Amazon made changes to its messaging system that buyers and sellers use to communicate with each other. Sellers can now create templates so they can send standard messages to shoppers.
Another feature: Amazon automatically translates the text in messages to the customer’s default language (based on which marketplace customers are using).
The changes are available in Beta, and Amazon told sellers they are designed to improve the buying and selling experience.
One seller said they’d like to see Amazon add notifications so customers know when there is a message waiting for them, explaining that spam filters and other factors result in many messages getting missed by buyers.
Clearly Amazon is concerned about buyer-seller communication, and the latest change comes after Amazon’s recent announcement that it would switch to anonymized phone numbers as a way for sellers and shipping carriers to contact buyers in the event of a delivery problem.
A few days before the announcement about changes to the messaging system, sellers were discussing the problem of communicating with buyers. One seller explained that when an item was returned to him by USPS as undeliverable, he had no way to contact the customer and got hit with an A-Z claim.
Some sellers said being able to communicate with buyers was vital, but others said Amazon believes transactions should be seamless with little to no need for communication.
