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The new Amazon Fulfillment Web Service opens the company's warehouses to merchants, who can store products and fulfill orders from customers all through Amazon.

Amazon brings another piece to the business of providing order fulfillment to merchants who store products at the company's warehouses for processing. That process added another piece with the arrival of its Fulfillment Web Service.

That API serves as an extension to the Fulfillment by Amazon service. Amazon performs the picking, packing, and shipping of products merchants deliver to one of Amazon's fulfillment centers. With the addition of the Amazon Fulfillment Web Service, site publishers can send orders over an API to Amazon to kick off the fulfillment tasks.

Their API works for inbound and outbound processing. Inbound activity of creating shipments of inventory to Amazon's centers taps a big advantage - the discounted UPS rates Amazon enjoys for using its shipping.

On the outbound side the Web Service provides several functions. Along with being able to send order and shipment requests to the Amazon fulfillment centers through the service, merchants can track orders when they ship. Amazon also offers an option to brand the packing slips or shipping boxes to help with brand reinforcement.

Amazon does not charge for using the Fulfillment Web Service. Their revenue comes from the Fulfillment by Amazon service, which charges for storage per cubic foot per month and for shipping and handling of the picked and packed orders.