Stop Losing Packages: A Guide to Amazon Shipping API Integration
- 7 hours ago
- 10 min read
Why Amazon Tracking Integration Is Critical for E-Commerce Success
Amazon tracking integration connects your store, warehouse, or order management system to Amazon's shipping and logistics APIs — so you always know where every package is, in real time.
Here's a quick overview of how to connect Amazon tracking APIs:
Choose your API — Use the Amazon Shipping API for carrier-level tracking, or the Selling Partner API (SP-API) for Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) orders.
Get your credentials — Enroll in the relevant Amazon program and obtain authorization from the selling partner.
Call the tracking endpoint — Use getTracking (Amazon Shipping API) or getPackageTrackingDetails (SP-API) with your shipment identifiers.
Switch from polling to webhooks — Set up push notifications to receive real-time updates without hammering the API.
Connect your platform — Route tracking data into Shopify, ShipStation, your ERP, or a custom dashboard.
If you run an e-commerce business, this matters more than you might think. 73% of customers say shipping is a significant factor in their purchasing decisions. A lost package — or worse, a customer who has no idea where their order is — costs you more than just that sale.
Amazon's logistics network has grown into one of the most sophisticated last-mile delivery systems in the world. But connecting it to your systems, across multiple sales channels, is where things get complicated fast. There are multiple APIs, different tracking identifiers, and important distinctions between Amazon order numbers and carrier tracking numbers that trip up developers and business owners alike.
I'm Carlos Cortez, co-founder of S9 Consulting, and I've spent years building integrated e-commerce systems — including scaling a distribution operation that required custom warehouse, sales, and tracking infrastructure from the ground up. That experience gives me a practical understanding of Amazon tracking integration that goes well beyond the documentation. In this guide, I'll walk you through every layer of the integration so you can implement it confidently.
Key API Options for Amazon Tracking Integration
Building a robust amazon tracking integration requires selecting the correct API for your business model. Amazon does not offer a single, catch-all shipping interface. Instead, the ecosystem is split into distinct APIs designed for different fulfillment workflows.
If you are shipping products yourself using Amazon as a carrier (even for orders placed on your own website, eBay, or Shopify), you will use the Amazon Shipping API. This API functions like those of traditional carriers, allowing you to request rate quotes, purchase shipping labels, and track packages.
On the other hand, if you store inventory in Amazon's warehouses and use Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) to ship orders, you will use the Selling Partner API (SP-API). Additionally, if you use Amazon Pay on your storefront, the Amazon Pay Delivery Tracker API provides a specialized channel to sync tracking data and trigger automated smart-home voice alerts.
To understand how these systems fit together across your entire sales architecture, you can read our E-commerce Marketplace Integration overview or dive into our BigCommerce Amazon Integration Guide 2026 for platform-specific strategies.
The table below outlines the core differences between the primary APIs used for tracking:
Feature / Detail | Selling Partner API (SP-API) | Amazon Shipping API (v2) | Amazon Pay Delivery Tracker API |
Primary Use Case | Tracking FBA and Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) orders | Carrier-level shipping, label printing, and tracking for self-fulfilled orders | Syncing tracking data to trigger buyer-facing notifications |
Supported Carriers | Multiple carriers managed by Amazon FBA | Amazon Shipping network exclusively | Channel-agnostic; supports any valid carrier code |
Unique Capabilities | Retrieves split-shipment package details | Real-time GPS coordinates and proof of delivery (POD) images | Triggers voice-activated Alexa delivery notifications |
Authentication | AWS IAM / Login with Amazon (LWA) OAuth | Login with Amazon (LWA) OAuth | Public Key ID with Merchant credentials |
Tracking Method | Pull API polling | Pull API polling & Push Notification Webhooks | Push-only (to Amazon Pay) |
Let us take a closer look at how these APIs operate under the hood.
Tracking Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) with the Selling Partner API
When you use Multi-Channel Fulfillment, Amazon picks, packs, and ships your off-Amazon orders from its fulfillment centers. Because Amazon optimizes its inventory across multiple warehouses, a single customer order can easily be split into multiple packages. Tracking these split shipments accurately is a common operational hurdle.
To build a reliable integration, your system must first call the getFulfillmentOrder operation. This returns the fulfillment order details, including one or more unencrypted package numbers. These package numbers are represented by the packageNumber parameter.
Once you have the packageNumber, you pass it as a required parameter to the getPackageTrackingDetails operation. This endpoint returns highly granular tracking details, including:
Current Status Enums: Such as IN_TRANSIT, DELIVERED, RETURNING, or out for delivery.
Detailed Tracking Events: Over 30 specific event codes ranging from EVENT101 (package received at facility) to EVENT804 (locker delivery completed).
Customer Tracking Link: A direct, pre-formatted URL pointing to swiship.com.
Swiship is Amazon's dedicated, public-facing tracking portal for MCF orders. Instead of building a complex tracking UI on your own website, you can simply retrieve this customerTrackingLink from the API response and map it directly to your customer-facing email templates or Shopify order confirmation pages. This provides your buyers with a real-time, visual tracking timeline without exposing your internal Amazon seller credentials.
