Buyer-Seller Messaging Has Too Much Friction

On occasion we need to send a message to a buyer. Usually, this is due to a carrier or customs issue, a clarification on a return/replacement, or we're responding to their question. We've noticed a sharp decline in response rates over the last 2-3 years, to the point where it's a 50/50 chance at best if we'll get a response. Even though 99% of orders require no contact (which is great), some genuinely do because they're not a normal situation, or the buyer is confused and needs to be coached through something.

I recently realized just how bad this experience is when I had to go through buyer-seller messaging as a buyer. I was aghast at how bad Amazon makes the experience for buyers. The email that the buyer gets no longer contains the message at all; they now have to click "View this message on Amazon" AND they have to log in! No wonder most don't respond. That's an incredible amount of user friction. It's just as bad as a healthcare provider website (but at least there it's understandable given the highly sensitive nature of patient messages).

To make matters worse, on the Amazon.com messaging UI the text box that the buyer types in is completely filled with placeholder text, to the point that it doesn't look like a field that can be typed in at all; it just looks like boilerplate. And Amazon puts two large call-to-action buttons above that ("Did this solve your problem?" [Yes] [No]), which from a UI standpoint will draw the user's attention primarily.

We understand that Amazon wants to protect buyers, and there are plenty of bad sellers that abuse the buyer-seller messaging system for marketing purposes. We feel that Amazon unduly punishes good sellers (that have been with them for decades and have excellent metrics) by building their whole UX around the worst seller behaviors.

Amazon should make the seller-buyer experience better for good sellers that have good metrics and low contact rates. They should not obscure the seller's message so heavily. It should be front-and-center in the actual email that the buyer receives, with minimal Amazon boilerplate surrounding it. Buyers should be able to simply hit reply and respond, including sending attachments.