AWS Documentation » Amazon Product Advertising API Docs » Getting Started Guide » Making a Request in Product Advertising API » Submitting Your First Request in Product Advertising API	« Previous Next »
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Submitting Your First Request in Product Advertising API

To submit your first request to Product Advertising API

Open the Product Advertising API Signed Requests Helper.
Enter your AWS Access Key ID and your AWS Secret Access Key.

In the Unsigned URL text box, enter the following, replacing YourAssociateTagHere with your own Associate tag:

http://webservices.amazon.com/onca/xml?Service=AWSECommerceService
&Version=2011-08-01
&Operation=ItemSearch
&SearchIndex=Books
&Keywords=harry+potter
&AssociateTag=YourAssociateTagHere

Click the Display Signed URL button.
Copy the text in the Signed URL text box.
Note
For your request to succeed, the Timestamp parameter can be no older than 15 minutes.
In a new browser window or tab, paste the signed URL into the address line, and press Enter.

Congratulations! You just made your first Product Advertising API request.

From this example, you can see that a REST request is a URL. Everything before the question mark (?) specifies the destination of the request. This destination is the same for every Product Advertising API request (sent to the same locale). Everything after the question mark is a parameter in the request. This request searches (Operation=ItemSearch) for all books (SearchIndex=Books) that have "Harry Potter" in the title (Title=Harry%20Potter).

Tip

Product Advertising API has a number of locales, including the US, JP (Japan), FR (France), DE (Germany), United Kingdom (UK), and Canada (CA). Each locale has a slightly different endpoint. For example, the JP endpoint is http://ecs.amazonaws.jp. You can send requests to any locale. But typically you send requests to the locale in which your customers' reside. For more information about all the locales and endpoints, see Anatomy of a REST Requestin the Product Advertising API Developer Guide.

Product Advertising API responds to the request by returning an XML document. The following is a snippet of the response to the foregoing example.

  <TotalResults>2427</TotalResults>
  <TotalPages>243</TotalPages>
  <Item>
    <ASIN>0545139708</ASIN>
    <DetailPageURL>http://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Deathly-Hallows-Rowling/dp/0545139708%3FSubscriptionId
      %3DAKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE%26tag%3Dws%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative
      %3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0545139708</DetailPageURL>
    <ItemLinks>
      <ItemLink>
        <Description>Technical Details</Description>
        <URL>http://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Deathly-Hallows-Rowling/dp/tech-data/0545139708%3FSubscriptionId
          %3DAKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE%26tag%3Dws%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative
          %3D386001%26creativeASIN%3D0545139708</URL>
      </ItemLink>
      <ItemLink>
        <Description>Add To Baby Registry</Description>
        <URL>http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/baby/add-item.html%3Fasin.0%3D0545139708%26SubscriptionId
          %3DAKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE%26tag%3Dws%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative
          %3D386001%26creativeASIN%3D0545139708</URL>
      </ItemLink>
      <ItemLink>
        <Description>Add To Wedding Registry</Description>
        <URL>http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wedding/add-item.html%3Fasin.0%3D0545139708%26SubscriptionId
          %3DAKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE%26tag%3Dws%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative
          %3D386001%26creativeASIN%3D0545139708</URL>
      </ItemLink>
      <ItemLink>
        <Description>Add To Wishlist</Description>
        <URL>http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/add-item.html%3Fasin.0%3D0545139708%26SubscriptionId
          %3DAKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE%26tag%3Dws%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative
          %3D386001%26creativeASIN%3D0545139708</URL>
      </ItemLink>
      <ItemLink>
        <Description>Tell A Friend</Description>
        <URL>http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/taf/0545139708%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
          %26tag%3Dws%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D386001%26creativeASIN
          %3D0545139708</URL>
      </ItemLink>
      <ItemLink>
        <Description>All Customer Reviews</Description>
        <URL>http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0545139708%3FSubscriptionId
          %3DAKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE%26tag%3Dws%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025
          %26creative%3D386001%26creativeASIN%3D0545139708</URL>
      </ItemLink>
      <ItemLink>
        <Description>All Offers</Description>
        <URL>http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0545139708%3FSubscriptionId
          %3DAKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE%26tag%3Dws%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp
          %3D2025%26creative%3D386001%26creativeASIN%3D0545139708</URL>
      </ItemLink>
    </ItemLinks>
    <ItemAttributes>
      <Author>J.K. Rowling</Author>
      <Manufacturer>Arthur A. Levine Books</Manufacturer>
      <ProductGroup>Book</ProductGroup>
      <Title>Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows</Title>
    </ItemAttributes>

This snippet shows that 2427 items match the search criteria. The first item returned is, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." Many details about the book are returned, including the name of the author, illustrator, book manufacturer, and product identifier (ASIN). If you copy the DetailPageURL into a browser, a web page about this book is displayed.

Tip

An ASIN (Amazon Standard Item Number) is an alphanumeric token that uniquely identifies items for sale on Amazon.

Submitting URLs in a browser provides a good demonstration of how Product Advertising API requests and responses work. This practice, however, is not appropriate for customer applications. The remainder of this section describes how to issue Product Advertising API requests programmatically. The next section describes how to process the responses programmatically.

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