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Amazon features a buyer-seller messaging service exclusively designed for communication between customers and external sellers.
As an Amazon seller, the Amazon messaging system can be a powerful tool to win loyal customers. At the same time, it could destroy your business if you handle it poorly.
In this post, we’ll go over everything you need to know about Amazon’s buyer-seller messaging service and how you can use it to its fullest potential to boost your sales.
Quick Summary
As a seller, you can access your messages and reply to them through your Amazon Seller Central Account.
As a buyer, you can go to Your Orders, find your order and then click on the button that says “Contact Seller”.
For further details on Amazon buyer-seller messages, keep reading.
Amazon’s Buyer-Seller Messaging Service
The Amazon buyer-seller messaging service is a simple and dedicated messaging service designed for customers to communicate with Amazon sellers.
As an Amazon seller, you can access it through your Amazon Seller Central account.
You can probably tell that it’s the most direct way for buyers to connect with Amazon sellers if they need help with their order or some specific inquiry.
Amazon sellers make use of the messaging service by following up with custom messages and answering whatever queries they may have.
Important Note: Amazon specifically recommends buyers use their messaging service rather than personally emailing you or contacting you in any other way. This is so that they are able to handle disputes appropriately in case they arise.
What can Buyers Do with the Amazon Messaging Service?
It should be fairly obvious that buyers can send direct messages to sellers in case they have any inquiries.
Other than that, the Amazon messaging service also allows them to:
- Access past communication with sellers i.e., access conversations they had with sellers in the past.
- Reply to seller messages.
- Send attachments to sellers. They can attach many different types of files such as plain text (.txt), PDFs, images (.jpg, .gif and .png) as well as Word documents (.doc and .docx). The maximum size of the attachment that’s allowed is 10 MB.
Being able to add attachments makes it very easy for customers to provide you with as many things as they can to help you understand whatever their query or grievance may be.
It should be noted that Amazon reserves the right to delete any attachment that they may deem inappropriate.
How to Contact a Seller on Amazon as a Buyer?
If you’ve ordered an item and have a query about it, you can easily contact the seller through Amazon’s messaging service.
Just follow these steps:
Step 1: Click on Returns & Orders in the top-right part of your screen as shown:
Step 2: Find the order in question and then, click on Contact Seller.
Replying to an Amazon Seller
If you’re already in correspondence with a third-party seller and would like to respond to them, you can easily do so by going to the Amazon Message Center.
You can access the Message Center by following these steps:
Step 1: Click on Your Account on the top-right part of the screen as shown:
Step 2: Click on Your Messages as shown:
Step 3: Click on the Buyer/Seller Messages tab as shown:
Step 4: Find the message thread with the seller you’re looking for and then reply to them.
How to Reply to Customer Messages as an Amazon Seller?
You can access customer messages by going to your Amazon Seller Central dashboard and clicking on the Messages tab on the top-right part of the screen as shown:
Things You Should Know You Can’t Include within Amazon Messages as an Amazon Seller
Amazon has many guidelines related to buyer-seller messages and as an Amazon seller, you need to be aware of them to ensure your seller account stays healthy.
Please note that you should never include the following content when corresponding with buyers using Amazon’s messaging service:
- Promotional content (including discount codes and coupons)
- Requests for leaving you a positive product review or to remove an existing negative product review
- Externals links
- Asking customers to leave positive seller feedback
- Your account link or redirect links leading to your account page
- Attachments (except for invoices, product instructions or warranty details)
- Logos or images containing links to external websites
- Requests to the buyer to contact you through some other platform
- Email addresses or phone numbers
- Inappropriate content (Violence, pornography, obscene language, etc.)
- Tracking pixels
- Images or content that is not related to your brand
How to Respond to Negative Buyer Messages?
It can definitely sting when a customer is upset with your product and they take that anger out on you.
It can definitely be tempting to reply back with the same anger and disdain but this would be a very unwise thing to do.
Fighting fire with fire will most likely cause your sales to plummet and your negative reviews to skyrocket.
Remember that customers always remember when they encounter rude or poor customer service. They’ll tell their friends and family and if they’re really upset, they may even post your interaction on their social media.
The last thing you want for your Amazon business is negative online publicity.
Hence, when a customer sends a seething message, keep calm and collected and reply with a smile.
Be as empathetic as possible, apologize for not meeting their expectations and ask them details of whatever problem they may be facing.
Do your best to resolve their issue and if you are unable to do so, you can consider sending them a replacement free of cost or a full refund.
If you keep your cool and are able to resolve an angry customer’s issue, they will remember it. Not only will they forgive you but you might even just win a loyal customer.
Amazon customer service can definitely be tricky which is why it’s important that you spend as much time as possible mastering it.
It can be just as useful of a tool for boosting your sales as analytics, SEO, marketing, or other tactics that you may be employing.
Why Should I Use the Amazon Message Service as a Seller?
As a seller, this messaging service can be an amazing tool for you to provide great customer service instantly.
For example, if you’re selling an electronic product on Amazon, your customers may have trouble setting it up and they may message you for assistance.
This can be a great opportunity for you to provide a thorough solution to them.
If you successfully solve their issue, they’ll definitely remember it. Thus, they’ll be much more inclined to buy more electronics from you in the future because they’ll know that if they run into any problems, they can always contact you for help.
It’s a great way to secure loyal customers for your brand that will keep buying products from you long-term
Not only do buyer-seller messages help you secure loyal customers but they can also be a great tool for you to gather feedback about your product(s).
If you’re getting multiple queries about a product of yours not performing properly, you can easily identify the issue and fix it so that the problem does not arise with future sales.
Thus, it can be of great assistance when you’re trying to figure out what’s working and what isn’t.
Taking advantage of the messaging service in this way will also help your brand rank higher in the Amazon marketplace and thus, you’ll be much more likely to secure the Buy Box as well.
On the other hand, if you ignore the messaging service and let buyer messages go unanswered, this can cause Amazon to lower your ranking as a seller and even suspend your account.
Successful Amazon sellers embrace Amazon’s messaging service because it provides direct contact to their customers. Not only that but it’s also super secure for both buyers as well as sellers. All of your personal information is kept completely safe when you’re communicating through the platform.
Furthermore, it’s important to note that Amazon itself has access to the entire communication thread that occurs between a buyer and an Amazon seller.
This can really help you out when you feel that a customer is wrongfully blaming you for poor customer service or something similar. An impartial third party (Amazon) can then review your messages to check whether or not there was any misrepresentation or miscommunication that may have occurred.
Lastly, making proper use of Amazon buyer-seller messages can lead to a lower number of negative reviews on your product(s).
This is because customers will be much less likely to leave negative reviews if you resolve the issues that they’re facing with your product(s).
If you do it right, you may be able to convert unhappy customers into loyal ones.
Amazon Buyer-Seller Messages – Wrapping Things Up…
In the end, we just have to say that Amazon’s messaging service is an extremely useful tool for both buyers as well as sellers.
Buyers can use it to get their issues resolved whereas sellers can utilize it to boost their sales and provide instantaneous customer service.
It certainly has the power to make or break your brand on the platform so pay special attention to it.
What do you think of Amazon’s messaging service? How do you use it? Let us know in the comments below.
