Amazon ASIN: What is an ASIN Number and Important Guidelines about ASIN for Your Business

If you want to sell any product on Amazon, then you must have a sound knowledge of Amazon ASIN number. You need to know what an Amazon ASIN number is, why it is important for your business and how it is used.

In its quest to be all things to all people, Amazon has constructed an incredible catalog of more than 12 million products, books, media, wine, and services. In addition, If you extend this to Amazon Marketplace sellers, as well, the wide variety is toward more than 350 million products. For selling your product on Amazon you must have an ASIN Number.

What is the Amazon ASIN Number?

ASIN stands for Amazon Standard Identification Number. It’s a 10 characters unique identifier which includes numbers, alphabets or a combination of both. It is used for product identification within the product catalog of billions of items. That means each and every product has its own unique code by which customers can search for the particular product they want to buy. Therefore, two products will never have the same ASIN number. ASINs are only unique within the marketplace. But there can be the same ASIN for two different products in different marketplaces. 

Note: For books, ASIN and ISBN are the same. ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number.

Why ASIN Number is Important for Sellers, Customers, and Amazon?

For Amazon to,

• Have a track or record of the products on its website.
• Allow customers to find the accurate and relevant product they are searching for on Amazon.
• Track the shipment and delivery of the products.
• Find the products in their warehouses. 
• Have all the records related to that particular product on its website.

 For the customers to, 

• Find the specific product and also the relevant product while searching on Amazon.
• Get the order history report on Amazon.

Note: The Order History Reports feature permits clients to download shipment, return, and refund activity for Amazon.com orders. The document is in a “CSV” format, that is well suited to Microsoft Excel.

For the sellers to, 

• Have a sales report for a particular product on Amazon.
• Maintain the inventory on Amazon.
• Have the shipment and delivery report of a product.
• Maintain the ordered products.
• Find the most relevant competitors on Amazon.
• Maintain the return and refund activity on Amazon.

So we can say, Amazon’s ASIN number is very essential for all – Customers, Sellers, and Amazon.

When to Create a New ASIN and When to Use an Existing One?

For any single product there must have only one ASIN Number and one detail page. Therefore, this makes it easier for customers to find the specific product they want to search for and navigate Amazons massive catalog. 

Use Case 1 : Using an Existing ASIN Number

If you want to sell an item on Amazon, you have to check first if any ASIN is available for that particular product. If so, then you can start selling your product by creating an offer under that ASIN Number. When you are doing this you are actually sharing the same ASIN with all other sellers offering the same product. Generally, Resellers and retailers use that case.

Use Case 2: Creating a New ASIN Number

When you are searching for an ASIN for a product, if you cannot find an existing ASIN for that product, you will require to create one of your own. For doing that, first of all you will need to add a new product to Amazon’s Catalog.

Once adding a new product to Amazon is done, Amazon will give you an unique ASIN Number which will help you start selling your product on Amazon. Brand owners, Private level sellers and people with distribution rights follow this way of selling their products on Amazon.

In short, if your product is already listed on Amazon then you will not require an ASIN Number. But if your item doesn’t have an existing ASIN on Amazon listings, then you will need to add a new product to get a new ASIN from Amazon for that new item. 

How to Find an ASIN on Amazon

You can find an Amazon Product ASIN in three different ways:

• From the product’s web address or URL on Amazon.
• From the Products details Information.
• The Third-Party Software Tool to find the ASIN.

From Products URL

Looking at the browser’s address bar is the fastest way to find the ASIN of the product you are looking to sell. 

The ASIN number will be highlighted after the product name and the “dp”, as highlighted in the below image:

From Products Details Information

The second way you can find the ASIN is from the product detail page, which you will find at the bottom of the Product page. From the below image you can see that:

From the Third-Party Software Tool

You can also find the ASIN of your product by using the third-party software tools like Helium 10 (an eCommerce suite of tools) for marketers and corporations to manage and promote products, discover keywords, identify trends, optimize listings, streamline marketing and marketing campaigns, and more on Amazon. You can find your products ASIN and many more informations about your product using softwares like Helium 10. 

In the below image, you will see how helium 10 shows ASIN when you go to a product detail page on Amazon:

How to Create a New ASIN

When Amazon’s Catalog doesn’t have your product on their listing, then you will need to create a new ASIN. For doing that, first of all you will need to add a new product on Amazon.

Using Amazon Admin Panel

 The easiest way to create a new ASIN is to use the Add a product feature in your Amazon Seller Central Account. Through Amazon’s web-based Admin Panel you can manually add each and every information about a product. Although it is not a good way of adding a large quantity of items on Amazon, this feature is a great way to learn about the data requirements and product addition process. 

Using Amazon Inventory Templates 

 Using Amazon file templates, you can also upload product data. First of all, you will need to download a category specific file template from the add product via section on Amazon Seller Central Account Section.

After filling the template with all your product data, you will need to upload the template file on Amazon. Then Amazon will process the file, create new products and also assign the ASIN Numbers for the products there in the uploaded template. This is a great way of adding a lot of product items to Amazon.  

What is Amazon’s Product Variation Policy?

While adding or searching ASINs on Amazon, sellers often have to deal with parent-child relationships and product variations. Actually it allows buyers to buy and compare products based on different attributes like color, style, size or other characteristics. From the below image you will be able to see a color variation from an Amazon buyers end:

You will have only one Parent ASIN and under the Parent ASIN there will be multiple Child variations. There are several policies regarding parent-child relationships variations to restrict sellers from misusing the variations.

Why Should You Use ASIN to Protect Your Brand?

Have you ever heard about Brand Gating? Brand Gating is a program on Amazon that permits brands to set up a barrier around their merchandise (or their whole brand), stopping third-party sellers from promoting counterfeit items. By disposing of unauthorized sellers and counterfeit merchandise, buyers can experience assurance when they buy your merchandise on Amazon. 

Brand Gating blocks sellers from using ASINs without the permission of the Brand Owner. For selling a gated brand the seller must pay a fee which is 1000$ and sometimes more for a single brand. Also, the seller must provide evidence of written permissions and invoices. Which proves that the seller has the permission of the authority to sell the Brand product on Amazon. 

If you want to protect your brand, that means if you want to get brand gating from Amazon then you have to enroll in the Amazon Brand Registry. After enrolling your brand in the program, open a support case and send a list of ASINs you want to have gated on Amazon.

Conclusion

In conclusion, ASIN Number is essential for all- the sellers, the customers and Amazon itself. 

I hope from this article, you have learned what ASIN Number is and why ASIN Number is important and how to get it. 

If you really think the article helped you learning important facts about Amazon ASIN Number, in other words, if you think it will be helpful growing your business on Amazon, then feel free to “Leave a Reply” at the end of this article. 

Moreover, you can share your experience with Amazon ASIN so that other readers can also be benefitted from this.