Implementing Amazon Pay for Voice-Activated Amazon Tracking Integration
If you offer Amazon Pay on your e-commerce storefront, you can leverage one of the most unique post-purchase experiences in the industry: voice-activated delivery updates via Alexa.
When a customer pays with Amazon Pay, your system can call the Create Delivery Tracker API. This API is highly specialized. It does not pull tracking data to your servers; instead, it pushes tracking information to Amazon Pay so that Amazon can handle the notification process.
To set up these notifications, you must call the Create Delivery Tracker endpoint with the following parameters:
amazonOrderReferenceId or chargePermissionId: The unique identifier generated during the Amazon Pay checkout process.
carrierCode: The standardized code representing the shipping carrier (e.g., USPS, UPS, FedEx, or DHL).
trackingNumber: The physical tracking number provided by your shipping carrier.
Once this tracker is created, Amazon monitors the shipment. When the status changes to "out for delivery" or "delivered," Alexa proactively pulses a yellow light ring on the customer's smart-home device. The buyer can simply ask, "Alexa, where is my stuff?" to receive an instant, spoken update.
To ensure your system is communicating correctly before going live, you can perform comprehensive sandbox testing. The sandbox environment executes the API call, validates your credentials, and returns an HTTP 200 success status without triggering actual notifications. For a deep dive into configuring these voice alerts, consult the official guide on Setting up delivery notifications | Amazon Pay.
How to Integrate Amazon Shipping with ShipStation and E-commerce Platforms
If you prefer not to build a custom API integration from scratch, you can leverage popular third-party shipping platforms like ShipStation. ShipStation features a pre-built connector for Amazon Shipping, allowing you to import orders, compare rates, print labels, and sync tracking data back to your storefront automatically.
This pre-built integration is ideal for businesses that sell across multiple channels—such as eBay, Shopify, and BigCommerce—and want to use Amazon's shipping network to fulfill those orders. By consolidating your shipping workflows, you can print customized labels showing your business name, order IDs, and purchase order numbers, maintaining a consistent brand identity.
To understand how third-party integrations fit into your overall marketplace strategy, check out our BigCommerce Amazon Marketplace Integration Guide. Additionally, if you want to track customer interactions and shipping clicks on your storefront, our Google Tag Manager Complete Guide 2026 provides a step-by-step roadmap for setting up custom event tracking.
Step-by-Step ShipStation and Amazon Tracking Integration
Connecting your Amazon Shipping account to ShipStation is a straightforward process, but you must first determine whether your business uses a Seller Central or a Shipper Central account. Seller Central is used by merchants selling directly on the Amazon marketplace, while Shipper Central is for independent shippers utilizing Amazon Shipping for external channels.
Here is how to configure the integration:
Log into your ShipStation dashboard and click the gear icon in the top right corner to access your settings.
Navigate to Shipping > Carriers and click on the Your Carrier Accounts tab.
Click See All Carriers and select Amazon Shipping from the list of available integrations.
Select your account type: click Seller Central Account if you sell on Amazon, or Shipper Central Account if you are an independent shipper.
You will be redirected to Amazon's secure login portal. Enter your credentials and authorize ShipStation to access your shipping and tracking data.
Once authorized, configure your default shipping preferences, package sizes, and pickup schedules within ShipStation.
To print a label and initiate tracking, navigate to your Orders tab in ShipStation, select the orders you want to fulfill, click Create + Print label, and select Label from the dropdown. ShipStation will automatically purchase the postage from Amazon Shipping, generate the carrier tracking number, and push that tracking data back to your connected sales channels (like Shopify or BigCommerce).
Transitioning to Real-Time Webhooks and Push Notifications
While traditional "pull" APIs require your servers to constantly poll Amazon for tracking updates, this approach is highly inefficient. High-volume merchants who poll APIs every few minutes frequently run into API throttling and rate limits (HTTP 429 Too Many Requests).
To eliminate this bottleneck, Amazon Shipping supports real-time push notifications via webhooks. Instead of your system asking Amazon "Is this package delivered yet?" thousands of times a day, Amazon's servers proactively send an HTTPS POST request to your webhook listener the exact moment a tracking milestone occurs.
Using webhooks dramatically reduces server overhead and ensures your customers receive near-instantaneous updates. To configure this, you must provide Amazon with a secure HTTPS endpoint. Amazon supports four robust authentication mechanisms to secure these webhooks:
API Key: Passing a static key (such as X-API-KEY: abcdef12345) in the request header.
Query Parameter: Appending a secure token directly to the webhook URL.
Username & Password: Basic authentication credentials.
OAuth 2.0: The industry standard for secure, token-based application access.
When a tracking event occurs, Amazon sends a JSON payload containing detailed event metadata. This payload includes a Location object (with city, state, and postal code details) and, where available, a proofOfDelivery object containing precise GPS coordinates and URLs to delivery photos or signatures.
