports both A and B, as detailed below.
A. Orders
Orders reflect a near real-time stream of order transactions. As orders are occurring on Amazon, you can get a continuous feed of the transaction events every hour.
This includes orders and the associated order items.
See our Orders API connector docs for more details.
The Amazon Selling Partner API describes this under the "Order API" section.
B. Sales Reports
Amazon offers a sales report which includes orders by date and orders by last update.
In your seller central account, go to "Reports->Fulfillment->Sales->All Orders".
FBA and seller-fulfilled orders enable you to monitor and analyze demand across fulfillment and sales channels. These reports provide order and item information for FBA and seller-fulfilled orders, including order status, fulfillment, sales channel information, and item details. The reports also include recent orders regardless of whether they have been shipped.
See our Amazon Sales Connector docs for more information.
The Selling Partner Reporting API lists them as "Order Tracking Reports."
Business Sales Reports: Detail Page Sales and Traffic
The last type of "Sales" report offered by Amazon is a Business Report. It provides a high-level, summarized view of activity for page and sales traffic. These can be found. "Reports->Business->Sales Reports-> Detail Page Sales & Traffic".
The reports are snapshots, directional trending views of Sales. They include the Sales Snapshot, Compare Sales, and Sales by Category features.
See our Amazon Page Sales and Traffic Connector docs for more information.
The Amazon Selling Partner Reporting API classifies these as Seller retail analytics reports,
Why do my numbers seem different across the various seller reports?
You might notice subtle differences across reports in your seller account, including Business Reports, Order Reports, Payments, Performance Reports, and so on. While some reports appear similar, each uses a slightly different data set to help you understand various aspects of your account. Here are several ways similar reports can differ:
Business Reports include canceled orders, while Payments does not.
Payments include Amazon Fees, while Business Reports does not.
Business Reports By ASIN and Order Reports in Orders include all orders placed during a specific period, regardless of settlement status. Payments only show orders that have shipped.
Seller Performance in Business Reports By Date shows refunds according to the date. For example, when a unit is ordered in September and is refunded in October, the refund counts towards October.
Customer Metrics shows refunds according to the order date. For example, when a unit is ordered in September and is refunded in October, the refund counts towards September.