This is the guide to selling on Amazon: connecting your Seller account, linking products onto Amazon’s catalog, importing listings you already have, and setting what syncs. Amazon is a linked marketplace. Your offer attaches to an existing catalog item, so clean SKUs and real identifiers matter before you connect. If the assign-versus-list distinction is new, read How listings work first.
1. Before you start
- A Professional Amazon Seller Central account that you can sign in to and authorize.
- Clean SKUs in your catalog. Every product you intend to sell needs a stable, unique SKU in your catalog. Amazon keys offers on your Seller SKU; duplicates or blanks produce rejected listings.
- Real identifiers where you have them. ASIN, UPC, EAN, or GTIN let you find the right Amazon item quickly. Products with none can still be linked by searching, but expect to do more matching.
- Cost and weight on products you ship yourself. A product you fulfill yourself needs a weight (and a cost) before it can be listed, because ILLUMA uses them to work out a safe first price.
- A repricing strategy. Listing assigns the product to one. If you have none yet, create one first; see Pricing Strategies.
ℹ️ Note: Amazon connects to the United States marketplace by default. Under Settings → Amazon SP-API Settings → Marketplace you can choose Canada or Mexico instead.
2. Connect your Seller account
Connecting is a redirect out to Seller Central and back. You approve access on Amazon’s own consent screen, and no Amazon credentials are typed into ILLUMA.
- Open the Amazon channel. Go to Channels → Channel Hub, then click Set Up on the Amazon card (or Manage if a record already exists).
- Start the authorization. On the connect screen titled Connect Amazon, click Connect Account.
- Approve in Seller Central. ILLUMA sends you to Amazon’s consent page. Sign in as the Seller admin and grant the ILLUMA application access.
- Land back on the console. On success you’ll see Amazon connected successfully. and the status chip in the header reads Connected. Your Selling Partner ID appears read-only under Settings.
⚠️ Warning: If Amazon later refuses to refresh the connection, the channel flips to Expired and syncing stops. The connect screen then shows Reconnect with the banner Your connection has expired. Please reconnect to continue syncing. Click Reconnect and approve again. Your listings and settings are kept.
3. List products: the link model
This part behaves differently from a “create a listing” marketplace, so read it carefully.
ILLUMA attaches your offer to an existing Amazon catalog item. It does not create a new Amazon catalog page. When you list a product, ILLUMA sends an offer-only listing onto an ASIN that already exists: your price, condition, and availability ride onto Amazon’s own title, brand, and images.
So every product must be linked to an ASIN before it can be listed. A product with no linked ASIN is skipped with the reason SKU not linked to an Amazon ASIN, nothing to push. ILLUMA deliberately won’t send a bare quantity for an unlinked SKU, because that creates an empty “Missing Information” stub on Amazon.
List one product
- Open the product. Go to Products, open the product, and click its Channels tab.
- Start listing. Click List on… and choose Amazon. (If the product is already on the channel but unlinked, click Link to listing on its Amazon card instead.)
- Find the Amazon item. Search by ASIN, UPC, EAN, GTIN, MPN, or your SKU as it appears in Seller Central. Results show items you already sell and items that exist in Amazon’s catalog. Pick the right one.
- Choose how it is sold. Set the Listing SKU (it defaults to your product SKU), Fulfillment (FBM: you ship it, or FBA: Amazon ships it), and the Repricing strategy (or leave it on Channel default).
- Click List it now. ILLUMA links the product, creates your offer, and assigns the strategy in one step. Link only records the ASIN without creating an offer; you then use Push to Amazon to create it.
📸 Screenshot placeholder: A test product’s Channels tab with the “Link to Amazon listing” window open after a search: the list of matches, and the Listing SKU, Fulfillment, and Repricing strategy fields with the “Link only” and “List it now” buttons visible.
How the first price is set
A new Amazon listing goes up with its price. You don’t type one. ILLUMA reads Amazon’s current price for the item first, then sets the first price from the repricing strategy you chose:
- Amazon’s price is inside your range. The first price follows your strategy against Amazon’s price (for example, just under the Buy Box). It never goes below your floor (which includes cost, shipping, Amazon fees, and MAP when MAP is enforced). It is capped at a set percentage above Amazon’s price so Amazon doesn’t flag it as a pricing error; the default is 25%. It also stays under your ceiling, unless your strategy is set to Follow the market (see Pricing Strategies).
- Amazon’s price is below your floor. The product still lists, at your floor. In the List on Amazon… panel (see section 4) you see a warning before you confirm, like This will list at your floor $23.40, 65% above Amazon’s price $14.14; Amazon may block it as a pricing error. Amazon sometimes deactivates offers priced well above the market. If that happens, the listing shows as inactive on Amazon. A floor that is too high is the usual cause, so check your costs first (see Costs, Floors & Per-SKU Overrides).
