As an Amazon seller you’re expected to keep abreast of changes made to the Terms of Service. You also have to ensure that you observe all of the guidelines and Amazon is constantly making small changes to the terms of service.
Amazon has recently announced its newest set of changes with the release of the buyer-seller messaging communications guidelines that will take effect on the 6th November 2020.
This article serves to decode the guidelines so that you know exactly what you can and can’t do when the new terms take effect.
Allowable Buyer-Seller Messages
There are two categories of permitted messages that buyers and sellers may use to communicate on Amazon. These are:
- Necessary permitted messages
- Proactive permitted message.
You may only send messages within 30 days of order placement.
1 Necessary Permitted Messages
Without these messages you can’t complete the order. They include:
- Order problem messages – these messages are required to inform a buyer of difficulties with order fulfilment
- Messages related to returns – although returns are managed in Amazon’s “Manage Orders” section, you may need more information to accept the return or you may wish to communicate with the buyer regarding the return.
2 Proactive Permitted Messages
These are permitted messages that the seller initiates. They are not reactions to buyer enquiries. These include:
- A request for information required for fulfilment of orders
- Messages requiring additional information to complete an order
- Invoices
- A request for feedback or a review*
- Enquiries about returns
- Scheduling of appointments for home services
- Discussion on customised products
- Delivery schedules for bulky or heavy objects
- Any a seller needs to make contact with a buyer to ensure delivery of a purchased item
All of these messages must be sent through your seller account on Amazon’s Seller Central
*You are allowed to request feedback or a review 1 time using the messaging function. Alternatively, you can still use the Amazon request a review button. You can send these out manually or through third party applications but only USE 1 OF THOSE 2 OPTIONS.
Amazon Buyer-Seller Messages That Are Not Allowed
Along with the information on what is allowed Amazon has also made clear what it will not allow in Buyer-Seller messages
Messages that Amazon Will No Longer Allow
- Confirmations of order placement or shipping
- Thank you messages or offers to help in case of problems
- Promotions, coupons or any other form of marketing message
- Repetitive requests for feedback or review for a single order
These new guidelines are intended to reduce the number of messages that buyers get. Amazon sends confirmations so it isn’t necessary for the seller to do it too.
While you may ask for feedback or reviews once, repeat messages are forbidden.
Elements that Permitted Messages May Not Contain
While a message may be permitted, there are still elements that must not appear in the message. These are:
- Incentives or persuasions for the buyer to offer positive product feedback or reviews. No rebates, money, refunds, compensation, free products or discounts offered or any benefits in the future.
- Requests for updates or removal of product reviews
- Requests to limit reviews to positive feedback
- Attachments unless they contain warranty information, invoices or instructions on the use of the product
- External links that are not secure. They must be https links and not http. Only secure links can be used if they are needed to complete the order
- Logos that contain or show a website links
- Sensitive content in writing or images
- Links that allow opt outs
- Images unrelated to your company
- Tracking images or pixels
- Telephone numbers or email addresses
- Product images – Amazon does this on your behalf
Some of these rules are not new. It is nonetheless important to understand the rules and stay out of trouble.
Non-Permitted Message Styling
In an attempt to stand out from the competition, many brands used GIFs and emojis in their messages in the past. This is no longer permitted. Below a list of disallowed styles:
- GIFs
- Emojis
- Paragraph spacing of more than two-line breaks
- Spelling or grammatical errors
- More than three sizes of fonts
- Images that are not secure – must be https
- Messages with margins of over 20%
- Images and graphics are restricted to 80% width
- Messages that override the default alignment settings of the text
- Messages that override the default font or line height
- Accessibility issues as found in the Web Content Guidelines
If you use the Amazon templates these issues won’t affect you but if you’ve designed your own messages, you’ll have to ensure that the styling complies with these guidelines.
Making the Most of Your Feedback Requests
These new guidelines make it increasingly important that you make the most of your messaging. As Amazon seeks to reduce the number of messages that the buyers receive you must make sure that your messages are optimised ensuring that email campaigns offer you a decent return on effort.
Amazon’s insistence that there may only be one review request per order means that you have just one chance to convince your buyer to give you that all-important feedback.
You have to ensure that you time the feedback requests when you are most likely to get a response. Not too early and not too late. You can automate your requests for review with a third party provider (we use Helium 10 follow up tool) or with the “Request to Review” button which will activate at the same time as the message. Helium 10 offer as well a chrome extension to do this in bulk.
You can set up the timing on the app to trigger at a pre-determined time after the buyer receives her product. Some items may be timed to give the customer the opportunity to explore the more complicated aspects of the product and other simpler products may require an earlier request for feedback.
You will also have exclusion options where you can leave certain customers and orders off the request to review. You may, for example, want to exclude customers where goods were shipped late or where products were returned.
You can also use the system to send warranties and product instructions.
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