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I intend to develop a client for Amazon's Marketplace webservices (MWS). My requirements would be to update the order, synchronize the order status, get the order details using the APIs they have.

However, I could not find a Sandbox environment to test these scenarios. Amazon has a payment Sandbox I understand, but is there a sandbox available to test these web-services? If not, are there any pointers on how to go about testing the above mentioned scenarios with Amazon MWS?

starball
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PaiS
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  • You could create a seller account and attach it to your social if you do not intend to use the account for selling as a retailer. – Teddy Codes Aug 10 '16 at 20:04

2 Answers2

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Update

I thought about replacing this post for today's (>2022) solution.

MWS is deprecated. Use Selling Partner API instead, there is a (limited) Sandbox where you can test things.

Still unsolved is a sandbox website where one could fiddle around without limits, so you still have to test with real accounts.

Stefan
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    You can no longer use the [individual Selling](https://developer.amazonservices.com/gp/mws/faq.html/182-4740930-1031725#mwsSellers) or _"per sale" plan_ to access MWS – Trisped Apr 17 '13 at 01:33
  • Since when? Is this new? Any resources on this? – Stefan Apr 17 '13 at 10:23
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    Not sure, not sure, there is a link in my comment to the FAQ which states _[... sellers must have at least one of the following: a non-individual Selling on Amazon account, an Amazon WebStore account, a Checkout by Amazon account, or an Amazon Product Ads account. Sellers with only individual Selling on Amazon accounts are not eligible to register for or use MWS.](https://developer.amazonservices.com/gp/mws/faq.html/182-4740930-1031725#mwsSellers)_ (Then individual sellers are instructed to get a Pro Merchant seller account.) – Trisped Apr 17 '13 at 17:30
  • I see, thanks for the hint, that's not new, but it's good to know :-) – Stefan Apr 18 '13 at 07:56
  • Any hint on how to get to the staging URL where I can purchase these items with my real account? – Mike Averto Oct 29 '13 at 15:14
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    I just got an e-mail from Amazon stating that the staging environment no longer exists. As a ProMerchant you can hide orders etc. from specific buyers which allow you to do tests supposedly. – Menno Bieringa Apr 07 '15 at 19:14
  • no matter what you do amazon requires actual credit card info and tax information, there is NO WAY i'm paying a dollar per test order... it's absurd! – user3338098 Aug 03 '15 at 18:19
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    took over half an hour of explaining and transferring to 3 different people and being told "we don't offer staging accounts", "we don't offer test orders", "you can't avoid your closing fee, you MUST pay your fees","fake products are against the terms of use, your account WILL BE CLOSED", before I could get someone that understood that "test product"!="fraudulent product", lol, finally I was told to call the corporate office and *maybe* they may have an engineering department that is will to help me. Bottom line: don't believe a word they say, because they have NO IDEA what you want. – user3338098 Aug 03 '15 at 20:39
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    "_Thank you for writing to the Marketplace Web Services (MWS) specialty group. [...] Though we have had sandbox or staging accounts in the past, it is no longer offered [...] As you can imagine, bad information added for a product could impact your seller account or other seller accounts. Bad information on an order could also impact your sellers account or your buyer account. Due to these risks we no longer offer test accounts at this time._" In other words because a lack of testing is extremely risky they don't offer us any testing abilities. Amazon WANTS us to make mistakes! It's absurd! – user3338098 Aug 10 '15 at 15:08
  • I checked 'I want to use an application to access my Amazon seller account with MWS'. It asks Application Name and Application's Developer Account Number. How do I create MWS Application's Developer Account ? – Soorajlal K G Jan 19 '16 at 18:19
  • @SoorajlalKG you need to have a merchant account with full access to SellerCentral. You can get the developer account number by choosing MWS for your own account. You'll get the credentials then and can use those with other merchant accounts. – Stefan Jan 20 '16 at 07:55
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    Indeed the best way of "testing" your connectors is by working with real-life data. Thankfully my client granted access so I got plenty of data. If you don't have that, you can at least check out the mock-ups they provide with the "SDKs", e.g. here: https://developer.amazonservices.com/doc/bde/reports/v20090101/php.html – stschindler Jan 21 '16 at 15:07
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    @Tank So I'm a little confused here. There's no sandbox accounts available at all? If I want to develop for MWS I have to set up an account (done) and work on live (paid) listings? That seems like very, very bad practice and expensive for development... – JVG Feb 03 '16 at 16:12
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    @Jascination correct. no staging environment. you need an account, but you can set your listing status to "inactive", so they won't be displayed on the website. Just login to seller central, hit `Settings` (top right corner) and then `Listing Status` (left box) to set your listings to inactive. – Stefan Feb 04 '16 at 08:40
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    @Jascination Your assumption is fully correct. Biggest marketplace on earth, but no sandbox. Even if you can enlist your products in inactive categories, you still have to pay the fees. And if you do what steve suggests, then you still miss the "normal" and complete order flow. Best thing you can do is getting some real data and write an emulator yourself. – stschindler Feb 25 '16 at 08:58
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    I'm in the same boat on this. Amazon's response is ridiculous - how they think bad data on a staging account is somehow a risk (it's a staging account - there is zero risk - duh!). Idiots! – MC9000 May 23 '17 at 21:16
  • I am working with an independent fulfilment centre to help automate their work flow. One of the requirements is to integrate Amazon with their own Warehouse Management System, however as you've all realised, Amazon is making this as hard as possible. I'm sure their reason is to try and get people using FBA as much as possible, while making it difficult for everyone else. – user2924019 May 06 '20 at 12:58
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You can use the scratchpad of Amazon:

scratchpad

good luck

ZORRO_BLANCO
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    scratchpad does help some, but only if you already have orders. scratchpad uses live data, so all responses in regard to order requests will return no data. a true testing environment with test orders, etc. would be nice. – joeshmoe301 Jul 16 '18 at 20:07
  • actually, yes, and no :) , yes for some operations (not all of them) you need to have some data on your account to start testing with scratchpad, and the reason for that is that you need an interactive testing solution, because the data should be in live online, and no because it is not that big issue to have an account with data,and there were these sandbox accounts,you can create a sandbox test account,the only thing you have to do is to add some data,if you can't do that at least then you would never get a real testing interactive environment for a real online data.. – ZORRO_BLANCO Aug 02 '18 at 08:50