- Amazon shows no price for the item (no Buy Box and no competing offer): the first price is the middle of your floor-to-ceiling range.
- Amazon’s prices can’t be read at that moment: nothing is listed, and the message asks you to try again.
The listing goes up with its price, and the Apex Repricer takes over from there, moving the price with the market inside your floor and ceiling.
List many products
On the Listings tab, List All Products assigns every active product that isn’t on the channel yet and publishes the ones that are already linked to an ASIN. Products without a link are skipped. Details are in Listing your catalog. To list products that don’t have a link yet, match them first (next section).
4. Match and list many products at once
If you have a lot of products that aren’t on Amazon yet, let ILLUMA search for them in bulk and review the results. Nothing is linked or listed until you confirm it. You need a connected Amazon channel and permission to edit products.
- Start a match run. On the Products list, tick the products (or select all that match your filters), then choose Match to Amazon. Click Preview to see what the run will do, then start it. It runs in the background at a pace Amazon allows, so you can leave the page.
- Review the candidates. Open the Amazon channel’s Match review tab. Each product shows what you sell next to the Amazon candidates. Pick the right one and click Confirm choice, or click No match or Skip. The tabs are To review, Suggested, No candidates, Confirmed, Needs attention, No match, Skipped, and Search failed.
- List what you confirmed. On a confirmed row, click List on Amazon…, choose Who ships it and the Repricing strategy, and confirm. A confirmed row reads “Confirmed, not listed yet” until you do. Afterwards it reads Listing started: the listing and its first price have gone to Amazon, which can still take a little while to accept the offer.
- Or list in bulk. On the Confirmed tab, tick products and click List N selected…, or click List all confirmed…. ILLUMA checks the products first (Check these products) and shows which are ready and which are not, with a downloadable list of SKUs and reasons to fix. You confirm the number to list, and the run lists them one at a time.
A bulk listing run stops by itself after the first 5 products so you can check Seller Central, and again if listings start failing or Amazon slows down. Click Continue to resume or Stop to end the run. It skips products with no stock on hand, and products whose Amazon prices can’t be read, and tells you why. Each product is priced the way a single listing is, so one whose Amazon price is below its floor is listed at its floor. The run reads Amazon’s price as it lists each product, so you don’t see the single-product warning first; the pause after 5 is the time to check Seller Central. The Needs attention tab collects confirmed products whose listing didn’t go through, with the reason.
📸 Screenshot placeholder: Channels → Channel Hub → Amazon → Match review, on the To review tab, showing one product with its Amazon candidates and the Confirm choice, No match, and Skip buttons. Use a test product.
📸 Screenshot placeholder: The “List confirmed products on Amazon” panel after clicking Check these products: the ready and not-ready counts, the strategy and Who ships it choices, and the number-to-list box.
Two limits live on the channel’s Settings tab: Bulk match (the most products one match run may search; default 2,000, up to 10,000, plus the Suggest a match switch) and Bulk list (Most products per run, default 200 and up to 500, and Products per minute, default 10 and up to 30).
5. Import your existing Amazon listings
If you already sell on Amazon, pull those listings in first so ILLUMA can link them to your catalog instead of creating duplicates. Imports land in a review list. Nothing is linked until you confirm it.
- Run the import. On the Listings tab, click Import from Amazon. A large catalog (15,000+ listings) is rate-limited and can take roughly 5 to 15 minutes; watch progress in the Active work tray.
- Open the review card. Imported rows appear under Review Imported Listings with a {N} to review badge. Filter with the tabs Needs review (default), Suggested, Unmatched, Linked, and Dismissed.
- Read the table. Columns are Amazon Title, Seller SKU, ASIN, Fulfillment, and Suggested Match. The Fulfillment pill shows whether Amazon fulfills the item (FBA) or you do (FBM).
- Confirm matches. For a row with a good suggestion, click Accept. To pick a different product, click Change or Match to Product and search. Click Dismiss to drop a row you don’t want.
- Confirm in bulk. Click Confirm all suggested ({N}) to link every suggested row at once, or tick rows and use Confirm selected or Dismiss selected.
ℹ️ Note: The result banner reports the split: listings staged, with a suggested match, needing a product, and already linked. Rows under Unmatched need you to point them at a product before they can link.
