Amazon Product Advertising API 5.0

Hi Ivan,
No, it is not compatible with PA-API 5.0.

At this time we have no plans to update the plugin compatibility due to the complexity of the PA API approval process. Due to the changes implemented by Amazon and the recent rate request limitations, the plugin has become too difficult for even an above average user to easily use – and as such, we will no longer be supporting the plugin or making future updates.

Regards,
Don

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Don Fischer. Reason: spelling

Thank you for the response.

Very sad about reading this ??

Your plugin is great…

So… no security updates also?

Thanks!

HI Ivan,
I may do an update in the next few months to get everything up to PHP7 standards and fix a few previous bugs. But we will not be doing any feature updates or anything else. We have a newer version that was never released, if you are interested. We were in the process of adding some things when Amazon changed the API requirements and limits (which caused a lot of people to lose access to the API or get throttled for too many requests) – so we never released it.

If you are interested, you can download it here:
https://www.fischercreativemedia.com/current-downloads/amazon-product-in-a-post-plugin4.0.3.9.zip

Thanks for the kind words on the plugin. If ever Amazon makes it a bit easier, we may revisit the plugin – but only time will tell.

I created the plugin over 10 years ago when you could use a universal API key and it was simple to just plug it in and go. The years since have seen the process become more and more complicated until the recent changes this year which made it so hard to make a consistent and easy-to-use plugin for people to use. I understand the need to tighten things down for security, but I was disappointed that Amazon made it so much more difficult to even use the API (for the average user). Now, you really need to be a power seller that already has an API account in order to effectively use it – the smaller users have no real chance because the process is difficult and keeping the API account requires regular and consistent sales. ??

Warm regards,
Don

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Don Fischer. Reason: spelling

Thank you very much for your work!

I will try the new version ??

Best regards,

Ivan

In a mail from Amazon i’ve read they are plannig to shut down PA-API 4.0 by October 31, 2019. So any plugin based on PA-API 4.0 will not work in any way after this date.
PA-API 5.0 is different to PA-API 4.0, it allows only HTTPS and only JSON responses with a different structure than old PA-API 4.0 XML responses. Just take a look on their documentation https://webservices.amazon.com/paapi5/documentation/

Migrating existing PA-API 4.0 to PA-API 5.0 is not a simple job, it costs a lot of developer resources.

Don,

I am very sorry to hear about this. This plugin worked so great to display specific Amazon products. Their own plugin does not work well. I don’t understand the API specifics well, but I am aware of the sales requirements. My plugin stopped displaying products properly in the last few days (betterlifereviews.com). I’m not sure what change caused that; maybe a WordPress update. If you can think of any solutions please let me know. I tried to upload the other update in the Zip file above, but it is not working.

Thanks,

Chad

Hi Chad,
WordPress updates should not affect the plugin. More than likely the API calls are being throttled for one reason or another and it just happened to coincide with an update (if there was one).

You can verify the throttling by looking at the plugin cache. If you expand one of the Cached items, you will see the raw XML data – and if it is throttled, there will me a message in there to that affect. If it is some other issue, it will also be shown there.

One thing you can do, is set your cache time to 72000 or something a lot higher than 3600 (the default of one hour). Additionally, try turning off the cache-ahead option if it is on. That will force the plugin to only call the API when a page that needs an update to the product is loaded and the cache will not time out as quickly. Those may help in reducing the throttle issues.

If it is a throttling issue, try clearing one of two of the throttled caches and loading the page on the front end again. Don’t clear them all at once or it will force the plugin to re-fetch all of the products and it could cause it to get throttled again if you have a very low call limit.

Also remember, if you do get throttled for reaching your max calls in an second, hour or day, it can take for 1 to 24 hours to have it reset by Amazon.

Regards,
Don

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Don Fischer. Reason: spelling

Good plugin but also the New Amazon API is great thing talking about response speed… etc
There is a New PHP lib that can help wordpress plugins to update to the new api https://github.com/Jakiboy/apaapi

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by Jihad Sinnaour.

Too bad. I need a plugin like yours to continue. If it’s even too complicated for a professional plugin developer, I don’t see a way to continue with amazon api

So anyone got an idea, how to still get product information automatically after Feb 11, which is the date where they finally shut down API 4.0.

Hi @mattmatt88 –
Since Amazon extended the API deadline, we plan to add the new API to the plugin before the Feb 11, 2020 date. We will probably not add any other features, but will will try to get everything up to the correct support levels for the API and PHP 7.3+ (and fix a few bugs).

This plugin has always been free and we maintain it on our own dime, so we can only do it when we have time and resources to do it.

Regards,
Don

That sounds great.
I don’t need any new features, as long as the existing shortcodes of the plugin still work as before.
Thanks for your great work!

Hi @prophecy2040,

Thank you for your work on this plugin!
Do you have any updates on making the plugin work with the new API?

Thanks,
Cecile

Yes its only 7 days left until the old API will be deactivated. Will you update the plugin this week?

Thanks for you quick response

Hi @mattmatt88,
Amazon has moved the cutoff date to March 9, 2020, so there is still some time left.
Our goal is to have the plugin updated by the end of February.

Warm regards,
Don

Thanks for the response! Glad to hear that