Nothing has changed. There is still no sandbox available.

Hopefully you meet all the requirements to get access to PII data as Amazon has been really strict with the requirements and some devs (including us) have been waiting for months to get approved.

Here is a (messy) thread about testing using a real Amazon account (which is the only way you can test):

David Nelson
Dynamic Enterprise Technologies Inc
Seattle Washington USA

Don’t buy your own product instead mock the API response which you can get it from the MWS API documentation site and test it from there

The solution is to create a design document for your application and make sure to cover all of Amazon’s requirements in the design. Then answer the questions according to your design document. Once approved, you can proceed with the actual application.

David Nelson
Dynamic Enterprise Technologies Inc
Seattle Washington USA

I think seller support might be able to help.

What I have heard from other sellers in your situation (where your company is actively selling product on Amazon) is to contact seller support and get approval for a second seller account which you will use only for dev/test.

Otherwise you may be able to agree with Seller support on a product you can add to your live and publicly active account but that otherwise you are not selling to the public, so you can test with it without impacting live sales and your seller rank.

If you decide to contact seller support about this issue, it would be great if you can let us know what happened.

David Nelson
Dynamic Enterprise Technologies Inc
Seattle Washington USA

Agreed.

Agreed.

Agreed.

For software development against the MWS API, my suggestion is a separate account that is not used for real sales to the public, real items that meet the rules (but priced/configured so no one would ever purchase them, also kept hidden except for brief periods when needed), and otherwise make sure the items get purchased and fully processed a few times so you have transactions to test with.

David Nelson
Dynamic Enterprise Technologies Inc
Seattle Washington USA

Using a separate account solves everything.

To further clarify, if your software development is only reading the MWS data, then you are pretty safe to use your real account. But if you are developing MWS updates to your account…

REASON 1:
It is best practice in software development to test new programming against a test account with test products and test orders. Doing testing of new programming against your real and active account could result in damage to your product list, pricing, improperly notifying real customers their item has been shipped when it has not, etc etc etc. While you could test new programming against your real account, you are taking a risk of improperly updating your account. The risk can be eliminated by using a separate account.

REASON 2:
One of Amazons rules states “The best seller rank feature allows buyers to evaluate the popularity of a product. Any attempt to manipulate sales rank is prohibited.” By testing using your real account, you risk the possibility of being accused of using your test transactions to manipulate your sales rank. By using a separate account for testing, if questioned or accused, it is very clear and easy to tell no manipulation is being attempted.

It would be best of Amazon produced an official recommendation on how they recommend MWS development take place so we don’t have to guess and debate about the proper methods.

David Nelson
Dynamic Enterprise Technologies Inc
Seattle Washington USA

The best would be if Amazon provided test accounts, which they no longer provide, so the best option is eliminated from the possibilities. The second best is using a live but separate account for testing new development that updates the account. The last choice would be to use an account you are using to actively sell to the public.

If you want to use your real account to test new MWS development, please proceed. The reason companies doing a large business on Amazon would want to use a separate account when testing MWS API update calls, is, for example, to prevent the programming from accidentally updating all 500 of your pending orders with the wrong shipping status and shipping information… This would create a big mess that would need to be cleaned up. However, if you mess up a few unimportant orders in your live separate account used for dev/test only, no harm done.

This separation is basic programming practice that most professional programmers use. That is why the question keeps coming up.

It very much depends on what your program is doing. This thread was about updating order status and providing the tracking numbers on open orders. Having a few orders in a separate account is the best place to start. Once your program is working successfully with those, it is safer to execute against your account with 500 open orders.

It is not the easiest way. But it is the safest way.

David Nelson
Dynamic Enterprise Technologies Inc
Seattle Washington USA

Your information is incorrect. When I originally started MWS development a couple of years ago and inquired with Amazon on how to proceed in the absence of a staging account, I was advised to open a live account and to use real items normally kept hidden. I proceeded with that advice and it has been working fine for the last couple of years.

The account I use for dev/test has minimal sales activity and all products are hidden except on rare occasion. It only contains the minimum transactions needed to test the scenarios my programming is dealing with. I have purchases, shipments, cancellations, and returns. Amazon doesn’t pay much attention to the account because of the minimal activity I assume. I have made it clear to Amazon from the beginning the account is being used only for dev/test and not for selling to the public. After reviewing my account and understanding it’s purpose, none of Amazon the staff have complained. I have never been threatened for suspension, suspended, or otherwise accused of breaking any rules by Amazon staff.

The items in my account are few in quantity and are all used items that I actually have in my possession. None of the items came directly from a manufacturer. The items were purchased from retailers. I could produce the receipts from the retailers if required.

Please quote from Amazon rules exactly what rules you think are being violated. In the absence of you quoting specific rules, I will assume there are no violations.

Please quote exactly what law or credit card term you think I will soon be violating. In the absence of you providing a specific law or credit card term, I will assume your assertion is incorrect.

It would be a major time consuming project within itself to create a test harness. If you search for “test mws” on the public internet, you will find a company who has the same idea, but they don’t seem to be in operation yet. They are offering “mock accounts” like you are suggesting. They are also offering “live test accounts”.

The problem with writing your own test harness is the responses you get back will not be what Amazon would return for varying and complex data conditions. In order to figure out how Amazon will response to varying and complex data conditions, you would need to perform tests on a live account, then you are just going in a circle. You might as well test with the live account in the first place. Another major problem is you can’t review the real results/impact of your updates, which is the most important reason for testing in a separate account.

The scratchpad is great for testing individual commands. But you can’t test your fully developed programming using scratchpad. When it comes to updates to the account, you still face the same problem. You don’t want to be performing test updates in scratchpad on the account you are using to sell to the public as you could mess up orders.

My advice has been tested and has been working for two years without a problem so far. In the absence of a public recommendation from Amazon on how to handle dev/test, all I can do is share what has been working for me. I will continue to share it as an option for developers to consider as long as it keeps working.

David Nelson
Dynamic Enterprise Technologies Inc
Seattle Washington USA