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Amazon imposing fees on using their marketplace API

developer.amazonservices.com

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Re: Amazon imposing fees on using their marketplace API

#11

Post by nprateem »

duskwuff wrote: post #8
nprateem wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And an annual $1400 which effectively kills side projects.

I have a hard time imagining what kind of "side project" would be making use of the Amazon Selling Partner API. It all revolves around managing listings and sales through the Amazon storefront - if you've got a use case for that, it's probably for something serious.

This is true of no end of APIs. It's another cost that would be difficult to be borne by a bootstrapped startup still finding PMF and early traction.

Re: Amazon imposing fees on using their marketplace API

#17

Post by crest »

aneutron wrote: post #13

I hope this does not affect Camelcamelcamel or Idealo, because if not we lose the power to get real visibility over real value of items.

These players will try to bypass the API limitations by scraping the customer website if they have to, but Amazon may engage in a cat n mouse game with them rather than just throttling abusively stupid clients.

Re: Amazon imposing fees on using their marketplace API

#18

Post by xhkkffbf »

lsowen wrote: post #3

Only the GET requests are metered. An anti-bot/anti-AI scraper measure?

Maybe some kind of anti-fraud measure too?

So much spam would go away if we just charged $1 per 5000 emails. Normal humans would be fine. Mailing lists would need charge, but it would be minimal for most useful mailing lists.

Maybe Amazon is going after some fraud?

Re: Amazon imposing fees on using their marketplace API

#19

Post by JaggedJax »

mikeiz404 wrote: post #5

It’s interesting that only GET calls are metered. Is this a common thing to do? I wonder if this is also being done to limit marketplace data being scraped with the API or limit how this data gets used by limiting low margin business models. Increasing the fees will have these effects.

I've been noticing this happen more lately. Intuit QuickBooks did this exact same thing for GET calls this year as well.

My theory is they see POST/PUT calls as adding value and are actions that customer need to perform and help the platform (adding products, inventory, etc). But GET calls they see as leaching off them and not core requirements.

The huge gap in this theory are things like Seller Fulfilled orders which you have to GET, but for Amazon they have always pushed hard for Amazon Fulfilled instead.

In the end I think this is all mostly to keep things/control in-house as much as possible. Some apps will shut down, others will pass the cost along the sellers. Sellers always lose.

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