Amazon New Communication Guidelines For Buyer-Seller Messages

Effective November 6th, Amazon will start enforcing the new Buyer-Seller Messaging guidelines. If you don’t take action, your business could be in jeopardy !

Actions You Need To Take Immediately:

• Do not incentivize or use suggestive language in your review/feedback request emails
  • No coupons or promotions
  • Do not ask for 5 star or positive review
  • Do not ask steer them to contact you if they have issues prior to leaving a review 
  • Ask reviews in neutral tone
• Remove all emojis, animated gifs/images, and images of your product
  • These are no longer allowed by Amazon
  • Images of your store/brand Logo is okay and recommended to have
• Disable all Order Shipment emails
  • However, you can send proactive product instruction or warranty information emails.
• No links outside of Amazon unless they are necessary for order completion
  • No links to other websites
  • Links to Amazon pages are okay

Buyer-Seller Messages:

• Non-permitted messages type:
  • Order/shipping confirmations (Amazon does that automatically)
  • Emails that only say “Thank you”
  • Emails that offer your assistance if buyers have any issues
  • Marketing or promotional messaging, including coupons
  • Language encouraging positive product reviews or seller feedback ratings
  • Requests for removal or an update of an existing product review
  • A request for a review only if the buyer had a positive experience with the item
  • A repeat request (per order) for a product review or seller feedback

• Permitted messages type: sellers are permitted to send proactive permitted Messages for the following reasons and must be sent within 30 days of order completion:
  • Resolving an issue with order fulfilment.
  • Requesting additional information required to complete the order
  • Asking a return-related question
  • Sending an invoice
  • Requesting product review and/or seller feedback
  • Scheduling the delivery of a heavy or bulky item
  • Scheduling a Home Services appointment
  • Verifying a custom design, or any other reason where the contact is required for the buyer to receive their purchase.

However, permitted messages SHOULD NOT INCLUDE:

• Attachments (except for any necessary to resolve a buyer’s issue such as shipping labels, invoices, or custom designs)
• External links, unless they are secure working links needed to complete the order or links to Amazon
• Logos that contain or display a link to your website
• A link to opt out of messaging
• Sensitive content such as bare skin, violence/gore, or offensive language
• Tracking pixels or images
• Email addresses
• Phone numbers unless they are related to warranties, shipping providers, or manufacturers
• Images of the products purchased (Amazon includes these on your behalf)
• Images that are not related to your brand or company

Permitted messages guidelines:

Amazon also shared guidelines for styling Permitted Messages. These messages should not contain:

• Emojis
• GIFs
• Message margins over 20% max width
• Overrides of Amazon’s default line height, font family, or font color
• Fonts in more than three sizes
• Unsecure images (http instead of https)
• Major spelling or grammatical errors
• Message bodies that override default text alignment settings
• More than two line breaks in a row