Amazon Data Protection Policy
Descartes pixi must comply with the Amazon Marketplace Web Service (WMS) data protection policy. According to the policy, pixi is allowed to retain Amazon customer PII (personally identifiable information) only for as long as it is necessary to fulfill orders or to calculate/remit taxes on behalf of sellers. Amazon customer PII data must not be stored in pixi for longer than 30 days after an order was shipped. If a customer's PII data is needed at a later point, e.g. for processing returns or guarantees, pixi must retrieve the required data from Amazon APIs or from an archive. If pixi is required by law to retain archival copies of Amazon customer PII for tax or similar regulatory purposes, this archived Amazon Information must be stored in a "cold" or offline backup store in a physically secure facility.
Amazon Customer PII Data in pixi
The following processes in pixi ensure that Amazon customer PII data is handled properly and that users are still able to perform required business tasks:
Identifying: All Amazon orders are identified at order import (by Order Number External) which is necessary for the following archiving and masking procedures.
Archiving: All Amazon customer PII data for orders that were shipped 29 days ago are automatically uploaded to a secure storage (archive). The uploading process happens over night.
Masking (anonymizing): Amazon customer PII data is automatically masked (anonymized) in the database 30 days after the order was shipped. pixi ensures that customer PII data is not masked until it was successfully uploaded to secure storage.
Retrieving: pixi users can manually retrieve Amazon customer PII data from the secure storage if it is needed to process returns, replace orders, etc.
How to retrieve Amazon customer PII data of an order
Follow these steps to retrieve Amazon customer PII data from the secure storage:
Go to Customer Service > Orders in pixi Web.
Search for an order by order number. If you need to find a masked order by invoice number, you need to search in the Customer Service desktop application.
-
Select the masked order and click Retrieve order in the toolbar. All customer PII data for the selected order, linked invoices and credits will be retrieved.
You can enter a reason for retrieving data (50 characters max.) It will be stored in the customer's history.
Existing pixi functionality affected by the Amazon data protection policy
The following functionalities are affected by the policy:
Accounting export: You must export accounting data within the 30-day timeframe, before the Amazon customer PII data is masked. It is recommended to perform an accounting export every 14 days or at least every 29 days. This way you will make sure that data in the accounting export is correct and not yet masked.
Invoices for Amazon orders: After Amazon customer PII data is masked and the Amazon invoice PDF is deleted from the pixi document storage, you will not be able to recreate large numbers of invoices for Amazon orders easily. Therefore, you should always archive invoices as PDF files locally. It is recommended to archive invoices every 14 days, but at least every 29 days.
Customers: If the same customer makes an order on Amazon and in your shop, two customer records exist in pixi. One customer record is created based on customer and order data from Amazon, the second customer record is created and should be used for orders from other channels and manually created orders.
Manually created orders: Do not create manual orders for customers with data which was imported from Amazon.
Frequently Asked Questions
How are Amazon orders identified and what is the trigger for masking?
Amazon orders are identified at import by their external order number. When all orders from the same customer were shipped and all invoices are older than 30 days, the customer's PII data will be masked.
Will all Amazon orders be masked immediately after I get the release of this functionality?
No. The functionality for archiving and masking Amazon customer PII data must be enabled by the pixi Customer Support.
How do I handle returns and replacement orders?
Retrieve the original order from the secure storage archive using pixi Web.
Create a return or replacement order as usual.
Data will be automatically retrieved when you create a return or credit. Note that you cannot edit any details after unmasking orders.
Note: Customer PII data for returns and replacement orders is also masked 30 days after the original order was retrieved from the secure storage.
Which database fields are masked (anonymized) in pixi?
The following fields will be masked:
Addresses: Anrede, [Name], Name2, FirstName, LastName, [Address], Street, HouseNr, City, [State], ZIP, Contact, Phone, Phone2, Fax, Fax2, eMail, eMail2, BirthDate, Note, ACardType, ACardName, ACardNr, ACardExp, AAccount, AAccName, IBAN, Addresses history
Customers: CustomerNrExternal, CardName, CardNr, CardExp, Account, AccName, SName, SName2, SAddress, SCity, SState, SZIP, CeMail, CNote, CHisNote, SFirstName, SLastName, SStreet, SHouseNr CFax, CPhone, Customer history
Orders: GiftMessage, Address_Remarks, Shop_Note
Note: In case a field is empty, it will not be masked.
How does the duplicate check App work with masked customer data?
Customer data of archived/masked orders are excluded from pixiAddressesFindDuplicates results. Comparing duplicates in the database works as follows:
A match IS displayed when two customers have the same first and last name, city, ZIP, company, shop and the order is not archived
A match IS NOT displayed, when two customers have the same first and last name, city, ZIP, company, shop and the order is archived
Consequentially, API Call pixiMergeCustomers was updated. If a record is found that has already been archived, an error message appears stating that customer data cannot be merged.
What happens when orders can't be archived?
When an Amazon order wasn't successfully archived, it is set to the "Ready for archiving" status again after one day. Archiving will be triggered again and carried out automatically
Why does retrieving customer data fail?
Possible reasons for an unsuccessful attempt:
Network issue when data is fetched from the archive
Your internet connection is disrupted or not available
Are there any known issues with this functionality?
Yes. There are currently two known issues:
Manual invoices and credits for Amazon customers are archived and masked but currently you cannot retrieve them from the secure storage.
The Customer Service desktop application shows masked data in the Customer Details tab after data was retrieved. In that case, please restart the desktop application.