What is the Amazon Buyer-Seller Messaging Service?

When contacting your customers on Amazon, you must be aware that strict communication guidelines are in place. Sellers can contact buyers only to complete orders or to respond to customer service questions.

To facilitate communication between merchants and shoppers in line with their policies, Amazon created the Buyer-Seller Messaging Service. This feature is the only approved method of buyer-seller communication on Amazon. In this post, we will discuss what Buyer-Seller Messaging is, what messages you can send with it, and how to send them to buyers.

Amazon Buyer-Seller Messaging Overview

The Buyer-Seller Messaging service allows sellers to communicate with Amazon shoppers both from an Amazon seller account and using personal or business email. You can access all your correspondence on the Buyer-Seller Messages page.

Buyer-Seller Messaging Service allows sellers:

• reply to buyer messages.
• review mailing history;
• send attachments.

All buyer-seller messages on the system use encrypted email addresses. When a customer contacts a seller, Amazon assigns that customer an encrypted alias like [email protected] to send their messages. When a seller responds to a buyer from their personal or business email, the service also uses an encrypted email alias. That ensures the privacy of buyer-seller communication through anonymized email.

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Amazon Buyer-Seller Messaging

However, you must remember that Amazon can read buyer-seller messages. They do it to ensure that shoppers and sellers don’t violate any rules and help resolve issues with the orders.

Advantages of Buyer-Seller Messaging

Buyer-Seller Messaging Service helps enhance customer services and offers several benefits to sellers.

Secure buyer-seller messaging

Because Buyer-Seller Messaging Service uses encrypted alias, buyers and sellers can exchange important information without disclosing their personal details (phone numbers, email addresses). The service also helps avoid unwanted correspondence.

All correspondence in one place

Buyer-Seller Messaging Service allows you to keep and view all sent and received messages on one page in your Seller Central account. You can connect your personal or business email to the service. Amazon’s messaging system supports almost all major email address systems — Microsoft Outlook, Live, Hotmail, Google Gmail, Yahoo, Thunderbird, GMX, and HTML Email.

Improved customer service

The service lets sellers respond fast to all customer questions and complaints and better handle customer dissatisfaction. That helps minimize returns, negative feedback, and bad reviews.

Simplified information retrieval

Buyer-Seller Messaging Service maintains records of all buyer-seller communication, and you can easily access them if necessary. The documented correspondence helps, for instance, if a customer files an A-to-z claim, in case of returns or other disputes. Amazon can see what happened and react faster.

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Amazon Buyer-Seller Messaging Guidelines

Amazon has buyer-seller communication guidelines stating that sellers can only discuss order-related issues with the buyers. Contacting customers for marketing or promotional purposes is not allowed. Seller messages must be sent within 30 days of order completion.

What messages can sellers send to buyers?

• handling a problem related to order fulfillment;
• asking for additional information to complete the order;
• requesting return-related data;
• sending an invoice;
• asking for a product review or seller feedback;
• scheduling the delivery of a heavy or bulky item;
• scheduling a Home Services appointment;
• verifying a custom design.

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What messages can’t sellers send to buyers?

• shipping or order confirmation;
• “Thank you” messages;
• promotional and marketing information;
• messaging asking for a positive review or seller feedback (you can ask for a review, but not for a positive review).

What content can’t be included in buyer-seller messages?

• unnecessary and insecure links and images without explanatory text;
• logos with embedded links;
• links that make buyers opt out of messaging;
• emojis and animated GIFs;
• attachments not related to the order;
• images not associated with your brand or company;
• email addresses and phone numbers.

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How to Enable Amazon Buyer-Seller Messaging?

If you are an FBM seller, Buyer-Seller Messaging is activated by default. FBA sellers can select to activate it if they want to provide better services to their customers.

Enabling Buyer-Seller Messaging step by step

• Step 1. In Settings, click Notification Preferences.
• Step 2. Select the Messaging section, and click Edit.
• Step 3. Tick the Buyer Messages check box, and add the contact email.

Tick the Buyer Messages check box, and add the contact email

• Step 4. Click Save.

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How to Contact a Buyer in Buyer-Seller Messaging Service?

If you want to contact a buyer in a Buyer-Seller Messaging Service for one of the order-related issues, you must follow a number of steps below.

Messaging a buyer in Buyer-Seller Messaging Service step by step

• Step 1. Open the Orders drop-down menu and click Manage Orders.

Open the Orders drop-down menu and click Manage Orders

• Step 2. Find your order and click the buyer's name.
• Step 3. Select the message reason.

Select the message reason

• Step 4. In the message field, add your message text and attachments.

In the message field, add your message text and attachments

• Step 5. Click Send button. The buyer’s reply will appear in the Messages section.

Tip. Amazon offers sellers an option to communicate with buyers using managed response templates. These templates are automatically translated into the Buyer Language of Preference and help automate workflows. You can find the detailed description of how to use Buyer-Seller Messaging templates from Amazon by this link.

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Final Thoughts

Effective customer services and researching profitable products are equally crucial for your business. One of the popular product research tools is Seller Assistant App. It’s a powerful product research extension for Amazon sellers engaged in online arbitrage, wholesale, and dropshipping.

Seller Assistant Аpp is an all-in-one extension incorporating features vital for product research. Advanced IP Alerts can immediately tell you if a product has any sales restrictions or has led to problems with account health in the past. It combines an FBM&FBA profit calculator, Quick View, UPC/EAN to ASIN converter, ASIN Grabber, Stock Checker, and Restrictions Checker in one tool.