Amazon Buyer-Seller Messages Service

Amazon understands the importance of communication between the buyers and sellers and hence it has set the Buyer-Seller Messaging Service and guidelines for customer’s interaction with time metrics. The Amazon Buyer-Seller Messaging Service makes communicating with third-party sellers easy and secure. It closes the gap between the buyer and the seller through a message center that handles their inquiries and commentaries. This is to ensure that assistance is provided to achieve optimum results while maintaining healthy business relationships within the Amazon marketplace. 

Any seller who is serious about providing a high quality product and excellent customer experience craves connection with their customer base. This service facilitates a two-way conversation to bridge the gap between the online seller and their buyer. This system is incredibly helpful when it comes to handling any customer questions or product quality or order issues, and is a great way for sellers to reach out to buyers to thank them for their purchase and ask for feedback in the form of a product review. It is worthwhile to dedicate some time to learning the basic ins and outs of the Amazon Buyer-Seller Messaging system so you can determine how to best make this tool work for you.

Activating the Buyer-Seller Messages Service

The first important thing to know is that this messaging system only works if you activate the service in Seller Central. For accessing Amazon’s Buyer-Seller Messaging Service you need to opt for it. Here’s how to quickly turn on the feature:

Step 1: Sign in to your Seller Central Account.

Step 2: In the upper right hand corner of the Seller Central home page, click on settings. A drop-down menu will open, then select “Fulfillment by Amazon”.

Step 3: Under “Product Support” click the “Edit” button.

Step 4: Select “Enable” for any marketplaces where your product is sold and you wish to activate the messaging system (ie. amazon.com, amazon.ca)

Step 5: Lastly, click Update to save the changes you made to your Amazon Seller Central account.

With this service, you would be able to handle customers’ questions. Be aware that when you use this system your Contact Response Metrics will be tracked and monitored by Amazon. It tracks for the time how much you take to respond to your customers when they message you to show any query or ask for a return, cancel or refund for any service. Amazon has set the time limit of 24 hours for the sellers to get back to their customers to initiate resolution and response to their issues and queries. Make sure to familiarize yourself with how these metrics are measured so that you can be sure to maintain excellent response times.

How Does Buyer-Seller Messages Service Work?

When it comes to the nuts and bolts of the Amazon Buyer-Seller Messaging Service, there are a few important points to be aware of. 

• Once you activate the Buyer-Seller Messaging Service of Amazon, it tracks all the purchases of your store. All messages are funneled through Amazon, who then tokenizes the buyer and seller information in order to protect the privacy of each party. 

• All the messages from customers and buyers travel through Amazon to reach their respective destinations. Amazon interferes between sellers and buyers to maintain the confidentiality of both parties. Amazon has access to all correspondence and can (and will) use this information to more quickly resolve disputes and claims. 

• When you respond to your customer’s messages, Amazon accesses, in fact, checks them in the midway and then forwards your response to the customers. If it finds any irrelevant response it will  discard your message.

• You can also deactivate the messaging system if you know you will be on vacation or unable to respond to messages, however keep in mind that this will only deactivate the service for future purchases and you may still receive messages from buyers who have purchased from you in the past. 
  

Communication Between Buyers and Sellers

• When a Buyer Contacts a Seller
  
  The buyer may ask questions and can reach the seller through email at customer support. If a buyer chooses to reach out to the seller via email, the seller will receive a message in their Messages center in Seller Central under Performance drop-down menu, as well as to whatever email address is associated with their Seller Central account. Amazon encrypts the email address of the sellers as  zyxwvu9876@marketplace.amazon.com.  The seller can respond to the buyer’s email by simply hitting “reply” within their existing email client, and the sent message will then filter through Amazon’s system which will then tokenize the seller’s email address. Amazon keeps a copy of the email at its tracking system for further query resolution and makes it available in Message Center in Seller Central Account.
  
  

• When a Seller Contacts a Buyer
  
  Since it is a two-way street, sellers can also contact the buyers on Amazon. Sellers can reach out to buyers directly as well, as long as the contact is not for marketing or promotional purposes. Amazon restricts the sellers to include the following things in their contact messages to the  customers:
  
  • Links to any websites
  • Any marketing or promoting messages
  • Seller logos if they contain links to the seller’s website
  • Any promotions for additional products or referrals to third-party products or promotions

Note: The Amazon Buyer-Seller Messaging Service, however, allows attachments provided that they do not exceed 7MB and do not violate the previously mentioned rules. The supported file formats include text files (.txt), PDFs, Word documents (.doc and .docx), and image files (.jpg, .gif, .tiff, .bmp, and .png).

Amazon retains the right to remove or disable any content, message, or account that violates the stipulated policy.

How to Contact the Buyers

When a seller wishes to interact with their buyers, they need the buyer’s information, order ID or ASIN. From the orders menu, sellers track the information of buyers and respond to the corresponding query.

Step 1: From the Seller Central account, click on Orders.

Step 2: From this drop-down menu, click Manage orders

Step 3: Under the Order Details, click on the buyer’s name (it will say “Contact Buyer: John Doe”)

Step 4: A screen will appear in front of you to write your message. 

Step 5: Once completed, click Submit.

Buyer-Seller Messaging templates

As a seller, you might have a handful of messages that you find yourself frequently sending to buyers. Rather than rewrite the same message each time, you can create templates for the most common replies that you send to buyers or use Amazon’s templates for sending new messages.

Creating a template

Go to Manage Templates to create a template or follow these steps:

Step 1: In the upper right corner of your seller account home page, click Messages to go to Buyer-Seller Messages.

Step 2: Click Insert Template at the bottom of the Reply box.

Step 3: Click Manage on the template list that appears on the right side of the page.

Step 4: Click the Create Template button.

Step 5: Enter a name for your template in the Template Name field and the template text in the Template Text field. Give the template a unique name to recognize and find it easily.

Step 6: Create or select tags to associate with this template. Tags will categorize your template and make it easier to find the next time you want to use it.

Step 7: Click Save to finish.

Using your created template

Follow these steps to set up a template:

Step 1: In the upper right corner of your seller account home page, click Messages to go to Buyer-Seller Messages.

Step 2: Click Insert Template at the bottom of the Reply box.

Step 3: A pop-up box labelled Templates will appear. Select the template you want to use from the list of recently used templates.

Step 4: The template text appears in the Reply box. (You can personalize the message before sending it.)

Step 5: Click Reply to send the message.

Edit or Delete a Template

Go to Manage Templates to create a template or follow these steps:

Step 1: In the upper right corner of your seller account home page, click Messages to go to Buyer-Seller Messages.

Step 2: Click Insert Template at the bottom of the Reply box.

Step 3: Click Manage on the template list that appears on the right side of the page.

Step 4: Select the template you want to change.

Step 5: 

• To delete a template, click Delete and confirm, “Are you sure you want to delete this template?”

• To edit a template, click Edit to revise your template and save your changes.