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CIEL Book Distribution – Streamlining Amazon Seller Central Operations with EDI2XML API Integration

Discover how CIEL Book Distribution, a leading book distributor in the Middle East, partnered with us to implement a fully automated Amazon Seller Central API integration.

This success story highlights the move from time-consuming manual updates to a streamlined, high-volume automated process, improving accuracy, efficiency, and scalability.

CIEL Book Distribution is a leading book distributor in the Middle East, with operations in Dubai, UAE, and Beirut, Lebanon. The company serves bookstores, educational institutions, and online retailers, offering a wide range of titles across multiple genres and languages.

With a growing catalog of over 26 million bibliographic records, CIEL relies on digital sales channels such as Amazon Seller Central to reach a broader customer base and drive online sales.

To remain competitive and efficient, the company needed a scalable and automated way to ensure that its online sales channels always reflected the most accurate and up-to-date information.

As business expanded, CIEL faced growing operational complexity and several pressing challenges:

  • Time-consuming manual updates of inventory and product data in Amazon Seller Central — sometimes 4–6 times per day.
  • Massive data volume: while the master database contains 26 million records, daily delta files include 500,000 to 1,000,000 changes.
  • Performance bottlenecks: Amazon’s SP-API allows only limited batch sizes (about 10,000 items per call). Sending large updates requires thousands of calls, paced every two minutes, meaning full synchronization can take over 48 hours. Currently, full feeds are sent on weekends.
  • Limited coverage: CIEL operates about nine Amazon seller accounts, but the initial integration targeted only one account. Scaling to all accounts and to Vendor Central remains a priority.
  • Future goals: centralizing ERP and e-commerce workflows into a single, fully automated system.
  • The primary objective was to automate inventory synchronization with Amazon Seller Central, reduce manual work, improve accuracy, and establish a foundation for broader digital transformation.

To address these challenges, EDI2XML provided Amazon Web API Integration Services, designed to seamlessly connect with Amazon’s Seller Central API.

Key aspects of the solution included:

  • Inventory Feed Automation: Automated generation and delivery of delta files, replacing repetitive manual uploads that were previously performed up to 4–6 times per day. This process now handles high-volume feeds — with daily deltas ranging from 500,000 to 1,000,000 records — while full synchronizations (over 26 million records) are scheduled during weekends.

Amazon Managed Inventory

  • Amazon API Access: A dedicated integration leveraging the Selling Partner API (SP-API) to fetch and send business data (orders, sales, credit notes, and purchases), aligned with Amazon’s API throughput limits (10,000 records per call).

Amazon API

  • Test Environment & Proof of Concept: EDI2XML provided CIEL with access to its own API via Swagger, enabling the client to validate the integration on one Amazon seller account for one month before moving to full subscription.

Amazon API

  • Scalable Architecture: The implemented solution laid the foundation for connecting CIEL’s nine seller accounts and extending the integration to Vendor Central, opening the door to centralized and fully automated workflows.
  • Collaborative Support: Pierre and the EDI2XML team provided hands-on guidance, problem-solving, and follow-ups, helping CIEL successfully complete its first-ever API integration project.

During initial testing, EDI2XML successfully retrieved different data objects from CIEL’s Amazon Seller Central account, confirming the smooth operation of the API integration. Within weeks, the integration eliminated manual uploads for the first account and has since been running fully automated.

The project’s success was a result of close collaboration between CIEL IT team and EDI2XML. Continuous support, attention to details, and expert guidance helped the client navigate challenges during development and testing.

This partnership approach ensured:

  • A milestone achievement — moving from manual processes to a fully automated integration in just a few weeks.
  • Confidence for CIEL to move forward with a monthly subscription and contract agreement.
  • Establishment of a solid foundation for future digital transformation.

With EDI2XML’s Amazon Web API Integration, CIEL Book Distribution achieved:

  • Operational Efficiency: Eliminated daily manual uploads (4–6 times per day) for the tested account. Automated inventory updates significantly reduced manual work and minimized the risk of stock discrepancies.
  • High-Volume Automation: Successfully automated delta feeds (500K–1M records per day) and structured full-feed syncs on weekends.
  • Accuracy & Reliability: Customers now have access to real-time stock information, improving satisfaction and trust.
  • Scalability: A proven framework to roll out across nine seller accounts and expand to Vendor Central.
  • Confidence & Readiness: A strong technical foundation for future ERP and e-commerce integration.

The first phase covered one Amazon seller account, which represents only a small portion of the overall project scope. Next steps include:

  1. Scaling integration to all nine seller accounts.
  2. Extending the solution to Vendor Central.
  3. Improving throughput with parallelization, batching optimization, and advanced error handling.
  4. Further automating publisher validation, reducing unnecessary API traffic and streamlining operations.

With these enhancements, CIEL expects to further strengthen its position as a major distributor in the Middle East, recognized for operational excellence and technological innovation.

EDI2XML is a sister company of Namtek Consulting Services, specializing in EDI integration and automation solutions.

While Namtek focuses on IT consulting and business process optimization, EDI2XML complements these services by providing technical expertise in electronic data interchange (EDI) and cloud-based integration platforms.