Amazon require you to provide a 12 or 14 digit UPC (or EAN or barcode) in order for sellers to be able to list their items on Amazon.
In certain circumstances, like if you are the manufacturer of your items, you can request a UPC/EAN exemption or to apply for the Amazon Brand Registry. Please see below for the relevant Amazon pages where you can apply for exemption.
For Amazon.com: https://services.amazon.com/content/sellers-contact-amazon.htm?lead=Promerchant&ld=AZRHelpPreApp
For Amazon UK: https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/gtinx/browser
If you already have UPC Exemption or Brand Registry, the article below will show you how to enable the correct settings within ChannelUnity.
Setting up UPC Exemption in ChannelUnity
There are 3 main aspects to ensure your exemption is setup within ChannelUnity:
- UPC exemption is enabled in your Listing Settings (and this Listing Setting is applied to your products).
- Your Brand exemption value is mapped to Brand in ChannelUnity.
- A unique identifier (SKU) is mapped to MFR Part Number in ChannelUnity (Depending on the type of product you sell, this can also be Model Number).
We will now go into more detail of how to apply these.
- In your ChannelUnity account, click Setup > Listing Settings.
- Edit an existing Amazon listing setting, or click on Create New Listing Settings if you don’t already have one.
- On the following screen, scroll down and select the Listing tab. This will then bring you a screen that looks like the below. Please select “UPC Exemption” and then “Save Changes”.
4. Now we need to know the Brand Registry information. Click Setup > Describe Product Fields. We need to map a field from your online store which contains your brand name as registered in Amazon’s Brand Registry.
The information entered in this field should match your Brand Registry exactly, including capitalisation. For example, if your brand name is Products Inc, but Amazon’s exemption value is Products Incorporated you must use “Products Incorporated” as the brand value. We recommend you use the Brand or Manufacturer field for this.
It’s possible for us to set the brand value as a global default value for every product. Please let us know if you want us to set this up for you.
5. Finally you must give a unique identifier for your products. The most common way to do this is to map the Manufacturer Part Number (Called ‘MFR Part Number’ in ChannelUnity) to your SKU value. Again this is done in Setup > Describe Product Fields.
Depending on the type of products you sell, this can also be Model Number or Catalog Number. For example, Apparel/Clothing items tend to use Model Number.
This unique identifier is commonly referred to by Amazon as a Key Attribute, and the specific one to use may be stated by Amazon when your Brand Exemption is granted.
Summary
So to confirm, the three criteria needed to satisfy Amazon’s UPC exemption policy are:
1) UPC exemption is ticked in your Listing Settings (and this Listing Setting is applied to your products).
2) Your Brand exemption value is mapped to Brand in ChannelUnity.
3) A unique identifier (SKU) is mapped to MFR Part Number in ChannelUnity. (Depending on the type of product you sell, this can also be Model Number).