Skip to main content
​
2026-01-09
Week of Jan 5
Week of Jan 5 updates
This week we’re introducing managed retail accounts and smarter payment handling. These features give you more control over how orders are placed and make credential management significantly easier.

​
Managed Retail Accounts

Managed retail accounts
You can now use managed retail accounts to place orders with your own retailer credentials. This gives you more control over order placement and unlocks features that require being logged in.
  • Amazon account support — Orders placed with Amazon credentials now use our enhanced processing system for better reliability
  • Forwarding email addresses — Each managed account automatically gets a dedicated email address for verification codes and tracking notifications
  • Easy credential reference — Use short IDs to quickly identify and reference your saved retail credentials
  • Explicit credential selection — Specify exactly which credentials to use with the retailer_credentials_id parameter

​
Smarter Payment Handling

When using managed accounts, Zinc now automatically uses your saved payment method if you don’t provide one explicitly. This means less redundant data in your API calls.
  • Automatic payment detection — Orders with managed accounts can use saved payment methods without passing payment details each time
  • Flexible payment modes — Switch seamlessly between saved and explicit payment methods based on your needs
  • Clear error messages — Get helpful payment_method_required errors when a saved method is needed but doesn’t exist

​
Streamlined Onboarding

We’ve simplified the getting-started experience to help you start testing faster.
  • Skip optional steps — Skip non-essential onboarding steps and dive straight into testing
  • Faster setup — Streamlined flow gets you to your first test order more quickly

​
Better Error Tracking

Enhanced error reporting throughout the platform helps you debug issues faster with more specific error types and clearer messages.
​
2026-01-02
Week of Dec 29
Week of Dec 29 updates
A lighter week with focused improvements to order search and price clarity, plus continued infrastructure work.You can now search for orders by order ID, making it easier to find specific orders in your dashboard.

​
Clearer Price Warnings

When an order exceeds your maximum price threshold, you’ll now see a clear “Max Price Exceeded” warning instead of a generic failure message. This makes it easier to understand why an order didn’t complete.

​
Infrastructure Improvements

We’ve been working on backend improvements to support future features:
  • Multi-worker architecture — Building distributed systems for better scalability
  • Enhanced authentication — Improving support for retailer accounts that require login
  • Better error tracking — Expanding our monitoring to catch and fix issues faster
​
2025-12-26
Week of Dec 22
Week of Dec 22 updates
This week brought intelligent product variant interpretation and expanded financial management capabilities. The highlight: we can now automatically understand and parse product variants from plaintext strings.

​
Product Variant Interpretation

Product variant interpretation
The biggest update this week is our ability to intelligently interpret product variants from plaintext strings. Instead of requiring structured data, you can now provide variant information as natural text and we’ll automatically parse it into the correct format.
  • Intelligent parsing — Automatically interpret size, color, and style options from plaintext strings
  • Flexible input — No need to pre-structure variant data, just provide the information naturally
  • Clear label/value pairs — Properly formatted variants for accurate order placement

​
Better Test Order Flow

Better test order flow
We’ve streamlined the in-app test order experience with rich previews and variant management.
  • URL preview cards — See product images and details before placing test orders using Open Graph metadata
  • Variant support — Test orders now fully support product variants with the new interpretation system
  • Mobile-optimized — Fully responsive order interface that works seamlessly on mobile devices

​
Improvements

  • Better error messages — Clearer feedback when payment or order issues occur
  • Fixed retry logic — Order retry now works correctly and only triggers for failed orders
​
2025-12-19
Week of Dec 15
Week of Dec 15 updates
We finally released the latest version of Zinc. This initial release brings dramatically expanded retailer support, along with key order management features.

​
V2 Beta Launch

Zinc 2.0 beta is now available with a modern API and dashboard. This release dramatically expands our retailer coverage.
  • More Retailers: Dramatically expanded retailer support across the world’s top online stores
  • Modern API: Clean, consistent API design for better developer experience
Some v1 features (account automation, tracking, returns) are coming soon. See migrating from v1 for details.

​
Order Management

Order management features
You can now cancel orders directly from the dashboard and retry failed orders through the API. This gives you more control over your order lifecycle without needing to contact support.
  • Cancel orders — Stop orders before they’re fulfilled when plans change (available in dashboard)
  • Retry failed orders — Automatically retry orders that failed due to temporary issues (available via API)

​
Amazon Integration

Amazon integration
For customers who need Amazon’s full feature set during the v2 transition, orders can now be automatically proxied through our v1 API. This ensures continuity while we complete v2 feature parity.

​
Platform Improvements

We’ve also made several improvements to the overall platform experience:
  • Better order display — Improved how order details are shown in the dashboard
  • Payment notifications — Clearer notifications when payment methods need attention
​
2025-12-12
Week of Dec 7
Week of Dec 7 updates
This week brought improvements to wallet management and ordering reliability. We’re making it easier to manage your account balance and ensuring orders succeed more consistently.

​
Wallet Management

Wallet management interface
You can now add funds directly to your wallet using your saved payment methods. Previously, you had to contact support to top up your account — now you can do it yourself in seconds.We’ve also added detailed descriptions to all wallet transactions, so you can see exactly what each charge was for (API fees, order costs, etc.).

​
More Reliable Orders

Orders now automatically retry when they encounter temporary issues, making the overall process more reliable. We’ve also made several improvements:
  • Smarter price checking — We now validate prices only at the final checkout step, reducing premature order failures
  • More accurate pricing — Enhanced price extraction logic handles varied retailer formats more reliably