Square Amazon Integration: Stop Updating Stock Twice

Square has no field for a tracking number, and neither does Amazon. So when you post an order from this stock, the number lives in QuickSync and there is no second place to read it from. Nothing is lost. But if your process is for someone to open Amazon or the Square dashboard and read tracking off the record, that process is the thing to change before you connect rather than after.

The upside on this pair is speed. Both Square and Amazon push their changes to us as they happen, so neither is sitting behind a scheduled check. A sale at the till and a sale on Amazon each reach the other side without waiting to be noticed, which is the situation that otherwise produces an oversell on a busy Saturday with a queue at the counter.

Square will hold 80 characters of SKU. Amazon takes 20. Since the SKU is what identifies the item on both sides, the shorter limit governs everything, and 20 characters goes fast in any naming scheme built out of words. We truncate at the channel’s limit rather than refusing to send, so nothing errors: the item simply stops pairing with itself, and you find out when a count drifts weeks later.

Which way stock moves depends on who ships it. We always send your count out to Amazon, so a till sale lowers what Amazon shows. Changes coming back are the part that differs. For items you pick and post yourself, Amazon-side changes reach us and carry through to Square. For anything Amazon holds and ships, we deliberately leave the count alone.

That last part is a design decision rather than an unfinished feature. Amazon knows what is on its own shelves; we would be guessing at receipts, damages and returns that never pass through us. So those items keep Amazon’s figure, and your Square count is not expected to match them. Worth saying out loud, because a book number that quietly disagrees with a warehouse is worse than no number at all.