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Amazon API Outages Explained: What to Do Next

December 18, 2024

If you’ve been experiencing issues with Amazon Finance API data after Cyber Monday 2024, you’re not alone. Users have reported prolonged issues with Amazon Finance data not being available through Amazon’s API.

Amazon’s API status page shows that the Finances API has been down since December 11—but our team at Kapoq identified that Amazon has not been reliably providing this data since December 3, over a week before Amazon publicly acknowledged the issue.

When API outages like this occur (and they occur often), Amazon sellers and agencies are left scrambling to figure out the issue or be left in the dark.

We’re breaking down common challenges with Amazon’s APIs, how it could affect your Amazon business, and how Kapoq can help you save time when outages occur.

Challenges with Amazon’s APIs

This experience is not new—Amazon data is often plagued with issues after tentpole events like Prime Day or Turkey 5. There are three main challenges to not having access to this data, all of which could affect your Amazon business in different ways.

As we noted earlier, Amazon is often slow to report when these outages or issues are taking place. Amazon first noted the outage occurring on December 11, but our team at Kapoq identified the outage occurring as early as December 3—over a week before Amazon reported any interruptions.

And, because Amazon doesn’t always accurately report when the outages are occurring, you waste valuable time trying to identify whether the issue originated with you or with Amazon. So, even when the issue is with Amazon’s API, you’re stuck wondering if it’s something on your end.

If you were connecting to APIs yourself, you would have had to drop everything two days after Cyber Monday to try and figure out this reporting issue, only to eventually realize it’s all on Amazon’s end.

Lastly, when these outages occur and aren’t reported, you’re unable to determine the success of your campaigns. Because Finances data was (and still is, at the time of publishing) unavailable after Turkey 5 this year, brands weren’t able to fully get a picture of their biggest sales days of the year. More importantly, they’re not able to calculate profitability, which is especially challenging for tentpole days with heavy discounts and heavy advertising—both of which can make you less profitable. Sellers who rely on the Finances API data are still in the dark in terms of profitability since December 3.

How Kapoq Addresses Amazon API Issues

Kapoq is so accustomed to working with Amazon’s APIs and the data they return that we often identify issues before Amazon acknowledges them. In this most recent case, we identified the spotty service over a week before Amazon’s API flagged it on their status page.

Chris Sisco, Chief Technology Officer at Kapoq, shares more about how Kapoq approaches these interruptions in service: “Managing Amazon’s API and data outages, especially uncommunicated ones, is a significant challenge for any Amazon Partner. These disruptions can create downstream effects on our services and customer trust, particularly after high-traffic events. To address this, we prioritize proactive customer communication to ensure transparency and minimize impact when outages occur.”

In our latest release, we made significant enhancements to Kapoq’s data hub, which gives you visibility into the status of each data source in your account. The data hub tells you how often Kapoq is requesting new data from Amazon’s APIs, the last time we requested data, and the last date that Kapoq received complete data.

By leveraging our expertise and letting us be the connection point for your Amazon data, you can save valuable time and be more informed about the status of your most important data.

Kapoq handles all the heavy-lifting around integrating with Amazon’s APIs, and deals with error handling like this. We bring the data to you in a timely manner, and ensure the data is verified and accurate. We can’t solve the actual API issues—that’s on Amazon—but you can trust that Kapoq has your back when it comes to managing your Amazon data.

 

Don’t waste time building your own API integrations—let Kapoq do the heavy lifting. Sign up for your free demo today.


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