Messages sent not being received by buyer
Does anyone have an issue when replying to customer messages, they don’t appear to be received by the buyer which leads to either afollow up message with increased frustration or on occasion, an A-Z.
This isn’t always the case but every once in a while enough to notice the effect it could have on a seller account.
I can actually sympathise with the buyer in this situation but it is frustrating as the reply and dialogue of received/sent messages is clearly sequenced on my side.
What are the possibilities here?
Either the messages genuinely arent being processed by Amazon ( But they are apparent on my side?) or the buyer’s platform eg mobile app/whatever is not showing them?
Any insight would be appreciated.
27 replies
Seller_7VbclcPFFRTnc
yes many unfortunately
you need to use the word Important in the header and even then unfortunately, buyers can opt out of receiving messages
Seller_xUKHc5xSYJmI4
It appears some choose not to respond and the allege no communication had been received. Best thing is to mark as important every message.
We have found a many have found ways to abuse the policy.
Seller_NoMNQDGnEW5Bx
Having messaged a seller last week about a purchase it’s also very difficult to go back in to find your messages after. It does email you to tell you they’ve replied but I do think the message system from the buyers side is awful.
Seller_77IcbQKVGdZo0
I sometimes find my Amazon Buyer messages go to Spam (I am on googlemail). It is very annoying and I have thought a couple of times a seller hasn’t responded just to find my message in spam.
As has been said many times the whole buyer message experience is poor. All that is really needed is a flag on the Amazon home page to tell the buyer they have an unread message which would resolve a lot of issues.
Seller_ANpkhFl1uuWCA
The way I operate in this regard is that if a buyer contacts me with a problem / order not received, I ensure I send a message back to them ASAP, pretty much immediately If I can do so.
If you get a response, you’ll hopefully have the opportunity to resolve the buyer’s issue before resulting to opening an A-Z and or leaving you negative feedback.
If I don’t get a response back from the customer within 24 hours I’ll send another message, if no response is forthcoming after 48 hours, I’ll usually process a refund. By doing this will stop the customer from opening an A-Z and damaging your account metrics and in most instances the buyer won’t leave negative feedback (from my own experiences).
Ultimately, it’s all about protecting your account metrics to try avoid taking the hits.
Seller_AZFIM1no0Br4l
We get about 10 a day and it would appear to be particularly in the U.S that all buyers were ‘opted out’ of receiving messages and had to opt back in, every time we get accused of not replying to a buyer it is because they opted out of receiving messages from sellers and they had no idea that they were opted out and say that they did not do it.
Seller_ANpkhFl1uuWCA
I’ve personally found using the [IMPORTANT] doesn’t always work but occasionally makes a difference, it certainly doesn’t guarantee the buyer will get the message and respond.
Many of our Seller to Buyer messages still end up in Spam e-mail folders and unless the recipient is just that little bit IT savvy, how many people actually even look in their e-mail spam folders?
I get many custom enquires and always respond using the [IMPORTANT] in the subject line and many of these e-mails aren’t even responded to, causing me loss of sales and Amazon loses the commission on these potential sales.
Amazon knows the messaging system is not fit for purpose, but in effect has only brought in changes to make it harder for us to communicate with buyers. It needs fixing / improving, but I’d be shocked if they actually ever did anything to improve it. It’s been like it since I signed up to Amazon in 2015 and no doubt many years before.
Seller_ZjZ4slOF0jHpk
Where is this Subject Line that people keep mentioning? I only have one text area to put in the message. I can mark it as important, but that does nothing apart from allowing you to sort messages.
Is Handmade maybe different?
Even if you go through from the order, person’s name, I only get -
PS. Today
Seller_1a9aic95k6HPe
I thought I’d read from these forums some years ago that buyers can opt out of receiving general messages from sellers but if you select the reason for messaging as “problem with your order”, it would get delivered. I’m not 100% on that though!
