Things you should know about new Amazon’s Buyer Opt-Out Policy

One of the latest news buzzing in the seller’s community. Amazon has provided customers with an opt-out option from solicitation messages. Many sellers began to receive “Your message to a buyer could not be delivered” notifications.

However, Amazon hasn’t betrayed its long-standing motto of encouraging feedback requests and review solicitation. Amazon sellers are allowed to ask and encourage feedback and review from their intended customers as before. Feel free to check the Amazon Vendor Central tutorial to find out more about this and all related features of a seller’s account. 

So what’s up with this new policy?

If you’ve been using Amazon enough you’re probably one of the many sellers and buyers who get regular e-mails. Not all of these e-mails are related to your products and services. Sometimes you need to view all of them to make sure you are not missing anything important. If not, you need to clear your inbox. Either way, you need to spend some time clearing messages. More often than not, it’s irritating to receive unsolicited messages. To address this problem, Amazon has implemented the Buyer Opt-Out Policy.

With this new policy, customers are able to opt out from Amazon instead of sellers. In other words, they will only receive message relevant to their order. But how will Amazon’s Opt-Out Policy affect sellers?

What You Need to Know About Amazon’s Buyer Opt-Out Policy

Amazon only wants to give customer satisfaction and improve the buying experience. They know that a lot of buyers do not want to receive extra messages. This is why Amazon came up with enforcement actions. With a million sellers sending an Amazon mail, the best method to help the buyers is to change the opt-out policy. This move aims to improve and develop the Amazon messaging service.

Messages that Amazon considers important include tracking information, questions about the product, and shipping address issues. You can choose to only receive these kinds of messages.

Less important messages to buyers include related product offers, product manuals, and guides, delay notifications, out-of-stock notifications or seller feedback.

Amazon buyers can now opt out non-critical messages. This opt-out policy encourages sellers to make sure they only send critical Amazon messages. If the seller is sending emails when a buyer has chosen to opt, the seller simply receives a message informing that it was blocked. However, the is no danger to a seller. The seller can still send messages that are critical by using the Amazon Buyer-Seller messaging service.

For more details regarding Amazon policy, you can visit the Amazon message center. You can check About the Message Center.

This article will focus on all nuances and benefits gained from the creation of Buyer Opt-Out Policy. Not only for the buyers but also for the sellers.

A Happy Scenario for Both Parties

Happy customers is one of the main factors for the success of a business. Each customer counts. Pay attention to product returns, buyer questions or issues. Always try to satisfy a customer with your service.

Most of the customers like such personal touch; few others prefer to bypass these relations. Amazon allows these customers to opt out from certain messages if it makes an enjoyable experience for them. Now, buyers have the option to reduce promotional emails as well as the seller feedback and product review requests by clicking the “do not send me any marketing email for now” option in the account. Once they tick this box, messages to opted out buyers will prevent emails like:

• Customer surveys
• Communications specific to the department
• News
• General offers
• Communication approaches from the seller, and many others.

If we put the entire scenario in simple terms, the buyers now can control communications that they wish to receive from the sellers. This feature also puts the sellers in a better position to respect the wishes of their clients.

Important Information About Orders is Still Allowed

Most of the seller messages fall under “non-critical” category. Therefore, you need to add “[Important]” tag to email subject or send letters directly from your Seller Central account. However, product review and feedback requests are highly encouraged by Amazon. These reviews help other customers to have an idea about products and seller service quality. And we don’t recommend you to send non-critical emails with “[Important]” tag.

Amazon considers the following emails as critical:

• Information about delivery date
• Answering to questions about a product
• Problems pertaining to the shipping address
• Information regarding Amazon guidelines

Most of the Customers Won’t Opt Out Anyway

Amazon’s buyer opt-out option might seem to be scary at first glance. Many third-party merchants ask themselves how to generate revenues if most of the customers decide to opt-out Amazon emails?

The good news is that according to statistics, only a small percentage of buyers wish to use this feature. Around 90% of them are still eager to receive information about seller services. It’s unlikely that such a small group of non-responses will affect the automated feedback process and sales associated with it.

Additionally, you are not the only one who faced with such a move by Amazon. Your competitors are also going to experience a similar scenario; if you are going to be negatively impacted by it, so does your competitors. Thus, it won’t leave any mark on your business on the basis of market competition.

You might not want to solicit feedback from people who are reluctant to provide it
Imagine the situation where Amazon has reversed its opt-out policy, making it possible to contact every buyer for feedback. It will surely increase the number of potential recipients of your letters. However, after knowing that there are certain clients who are reluctant to provide their feedback, would you wish to receive reviews from them? Would you not wish to bypass any negative reviews or feedback from their side?

It is extremely important to understand that buyers who wish to avail the Amazon’s Opt-out Policy do so for a reason. They might be too busy to cater to your questions, their inbox might be full of other important messages or they might simply wish to avoid any sort of communication with the sellers. Sending any type of Amazon feedback request is least likely to be replied with a positive answer. Rather, chances are high where the response might not turn out to be favorable for you.

Are there any penalties for sending requests to opted-out buyers?

Many sellers feel nervous because of Amazon’s notifications that the letter was not delivered to the buyer. And it’s natural that they worry about their account. The official position of Amazon is that there are no penalties for sending letters to customers who opted out. These notifications are rather informative and show the seller that Amazon has recognized the letter as non-critical for the buyer. If you think this letter is important you can send it directly to a buyer through Seller Central dashboard.

To stop receiving these notifications and not to count undelivered letter in your email limit you’ll need to set up forwarding to our email address [email protected]. SageMailer will only consider sent messages so that you will be charged only for letters that your customers have actually received.

Obedience is the Answer You Seek

When a seller offends this policy, Amazon has the right to suspend or take away their selling rights. The suspension of the seller’s right and license can be permanent or temporary.

With all the details of the Amazon’s opt-out program being analyzed, it is important to note every customer’s opinion. Standing on the aspect of customer engagement, it is the ideal time to refresh your approach towards feedback solicitations. All kinds of promotional emails should ensure added values to the customers who do not wish to avail the Amazon’s opt-out policy. You can touch upon the basics of ensuring proper delivery of the products or provide added bonuses like a product usage guidelines PDF to your customers. It will be beneficial for you if you center your message on high-quality customer service with a quick mention for a product review or seller feedback, instead of providing a nagging feedback request to your buyers with no added features.

Conclusion

The Opt-Out policy is a positive change for both the buyers and sellers. Buyers can screen unsolicited emails and sellers can continue offering their products and services and receive important reviews. However, this policy has its disadvantages, too. You will not be able to push your e-mails to your buyers. On the other hand, buyers will have little to no knowledge about discounts and offers.

The most significant thing you should remember is that you should not send extra messages to your buyers. Make your e-mails supportive and not forceful. If you really want to get that 5-star rating, put more effort in improving your product and customer service.

To automate the management of opt-outs, you can click here to sign up for a SageMailer account. This tool takes on a new approach to buyer-seller messaging. With its Response Center, you can communicate with clients faster than your competitors and maintain perfect performance metrics.