Buyer-Seller Messaging Best Practices
With an influx of sales for the holidays, you might find you need to contact a customer about an order. Let’s do a quick review of how to do this. With the Buyer-Seller Messaging Service, you can communicate with your customers to complete an order or to respond to a customer service question.
An anonymized email alias is assigned to each buyer for each seller relationship. You can use this email address to search Manage Orders for a buyer's order ID if the ID is not included in the message. You will need to include the order ID in any proactive messages to a buyer.
To contact a buyer, follow these steps:
- On the Orders tab, select Manage Orders.
- Locate the order that you want to contact the buyer about.
- In the Order Details column, click the name of the buyer to open the Contact Buyer page.
You can contact a buyer directly from your seller account on Seller Central or by using your authorized email account (if you have the buyer's encrypted email address that was previously generated by Buyer-Seller Messaging) and track these communications via the Buyer-Seller Messages page.
- Using your seller account: Select the contact reason, complete the message, and click Send.
- Using your email: In the To field on the Buyer-Seller Messages page, copy the buyer’s encrypted email address. Then go to your email and use this address to contact the buyer. The buyer still won’t be able to see your email address.
There are a few other places to contact a buyer. You can do so by clicking the Buyer’s name, Feedback Manager, Manage Returns, Manage A-to-Z Claims, or the Buyer-Seller Messages pages.
Depending on the status of the order and product category, certain contact reasons will be available. A message cannot be sent after 30 days of order completion. Additionally, some buyers choose to opt out of receiving messages. However, if your message is important, you can contact them by sending a critical message.
To send a critical message, follow the previously listed steps. Then, anywhere in the subject line, include the word [Important] in brackets. This will ensure your message is not blocked and you will not receive the bounce back message. The following messages are considered critical to complete a buyer's order:
- Product customization questions
- Delivery scheduling
- Issues with a shipping address.
Use of [Important] for non-critical messages may result in the suspension of your selling privileges.
If you need to report a message from a buyer, click Report Message, then select the appropriate reason for reporting, and click the Report Message button that is displayed at the bottom of the message to submit the report. Buyers can also flag messages as inappropriate.
The content of your messages should be limited to requesting only the information you absolutely need to complete an order. Be sure to consult the Communication Guidelines before reaching out.
You cannot contact buyers for marketing or promotional purposes (including via email, physical mail, telephone, or otherwise). Do not contact the buyer and request that they submit a cancellation request. See the Communication Guidelines for a more detailed list of acceptable and unacceptable messages.
If more than one person in your business handles buyer communications, you will need to enable their email addresses. To enable or block an address, go to the Messaging Permissions page.
FBA sellers can turn on Buyer-Seller Messaging as well! You can share your product expertise and leave customer service related inquiries to Amazon Customer Service -- FBA Buyer-Seller Messaging is for product inquiries only. To enable Buyer-Seller Messaging for buyers to send you messages about your products:
- On the Settings menu, click Notification Preferences.
- In the Messaging section, click Edit.
- Select the Buyer Messages check box, and enter the email address that you want Amazon buyers to send messages to about your products.
- Click Save.
I’ll link some additional help articles below. Let me know if you have any questions. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season filled with family, joy, and lots of sales!
Buyer-Seller Messaging Best Practices
With an influx of sales for the holidays, you might find you need to contact a customer about an order. Let’s do a quick review of how to do this. With the Buyer-Seller Messaging Service, you can communicate with your customers to complete an order or to respond to a customer service question.
An anonymized email alias is assigned to each buyer for each seller relationship. You can use this email address to search Manage Orders for a buyer's order ID if the ID is not included in the message. You will need to include the order ID in any proactive messages to a buyer.
To contact a buyer, follow these steps:
- On the Orders tab, select Manage Orders.
- Locate the order that you want to contact the buyer about.
- In the Order Details column, click the name of the buyer to open the Contact Buyer page.
You can contact a buyer directly from your seller account on Seller Central or by using your authorized email account (if you have the buyer's encrypted email address that was previously generated by Buyer-Seller Messaging) and track these communications via the Buyer-Seller Messages page.
- Using your seller account: Select the contact reason, complete the message, and click Send.
- Using your email: In the To field on the Buyer-Seller Messages page, copy the buyer’s encrypted email address. Then go to your email and use this address to contact the buyer. The buyer still won’t be able to see your email address.
There are a few other places to contact a buyer. You can do so by clicking the Buyer’s name, Feedback Manager, Manage Returns, Manage A-to-Z Claims, or the Buyer-Seller Messages pages.
Depending on the status of the order and product category, certain contact reasons will be available. A message cannot be sent after 30 days of order completion. Additionally, some buyers choose to opt out of receiving messages. However, if your message is important, you can contact them by sending a critical message.
To send a critical message, follow the previously listed steps. Then, anywhere in the subject line, include the word [Important] in brackets. This will ensure your message is not blocked and you will not receive the bounce back message. The following messages are considered critical to complete a buyer's order:
- Product customization questions
- Delivery scheduling
- Issues with a shipping address.
Use of [Important] for non-critical messages may result in the suspension of your selling privileges.
If you need to report a message from a buyer, click Report Message, then select the appropriate reason for reporting, and click the Report Message button that is displayed at the bottom of the message to submit the report. Buyers can also flag messages as inappropriate.
The content of your messages should be limited to requesting only the information you absolutely need to complete an order. Be sure to consult the Communication Guidelines before reaching out.
You cannot contact buyers for marketing or promotional purposes (including via email, physical mail, telephone, or otherwise). Do not contact the buyer and request that they submit a cancellation request. See the Communication Guidelines for a more detailed list of acceptable and unacceptable messages.
If more than one person in your business handles buyer communications, you will need to enable their email addresses. To enable or block an address, go to the Messaging Permissions page.
FBA sellers can turn on Buyer-Seller Messaging as well! You can share your product expertise and leave customer service related inquiries to Amazon Customer Service -- FBA Buyer-Seller Messaging is for product inquiries only. To enable Buyer-Seller Messaging for buyers to send you messages about your products:
- On the Settings menu, click Notification Preferences.
- In the Messaging section, click Edit.
- Select the Buyer Messages check box, and enter the email address that you want Amazon buyers to send messages to about your products.
- Click Save.
I’ll link some additional help articles below. Let me know if you have any questions. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season filled with family, joy, and lots of sales!