However, developers must keep two critical best practices in mind when integrating these push notifications:
Handle Image Expirations: For privacy and security, delivery photo URLs are only valid for 3 days from the event time, and signature image URLs expire after 6 days. Your system must download or cache these images immediately upon receipt if you plan to show them to customers later.
Sort by Event Time: Because webhooks travel across distributed networks, latency can occasionally cause events to arrive out of order (for example, a "Delivered" event arriving seconds before an "In Transit" scan). Always parse the eventTime field within the payload and sort your database entries chronologically, rather than relying on the order of webhook receipt.
For a complete breakdown of webhook schemas and configuration steps, review the documentation on Push Notifications - Tracking a Shipment.
Handling Non-Delivery Reports (NDR) and Exceptions
Not every delivery goes perfectly. When a package cannot be delivered—due to an incorrect address, a closed business, or an unavailable recipient—Amazon generates a Non-Delivery Report (NDR).
By subscribing to NDR push notifications, your customer service team can resolve delivery exceptions in real time, often preventing the package from being returned to your warehouse. When an NDR event is triggered, Amazon sends a webhook containing specific reason codes (such as "Address not found" or "Customer unavailable") along with an NDR due date.
Your system can parse these webhooks and automatically email the customer, prompting them to provide corrected details. Once you have the customer's feedback, you can programmatically submit an NDR action back to Amazon Shipping:
Reschedule: If you choose to reschedule, you must provide a mandatory rescheduleDate formatted to ISO 8601 standards.
Reattempt: If you request a reattempt, you can pass custom instructions in the additionalAddressNotes field (such as a gate code or apartment instructions). This field has a strict limit of 256 characters.
To explore the exact payload requirements and setup timelines for exception handling, consult the technical reference on Push Notifications - NDR Eligible Shipments.
Frequently Asked Questions about Amazon Tracking
What is the difference between an Amazon order number and a carrier tracking number?
An Amazon order number is a strictly internal 17-digit database record formatted as three blocks of numbers (e.g., 123-1234567-1234567). It represents a financial transaction and purchase history within Amazon's ecosystem. Third-party tracking tools and APIs cannot parse or track an order number because it does not contain logistics routing data.
A carrier tracking number is a unique alphanumeric code issued by the physical carrier (like UPS, FedEx, or Amazon Logistics) to track the movement of a parcel.
For packages shipped via Amazon's internal carrier network, the tracking number often starts with "TBA" (e.g., TBA123456789000). Because Amazon Logistics is a closed-loop network, public tracking sites like 17TRACK cannot natively pull tracking events for TBA numbers without a direct API integration. To track these packages, users must either log into their Amazon account or use a dedicated tool like Swiship that integrates directly with Amazon's logistics database.
How long is tracking history available via the Amazon Shipping API?
Detailed tracking history—including every individual scan, facility arrival, and transit milestone—is available via the Amazon Shipping API for exactly 45 days after the shipment is created.
Once this 45-day window closes, detailed event logs are archived and removed from active API access. After this point, calling the tracking API will only return the final delivery status (such as "Delivered" or "Returned to Sender") without any of the intermediate scan milestones. We highly recommend caching all tracking events locally in your own database as they arrive so you have a permanent historical record for customer service audits. For a complete tutorial on querying these endpoints, refer to the Tutorial: Track a Shipment guide.
What tracking statuses can users expect from Amazon Logistics?
When tracking packages through Amazon Logistics, your integration should be prepared to map and display the following standard tracking statuses:
Label Created: The merchant has generated the shipping label and packed the order, but the physical package has not yet been scanned or picked up by the Amazon carrier.
Shipped / In Transit: The package has been picked up, scanned at an Amazon sorting facility, and is moving through the logistics network.
Out for Delivery: The package has arrived at the local last-mile delivery station and has been loaded onto a delivery vehicle.
Delivered: The delivery driver has successfully dropped off the package at the destination address. This status is often accompanied by GPS coordinates and a proof-of-delivery photo.
Delivery Exception / Delay: The delivery was attempted but could not be completed (e.g., security gate locked, weather delays, or missing address details).
Conclusion
Integrating Amazon's tracking and shipping APIs is one of the most effective ways to eliminate lost packages, reduce customer support inquiries, and streamline your fulfillment operations. Whether you are leveraging the Selling Partner API for Multi-Channel Fulfillment, setting up automated voice alerts via Amazon Pay, or transitioning to real-time webhooks for instant delivery updates, connecting these systems requires deep technical expertise.
At S9 Consulting, we specialize in building robust, custom systems integrations and process automation solutions that keep your e-commerce business running smoothly. Based in Boston, MA and Jacksonville, FL, we partner with brands for the long haul, helping you connect complex APIs, optimize your warehouse workflows, and deliver a seamless post-purchase experience to your customers.
Ready to automate your logistics and take control of your shipping data? Explore our E-commerce Management for Amazon Sellers services, and reach out to us today to schedule a consultation.
