Looking for the Seller app or the Seller Central login?
Many people who type this search want one of two other things. The official Amazon Seller app is in the App Store and Google Play and uses your normal seller login; we cover what it does and does not do in our guide to the Amazon Seller app. The Seller Central login itself is at sellercentral.amazon.com, sellercentral.amazon.co.uk or the address for your marketplace. This article is about the third meaning: giving a third-party tool access to your seller account through Amazon's Selling Partner API, and doing that without regretting it later.
How authorising an app works, step by step
Every legitimate seller tool connects the same way, because Amazon only offers one way. Amazon calls it the website authorization workflow. From your side it looks like this.
- In the app or on the developer's website you choose Authorize, Connect or a similar button.
- Amazon opens a consent page inside Seller Central. If you are not logged in, you log in there, with your two-step verification as usual. The address bar shows Amazon's domain, not the developer's.
- The page names the application and lists the roles it asks for, each with a short description.
- You confirm. Amazon hands the developer a short-lived code, and the developer's server exchanges that code for access tokens.
- From then on the app calls the Selling Partner API with those tokens, limited to the roles you approved.
- The authorisation lasts 365 days, or until the developer adds a role. Then Amazon asks you to re-authorise from the Manage Your Apps page.
Three things follow. Your password never leaves Amazon: the developer receives a code, not credentials, and Amazon's Acceptable Use Policy for developers says it plainly: "Do not request or share Amazon Portal usernames or passwords from Authorized Users." Second, the roles on the consent page are the whole story; an app cannot quietly use a role it did not ask for. Third, Amazon's Login with Amazon rules say "Do not use a WebView to display Login with Amazon web pages within your application", so expect the login to open in your browser or in a browser tab where you can see the address, not in a screen the app controls.
The roles: what an app can ask for
Amazon's roles page lists every role a developer can request. Most seller tools use a handful: Product Listing, Pricing, Inventory and Order Tracking, Amazon Fulfillment, Buyer Communication, Finance and Accounting, Brand Analytics and Selling Partner Insights. Four roles are marked restricted: Direct-to-Consumer Shipping, Tax Invoicing, Tax Remittance and Professional Services. Restricted roles are the ones that can unlock buyer PII, such as a shipping address, or tax data. For the role an order alert app needs, Amazon's documentation says: "The Inventory and Order Tracking role provides access to operations that analyze and manage inventory. ... Operations that require this role do not use PII required to ship an order." PII is Amazon's term for personally identifiable information about your buyers.
Restricted roles matter for two reasons. Buyer names and shipping addresses only come out of the Orders API with a Restricted Data Token, and those tokens are tied to restricted roles such as Direct-to-Consumer Shipping. And Amazon puts developers who ask for restricted roles through a heavier review, with a data security assessment on top of the standard check. That is right for a shipping label tool that has to print addresses. It is wrong for a dashboard, a repricer or an alert app. The practical rule: match the roles to the feature. A repricer needs Pricing. A listing tool needs Product Listing. A tool that only reads orders and stock needs Inventory and Order Tracking and nothing else. Every extra role is extra reach for the developer, and for anyone who ever steals the developer's tokens.
The checklist before you connect an app to Seller Central
Run through this before you tap Confirm. It takes five minutes, and most of the answers are on the developer's website.
| Question | What a good answer looks like | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| Is the developer registered with Amazon? | The connection goes through the Seller Central consent page. Bonus: the app is listed in the Selling Partner Appstore, which Amazon reviews. | The app asks you to type your Seller Central email and password into its own form. |
| Which roles does it request? | Only the roles its features need, explained on the site. For order alerts: Inventory and Order Tracking. | A restricted role, or a long list of roles with no explanation. |
| Does it need buyer data or Restricted Data Tokens? | No, unless it prints labels, creates invoices or handles buyer messages. | An analytics or alert tool that wants shipping addresses "for completeness". |
| Where are the tokens stored, and how? | Encrypted at rest, in a named region, on the developer's servers, never on your phone. | No answer, "in the app", or a vague "securely". |
| What do the privacy policy and terms say? | Retention periods, deletion within 30 days after you revoke, and a way to delete your account yourself. | No privacy policy, or a site under construction. Amazon rejects developers whose websites are not accessible or are login only. |
| How do you revoke? | In the app and in Seller Central under Manage Your Apps, without asking anyone. | Only by emailing support. |
| Who is behind it? | A company with a name, an address and a registration number. | A first name and a contact form. |
Two rows deserve a note. Any public app you can authorise through the consent page has been through Amazon's developer registration: a developer profile, a security controls questionnaire and a publicly reachable website with a privacy policy and terms. Unlisted public apps are capped at 25 seller authorisations; a listing in the Selling Partner Appstore removes the cap and adds a second review. And on tokens, Amazon's Data Protection Policy requires every developer to keep "programmatic credentials (including API keys)" encrypted at rest, accessible only to authorised staff and rotated at least every twelve months. A developer who cannot tell you where and how your tokens are stored either does not know or does not want to say. Both are answers.
