Amazon Vendor Economics · Glossary

ASN (Advance Shipment Notification)

Updated October 25, 2026

An ASN (Advance Shipment Notification) is the electronic notice a first-party (1P) vendor sends Amazon to describe exactly what a shipment holds before it arrives: the contents, the carton hierarchy (which cartons sit on which pallet), the SSCC (Serial Shipping Container Code) carton labels, and the tracking. Amazon's own pages call the same message a "shipment confirmation". It is sent as an EDI 856, the shipment message in EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), through Amazon's API (application programming interface), or entered by hand in Vendor Central.

The ASN is a document, not a deduction, but it drives two of them. Amazon cross-checks the purchase order (EDI 850), the ASN (856) and the invoice (810) against each other and penalises mismatches automatically. A missing, late or wrong ASN brings an ASN-category compliance chargeback, which is a penalty. It is also the usual root of a shortage claim that is not a real shortage, which is an underpayment: when Amazon cannot match what arrived to what was declared, it books a shortage against goods it did receive.

What does Amazon require of an ASN?

It must reach Amazon before the goods do, and its carton labels must match the cartons exactly.

Amazon's rule for retail purchase orders reads: "Amazon must receive the shipment confirmation prior to the product being received at the Amazon fulfillment center", and "Missing or delayed shipment confirmations result in chargebacks". A four-hour rule exists, but only for Direct Fulfillment (drop-ship) orders, never for retail purchase orders. Amazon's receiving scans cartons or pallets, not individual items, so the SSCC barcode on each carton must match the SSCC in the ASN exactly.

A bad ASN can cost a vendor three ways at once:

1. Receiving delays at the fulfillment center.
2. An ASN-category compliance chargeback, shown under Reports, then Operational Performance. It is a separate charge from In Full Delivery, which covers quantity defects against the confirmed purchase order.
3. Higher shortage exposure, because cartons Amazon cannot match read as missing goods.

In Vendor Central deduction recovery, the ASN record is the first document to pull when a shortage claim looks wrong.