Receiving the coveted Amazon Vendor Central invitation is an exciting prospect. After all, in 2025 Amazon accounted for roughly 36% of the total U.S. ecommerce market by reaching about $440 billion in sales, and what brand wouldn’t want a piece of that online shopping pie?
However, after logging into Vendor Central, your hub for managing Amazon business, for the first time and seeing the homepage staring back at you, excitement may melt away into anxiety. Getting your brand set up correctly in Vendor Central is fundamental to launching and scaling your business on Amazon. But without a roadmap, it can be difficult to know where to begin and how to get off on the right foot.
In this article, you will find:
A rundown of Amazon Vendor Central’s five widgets
An overview of the seven categories you’ll find on Vendor Central’s main menu
What you can do if you need help in Vendor Central
How SPS can help set you up for Amazon Vendor Central success
Related Reading: Amazon Seller Central vs. Vendor Central: What’s the Difference?
Amazon Vendor Central Home Page Overview
Amazon Vendor Central Widgets
When you log into the Vendor Central home page, you will see five different widgets:
Business Snapshot | Includes stats for:
|
Purchase Orders | Provides overview of your PO status, including unconfirmed POs, confirmed POs, mismatched POs and advanced shipment notification (ASN) quantities, and recently modified POs, so you know if and which POs need to be addressed before you get hit with cancellations or compliance chargebacks |
Recommendations | Amazon’s recommendations for what you can do to grow your business |
Actions | List of prioritized actions you need to take (e.g., confirm POs, submit invoices) |
Communications | Running list of the latest news and community discussions |
Related Reading: A User’s Guide to Vendor Central
Amazon Vendor Central Menu Categories
Next, you can move your attention to the menu icon in the upper left corner. If you select it, you will see a list of seven different categories that play an important role in starting and scaling your Amazon business.
Items
The Items tab is where you will manage your brand’s product catalog. You can add products (one at a time or in bulk), edit product details, upload images and videos, and manage product compliance.
Here are a few tips from Amazon:
Accurate product information is a must for ensuring POs and payment processing go smoothly. As Amazon puts it, information accuracy equals success.
Don’t create a product detail page for a product that is already in Amazon’s catalog.
Your internal account administrator must provide you with listing creation rights before you can add a product.
It may take as long as two weeks before a new product you submit is visible in your catalog.
There are many reasons why you may want to edit your product details, including price and quantity updates, product description updates, corrections, shipping-related information updates, and keyword improvements.
Orders
The Orders tab is your destination for managing POs, scheduling transportation pickups, sending ASNs, tracking returns, and managing supply chain programs.
Here are a few tips from Amazon:
You must confirm or reject all POs within 24 hours of the order being placed. Keep in mind that a low PO confirmation rate could cause Amazon to order fewer products from you.
Confirming a PO means you agree to deliver the products within the assigned shipping window. Delivering outside that window can lead to a cancelled PO, rejected and returned products, and chargebacks.
For an exact list of all the products you need to pack for a specific PO (called a pick list), go to Orders and select Purchase Orders. In the Confirmed Purchase Orders section, select the check box for each PO you want to include and select Open selected POs. Then, select the check box in the PO Items list for each PO item you want to add to your pick list before selecting Create pick list from selected items. The Pick List page will appear and show a list of the remaining PO items that are available to ship.
Merchandising
The Merchandising tab gives you options for enhancing product listings and setting up vendor-powered coupons (VPCs), promotions, shopping guide placements, and marketing packages. You can also run A/B tests of alternate content versions to learn more about traffic, engagement, and what converts.
Here are a couple of tips from Amazon:
Create A+ Enhanced Marketing Content (EMC) that optimizes product detail pages with enhanced images, comparison charts, and brand storytelling.
Enroll in Amazon Vine to secure trusted reviews.
Growth
Amazon describes the Growth tab as your one-stop shop for growing your business. You’ll find recommendations on what to list, where to list, and how to speed up sales.
Here are a few tips from Amazon:
Select Growth Opportunities to see up to 50 recommendations that are tailored to your brand, updated daily, and organized by potential sales lift value.
For existing products, you can get tips for boosting sales on your current catalog, such as Best Deals, Lightning Deals, coupons, and item data quality enhancements.
If you want to launch new products, you can get category insights that inform product development (e.g., search growth trends, popular keywords).
All recommendations are organized by order of potential sales lift.
Reports
The Reports tab offers important business analytics and performance data you can use to track sales, inventory, and supply chain issues. You can also use it to monitor operational requirement adherence and to make marketing, forecasting, and other planning decisions.
Here’s some of the data that will be at your fingertips:
Operational Performance Dashboard: This dashboard lets you see metrics related to various supply chain problems, such as ASN defects, packaging issues, and delivery compliance, so you can pinpoint what needs to be improved.
Retail Analytics: Access sales and operational data that is updated daily, including revenue, inventory, and forecasts.
Voice of the Customer: Better understand the customer experience (CX). Amazon organizes your listings into CX categories (very poor, poor, fair, good, and excellent) to help you see what needs to be improved.
Concessions Hub: Get an in-depth analysis of customer returns, feedback, and product performance at the child Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) level that can help reduce returns and improve customer satisfaction.
Payments
The Payments tab is where you will manage all things financial, including:
Invoices: Create, submit, and monitor your invoices. You can search by invoice or PO number and see invoices that are approved for payment and those that still need to be reviewed.
Financial scorecard: Access a holistic picture of your Amazon transactions. If there are gaps in transactions, the scorecard will provide you with guidance on how to reduce them.
Remittance: Search by remittance or PO number to see payment status and details.
Co-Op: Access and print Amazon Co-Op invoices.
Dispute Management: Create, submit, and review disputes for shortages, product returns, and other issues.
Learn
The Learn tab is where you’ll find educational videos, courses, and webinars designed to help you succeed at Amazon. The Learning Hub will list trainings that are most applicable to where you are in your business, but you can also peruse trainings from these main categories:
Getting started
Catalog
Marketing
Operations
Payments
Compliance and sustainability
If you are new to Vendor Central, Amazon recommends beginning with the Getting Started section.
Related Reading: How Amazon Sellers Can Succeed on Amazon Prime Day 2026 (and Beyond)
Amazon Vendor Central Help Options
If questions arise, you have three main options for getting help.
Select Help in the upper right corner to access support content for common issues involving product management, product compliance, shipping, invoicing, account management, automation, and more.
If you can’t find the answer you’re looking for, you can select the Contact Us button at the bottom of the page to contact Amazon Support.
If you’d like to interact with a chatbot, you'll have an option to select the Vendor Assistant on every page in Vendor Central.
Partner With SPS Commerce for Amazon Vendor Central Success
You don’t have to navigate Amazon Vendor Central alone. Here’s how SPS Commerce can help:
Electronic data interchange (EDI) integration. Amazon calls integration the foundation that will streamline your future operations. SPS Commerce has built thousands of connections to help brands expertly manage Amazon’s vendor requirements. By partnering with SPS for EDI integration, brands benefit from:
Fast EDI compliance for all orders and supporting documents
Correct product listings for online and in-store accuracy
Quicker payment with accurate PO to invoice match
Access to point-of-sale data from Amazon to monitor product sales opportunities
Deduction support. Amazon brands lose an average of 6% of revenue to deductions and other losses. SPS Revenue Recovery identifies what you’re owed, validates which disputes are worth pursuing, attaches the necessary proof documentation, submits compliant disputes, and then helps prevent deductions altogether.
Free resources. Access our library of free Amazon resources.