Why one read-only role is enough for an order alert
To tell you that an order came in, an app needs to know that an order exists, its status, the marketplace, whether it is FBA or FBM, how many items it holds and, once Amazon releases it, the amount. None of that is buyer data. Amazon's ORDER_CHANGE notification, the event that fires when an order changes, requires Inventory and Order Tracking, Amazon Fulfillment or the restricted Direct-to-Consumer Shipping role; the first one is enough. With only that role an app cannot change your listings or prices, and cannot see who bought. If the developer's tokens were ever stolen, the thief could read orders and inventory, not rewrite your catalogue or collect addresses. The technical version is in our explainer on how apps learn about Amazon orders through the Selling Partner API.
One detail we only found by building it: the ORDER_CHANGE payload includes a destination postcode field, and Amazon's Data Protection Policy counts "postal code" as PII, next to name, address, e-mail address and phone number. An app that stores that field has buyer data on its servers, with the 30-day retention rule and the audits that come with it. An app that does not need it should throw it away on arrival. We explain the full picture in what apps may see about your buyers under Amazon's Data Protection Policy.
What we did ourselves
- We registered as a Selling Partner API developer with exactly one role, Inventory and Order Tracking, and built the app around Amazon's Data Protection Policy.
- Agent ChaChing stores no buyer data at all: no names, addresses, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, postcodes or payment details. The postcode field in Amazon's notification is discarded the moment it arrives. Order ids are stored only as a keyed hash (HMAC) plus the last four digits for the alert text.
- Your authorisation tokens are encrypted on servers in the EU and are decrypted only by the service that talks to Amazon, never in the app on your phone.
- You can disconnect in the app or in Seller Central under Apps and Services, Manage Your Apps. Deleting your account takes one tap, and everything is gone within 30 days.
How to revoke an app under Manage Your Apps
You do not need the developer's cooperation to end the connection. In Seller Central:
- Open Apps and Services, then Manage Your Apps.
- Find the app in the list.
- Choose Disable authorization.
- Confirm with OK in the pop-up.
Amazon's documentation notes that the app "is disabled, but remains viewable on the Manage Your Apps page", so seeing it there afterwards is normal. The app's tokens stop working, and under the Data Protection Policy the developer must permanently delete your data within thirty days of the revocation. If the app has its own disconnect button, use both: the app's button lets the developer clean up straight away, and the Seller Central page is your proof.
The same page is where you re-authorise. Every public app expires after 365 days, and Amazon also asks you to re-authorise when the developer adds a role. That second case is worth a pause: an app that suddenly wants a new role should explain which feature needs it. It is also a good habit to open Manage Your Apps once a quarter and disable anything you stopped using. If you are choosing an alert app, our overview of every way to get notified of an Amazon sale compares the options by speed and reliability.
Frequently asked questions
Is it safe to connect apps to Seller Central?
It is as safe as the roles you approve and the developer you choose. The connection itself is designed well: you log in on Amazon's page, the app receives tokens limited to the roles you saw, and you can cut it off at any time. The risk sits in apps that ask for more than they need or handle buyer data carelessly. Use the checklist above and prefer apps that request one or two roles.
Can a connected app see my Amazon password?
No. The developer never receives your password; Amazon gives them a code and tokens. Amazon's Acceptable Use Policy even forbids developers from asking for Seller Central usernames or passwords. If a tool asks you to type your Seller Central login into its own form, do not connect it.
What is the Amazon Seller Central API?
Sellers usually mean the Selling Partner API, the interface Amazon offers developers for reading and writing seller data: orders, inventory, listings, prices, reports, finances and notifications. Every role you approve on the consent page corresponds to a group of operations in that API.
How do I see which apps have access to my seller account?
In Seller Central, open Apps and Services and choose Manage Your Apps. The page lists every app you have authorised, with its status. From there you can disable an authorisation or re-authorise an app that has expired.
Does an app with Inventory and Order Tracking see my buyers' addresses?
No. Amazon's description of that role says its operations "do not use PII required to ship an order". Shipping addresses and buyer contact details require a Restricted Data Token, which is tied to restricted roles such as Direct-to-Consumer Shipping. A read-only order role gives an app order status, items and amounts, not who bought.
Sources
- https://developer-docs.amazon.com/sp-api/docs/roles-in-the-selling-partner-api
- https://developer-docs.amazon.com/sp-api/docs/website-authorization-workflow
- https://developer-docs.amazon.com/sp-api/docs/revoke-authorizations
- https://developer-docs.amazon.com/sp-api/docs/renew-authorizations
- https://developer-docs.amazon.com/sp-api/docs/role-mappings-for-types
- https://developer-docs.amazon.com/sp-api/docs/tokens-api-use-case-guide
- https://developer-docs.amazon.com/sp-api/docs/register-as-a-public-developer
- https://developer-docs.amazon.com/sp-api/docs/application-authorization-limits
- https://sellercentral.amazon.com/mws/static/policy?documentType=DPP&locale=en_US
- https://sellercentral.amazon.com/mws/static/policy?documentType=AUP&locale=en_US
- https://developer.amazon.com/docs/login-with-amazon/webview.html
- https://sell.amazon.com/tools/selling-partner-appstore
