Amazon Product Advertising API Developer's Manual page 32

Product Advertising API Developer Guide
• JAN—Japanese Article Number
The equivalent of the EAN that is used in Japan for products and barcodes.
• ISBN—International Standard Book Number
An alphanumeric token that uniquely identifies a book. A book's EAN is typically set equal to the book's
ISBN.
• SKU—Stock Keeping Unit
A merchant-specific identifier for a purchasable good, like a shirt or chair. Amazon's version of the SKU
is the ASIN.
Amazon assigns items with SKUs an ASIN. If you had to search by SKU only, you would have to search
each merchant's items independently because SKUs are not unique across all merchants. Several
Product Advertising API operations enable you to search by SKU but the merchant must also be
identified in the same request.
• EISBN—Electronic International Standard Book Number
A token that uniquely identifies a digital book.
All items in the Amazon marketplace have an ASIN even if they also have one of the preceding identifiers.
Only a few Product Advertising API operations can use these identifiers. That functionality is presented
as a convenience function. You would typically only use one of these identifiers if you knew it but did not
know the item's ASIN.
The validity of these identifiers varies by search index, as shown in the following table.
Search Index
Apparel
Automotive
Automotive
Baby
Beauty
Books
Classical
DigitalMusic
DVD
Electronics
HealthPersonalCare
HomeGarden
Industrial
Jewelry
Kitchen
Magazines
Miscellaneous
Music
Items for Sale
UPC
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
N
Y
Y
API Version 2011-08-01
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EAN
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
SKU
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y