{"id":8498,"date":"2022-08-18T12:43:09","date_gmt":"2022-08-18T12:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amzonestep.com\/blog\/?p=8498"},"modified":"2024-12-26T23:08:41","modified_gmt":"2024-12-26T23:08:41","slug":"amazon-communication-rules-what-is-allowed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amzonestep.com\/blog\/amazon-communication-rules-what-is-allowed\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Communication Rules: What Is Allowed?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\nYou can expect some restrictions when working on a large, regulated platform like Amazon. Aside from the obvious rules about selling prohibited items or above-board business practices, there are also some strict guidelines about what you can and can\u2019t say to customers. Do you know what\u2019s allowed in Amazon communication?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Below, we cover the essential Amazon Communication Rules so you can safely build stronger buyer-seller relationships and avoid accidental missteps. Some of these Amazon communication guidelines can even inspire new ideas for improving your business.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When Is It Okay to Talk to Customers?\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many Amazon sellers would like to reach out to customers more and both strengthen rapport and solicit reviews. However, they\u2019re often skittish about breaking Amazon\u2019s rules or overstepping their bounds. The good news is that contacting customers is perfectly acceptable, as long as you do it the right way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For starters, Amazon allows \u201cPermitted Messages\u201d with customers if they have both contacted you first and have purchased one of your products. In this way, you can have a meaningful conversation with customers as long as it\u2019s necessary for the order or customer service issue.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But Amazon also allows what they call \u201cProactive Permitted Messages\u201d where the seller can contact the customer first. Your message must be sent within 30 days of order completion and can use the buyer\u2019s encrypted email address. Furthermore, the message must fit one of the specified reasons:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">soliciting a product review, seller feedback, or both<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">discussing a relevant issue with order fulfillment<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">inquiring about a return<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sending an invoice<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">scheduling a special or problematic delivery<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">scheduling an appointment for Home Services<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">discussing a custom design<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">any additional reason where communication is necessary to complete purchase<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As long as your conversation stays professional, you should be okay to contact your customers directly. It\u2019s also worth noting that if you want to request a review or seller feedback, Amazon can do that for you in a more formal setting. Just go to the <\/span><b>Orders Detail<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> page in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amzonestep.com\/blog\/vendor-central-vs-seller-central\/\"><b>Amazon Seller Central <\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of the order you want to be reviewed, and click <\/span><b>Request a Review<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What You Must Communicate<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some conversations with customers aren\u2019t just allowed; they\u2019re mandatory. Amazon requires that buyers inform customers directly in the case of a couple of issues:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The product ordered is not available<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If a purchased product is delayed or unable to be shipped for whatever reason, the seller must inform the buyer. This is considered what Amazon calls a \u201cCritical Message,\u201d and you must follow their <\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/sellercentral.amazon.com\/gp\/help\/external\/GRZ5Y5YEN9J84NAC?language=en_US&amp;ref=efph_GRZ5Y5YEN9J84NAC_cont_G1701\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">required protocol<\/a><\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which includes explicitly mentioning any changes in the order amount and giving an appropriate reason.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Information is needed to process a return<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Processing refunds may require direct communication between the buyer or seller, in which case the seller is required to collect any information they need. The same applies to partial refunds as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What You\u2019re Not Allowed to Say\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As you can imagine, there\u2019s plenty of buyer-seller communication that is prohibited on Amazon. This falls into two categories: what you can\u2019t say and what you can\u2019t include in messages.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What you can\u2019t say to customers on Amazon<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Order and shipping confirmations (Amazon handles these themselves)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you notes<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Notes saying that you\u2019re available if the buyer needs anything<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Marketing or promotional conversations, such as informing them of a sale or offering coupons<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Soliciting positive reviews or seller feedback in exchange for compensation, money, gift cards, free or discounted products, refunds, rebates or reimbursements, or future benefits<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Requesting an existing review be removed or changed<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Requesting a positive review only if they enjoyed the product<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Repeated requests for a review or seller feedback (one request is okay, but more than one per sale is not allowed)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What you can\u2019t include in customer message<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Links to external sites outside of Amazon (unless they\u2019re necessary for the completion of an order)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Links to opt-out of communication<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Links without explanatory text (if you include a link, you must specify where it goes, like \u201cClick here for warranty information.\u201d)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Logos with embedded links to external sites<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unnecessary email attachments (it\u2019s permitted to use attachments when resolving a buyer issue, i.e., shipping labels, invoices, custom designs, etc.)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Offensive images or text (including bare skin, adult content, violence\/gore, or offensive language)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tracking pixels or images<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Email addresses<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Telephone numbers (unless they\u2019re necessary for the completion of an order, i.e., for<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">warranties, shipping providers, or manufacturers)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Images of purchased products (Amazon handles these)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Images unrelated to your brand or company<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Images without alt-text (for accessibility issues)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Images that are not secure (<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">http<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> instead of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">https<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Emojis, including emoticons<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Animated GIFs<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amazon Message Format Requirements<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last, if you\u2019re sending a message on Amazon, you must use the proper styling and formatting.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Message margins must be within 20% of the maximum width.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Image or graphic sizes must <\/span><b>not<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> be larger than 80% maximum width.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sellers are prohibited from overriding Amazon\u2019s default stylings: line height, font family, and font color.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fonts in more than three sizes are prohibited.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bodies in messages can not be centered or otherwise override the default text alignment settings.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sellers can not use more than two line breaks in a row.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Excessive spelling errors or grammar mistakes are not permitted.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You can expect some restrictions when working on a large, regulated platform like Amazon. Aside from the obvious rules about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":8499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amzonestep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amzonestep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amzonestep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amzonestep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amzonestep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8498"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.amzonestep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9785,"href":"https:\/\/www.amzonestep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8498\/revisions\/9785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amzonestep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amzonestep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amzonestep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amzonestep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}