6. Sync inventory & price
What ILLUMA sends to Amazon after you connect is controlled under Settings, in the Sync to Amazon card. All three toggles start off.
| Toggle | Governs |
|---|---|
| Sync inventory | Quantity (available stock) sent to the offer |
| Sync price | Your ILLUMA price on the offer |
| Sync product content | Lets ILLUMA manage the listing itself. A product you have linked to an ASIN lists either way. |
- Inventory waits for the toggle. Until you turn Sync inventory on, quantity changes are held. Turn it on when you’re ready for ILLUMA to own stock on Amazon, then click Re-sync inventory now to push current stock to every listing. Choose which of your locations feed Amazon under Fulfillment Location Mappings.
- Repriced products keep the repriced price. If a product is managed by the Apex Repricer, ILLUMA leaves price off routine syncs so the repriced price is never overwritten. The one exception is a brand-new listing, whose first price goes up with the listing as described above.
📸 Screenshot placeholder: Channels → Channel Hub → Amazon → Settings, the Sync to Amazon card with the three toggles and the Re-sync inventory now button.
⚠️ FBA ghost offers: sending a merchant quantity for a SKU that Amazon fulfills (FBA) can create a stray merchant (FBM) “ghost” offer. ILLUMA guards against this. Settings also has an FBA ghost-offer check card: click Check for FBA ghost offers to scan. Flagged SKUs show a ghost status with Inspect and Clear ghost actions. A Shared ASIN check card finds Amazon items that more than one of your products is listed on, which is usually a wrong link.
7. Orders & fulfillment
Once connected, orders flow in on their own.
- Orders import automatically. Amazon notifies ILLUMA as orders change, and they land in Orders. Pending (unpaid) orders are skipped and appear when they reach a real status. To bring in older orders, use Pull Historical Orders under Settings.
- Tracking goes back automatically. When you ship an eligible merchant-fulfilled (FBM) order, ILLUMA confirms the shipment and tracking to Amazon. FBA orders are fulfilled by Amazon and need nothing from you.
- Returns and buyer cancellations are under Settings. Returns Sync has an Auto-sync returns switch (a pull of merchant-fulfilled returns every 12 hours). Buyer Cancellations has Auto-cancel unshipped buyer cancellation requests, which is on by default and never touches shipped orders.
8. Pricing & repricing
Amazon price is driven by the Apex Repricer, which reacts to competitor offers inside your floor and ceiling. How the band works and how prices are checked is covered in Pricing & Repricing.
9. Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Channel shows Expired | Amazon refused to refresh the connection | Click Reconnect and approve again. Syncing resumes once the chip reads Connected. |
| Product won’t list: SKU not linked to an Amazon ASIN | The product has no linked ASIN | Link it: use the product’s Channels tab (List on… or Link to listing), or the import review, then list again. |
| A warning says the product will list at your floor, above Amazon’s price | Amazon’s price for the item is under your floor, so the product lists at your floor | Check the floor and cost first; a floor that is too high is the usual cause. See Costs, Floors & Per-SKU Overrides. If you list anyway and Amazon deactivates the offer, the listing shows as inactive on Amazon; fix the floor or leave the product off Amazon. |
| List it now says Amazon’s prices could not be read | A short-lived problem reading Amazon | Wait a minute and try again. |
| “This product needs a weight before it can be listed” | A product you ship yourself has no weight | Add the weight on the product, then list again. |
| Listing never appears, or shows as a “Missing offer” stub | Amazon couldn’t match the offer to the item | Open the Activity tab and find the product’s row under Sync Activity. ILLUMA retries product-type problems on its own. |
| A listing was refused | Amazon returned an error (brand or category approval, policy, or data) | Open the Needs attention tab in Match review or the row in Sync Activity to read Amazon’s reason, fix it, then list again. |
| Price not changing | The product is managed by the Apex Repricer, or Amazon’s own min/max price band is blocking the change | Repriced prices are by design; see Price Verification & Health. |
| Inventory not updating | Sync inventory is off (the default) | Turn it on under Sync to Amazon, then click Re-sync inventory now. |
| Orders not importing | They are still Pending, or the channel isn’t Connected | Pending orders import when they change status. Confirm the chip reads Connected. |
| Order has no buyer address | An FBA order (Amazon holds the address), or the address lookup failed on an FBM order | FBA orders never carry buyer details into ILLUMA. For FBM the order still saves; check it again after the next sync. |
| A merchant (FBM) offer appeared on an FBA SKU | A merchant quantity was set on an Amazon-fulfilled SKU, often by an older tool | Run Check for FBA ghost offers in Settings, then Clear ghost on the flagged SKU. |
Next: Pricing & Repricing. Set your floor and strategy so your Amazon offers stay competitive on their own.