Understanding Amazon’s Buyer-Seller Messaging Service

You can receive these messages through one of two areas: your Amazon-associated email account or Amazon Seller Central. You will find it under the “Buyer-Seller Messages Page.”

According to Amazon’s Seller Guide:

“Buyer-Seller Messaging is the only approved method for communicating with buyers on Amazon.”

Amazon has tight controls over how sellers can contact customers. Therefore, it’s important to educate yourself thoroughly in order to avoid “Terms of Service” violations.

• It keeps a per-order record of all customer-facing communication
• You have higher security in the event where a customer is trying to take advantage of you
• You can view the messaging from your email address
• Having a base of communication reduces the chance for product claims and disputes
• You can instruct the buyer on how to use your product through direct messaging
• Checking in with your customer is a great way to build loyalty

Amazon’s seller messaging system has support for the following email systems:

• Microsoft Outlook, Live, and Hotmail
• Google Gmail
• Yahoo
• Thunderbird
• GMX
• HTML Email
• Almost all major email address systems

You can choose between using a business or personal email address.

Situations where you can contact them include resolving order issues, requesting address information, sending invoices, and scheduling delivery of bulky products.

You can also inquire about returns, but Amazon does not allow you to coerce buyers from leaving negative feedback. Doing so is a quick way to get suspended from the platform.

Amazon allows you to maintain this contact for the first 30 days after an order is made. After the 30 days elapse, the messaging service closes.

• Requests for positive customer feedback (especially if a request has already been made)
• Order, shipment, delivery, and refund confirmations. Amazon handles these confirmations through its automated system
• Messages thanking the customer for their order
• Any message containing external links (unless it is required to complete an order)
• External email addresses, phone numbers, or social media links
• Incentivized review requests
• Inquires as to why a customer canceled an order with you (this is handled by Amazon customer service)

Before sending an email to the customer from your email, you should also be sure they do not include the following problems:

• Grammar issues and spelling errors
• Emojis
• GIFs (Animated images)
• Any font style changes from the default
• Anything with excessive line breaks (two in a row usually)
• Huge images
• Images from unsecured locations (HTTP instead of HTTPS)

After November  2020 Amazon implemented significant buyer-seller messaging updates. However, Amazon has always been restrictive about how its sellers communicate with customers.

Thankfully, there are ways to overcome many of these issues. It is best to think of the buyer-seller tool to resolve product and shipping errors through direct communication.

Other locations where you will see the button include the following:

• Feedback Manager
• Manage Returns
• Manage A-to-Z Claims
• The Buyer-Seller Messages Pages

If you receive a bounce-back message, you’ll know something is off. However, emails including [Important] in the subject line overcome the system.

Examples of critical messages include the following:

• You need to schedule the delivery because you handle fulfillment of heavy items yourself
• The product is customizable, and you need to ask them a few questions to add finishing touches
• The shipping address shows up as invalid, and you want to confirm that the information is accurate

Using critical message labeling without having a critical message will result in the suspension of selling privileges.

• Text files (.txt) and Word documents (.doc and .docx)
• Images (.jpg, .gif, .bmp, .png, and .tiff)
• Adobe Portable Document Format (PDFs)

Attachments must be below 10 MB (total) for any attachments. If you are using your business/personal email address, you need to include the size of your email text.

Amazon reserves the right to remove sensitive content in images of text if it can offend its customers. You should avoid inappropriate content  (including offensive language).

Any easy attachment that resolves customer issues is a PDF (or text) version of the owner’s manual. As the product owner (or seller), it is up to you to understand different sections of your manual.

Regardless of what you use, you’ll want to encourage your customer to use CTRL+F if they’re going to find solutions later. This is a bit easier on Microsoft Word, but many modern PDF readers will enable you to see text the same way.

Citing different sections of your owner’s manual is a great way to resolve customer complaints before turning them into a negative review. Otherwise, you might show example images of you using more complicated features of the product.

Images can be helpful when you want to show the customer visual steps on how to use your product. If you have a mechanical effect with small parts, you’ll want to have these ready for the customer to look at.

You can also use these images on your product listing, as providing people with more excellent understanding upfront encourages them to make a purchase.

If you want customer messages to temporarily not go to your employee’s email, choose the “Blocked” selection from the status field. Switch the settings back to “Approved” if you want them to receive emails again.

Regardless of what email you choose (be it a business email or personal email), the customer will not be able to see it through the Amazon buyer-seller message system.

So if you have a developer on staff, you can process data and create automated responses to customer inquiries. For example, if you receive numerous repeat inquiries about invoices, you could feasibly have a computerized system process this data for you.

Because most Amazon sellers do not have the budget for hiring full-time developers, you have a few other options:

• Hire a freelance developer on websites like UpWork or Freelancer to handle this one-time job
• Seek assistance through Amazon’s Partner Network to assist you in API management.

Utilizing the Amazon API can be handy, but it is essential to understand how you want to use the data before hiring someone to interpret it. For example, if you’re going to track competitors’ data, you are better served by our tool on product research.

Many Amazon sellers are discouraged from making this contact to avoid Amazon’s Terms of Service. Instead, you can check up on the customer when they purchase your product, and you have third-party access to them.

This situation is why it is vital to establish an off-site presence away from Amazon. You cannot rely on Amazon as your sole sales channel because Amazon has 100% control over the traffic.

Consider Amazon as a vehicle to make it easier for you to become a powerful eCommerce salesperson. If that automobile breaks down, it will be good to have a backup option.

Also, avoid upselling via these channels. If anything, the buyer-seller messaging should solely be for responding to customer inquiries.

These two tools will enable a product seller to instruct the customer more efficiently. These items ensure that the buyer knows how to use your product with limited confusion.

Study materials should be person-facing and easy to understand. Ideally, you should explain your product so that a five-year-old can use it (assuming it isn’t too dangerous for them).

If you have kids and an easy enough product, you might run the “five-year-old” understanding test. Otherwise, you might upgrade that age to a grade-schooler. In either case, you’ve proven how good you are at explaining things if a kid can understand your instructions.

You might also run surveys and ask people who aren’t your friends and family. Consider this whenever making updates or creating an owner’s manual.

When it comes to product development, your best source of improvement comes from the people who use your product. So pay attention to your customer reviews, and do not forget about your buyer-seller messages.

These messages are almost always from disgruntled customers running into challenges with your product. If you see a trend among messaging (that happens to match customer reviews), it might be time to make a change with your product.

Being responsive to changes in how a mediocre business becomes an excellent business. Understanding and responding to (reasonable) customer needs brings people through the later stages of the buyer’s journey.

To avoid this, ensure that you respond within 24 hours. Click the “No Response Needed” option under the buyer-seller messaging center if the message does not require a response.

• The email ends with marketplace.amazon.com
• The email has 35 characters total (including the domain)