Amazon is delaying making changes to the buyer-cancellation process and it provided more information about the changes. Amazon will now roll out the new process on May 10 instead of April 27th.
Numerous sellers expressed concern about how the changes would impact them in the comments of the following announcement:
Update on upcoming changes to buyer-initiated order cancelations
We recently announced changes to the process of managing buyer cancelation requests for seller-fulfilled orders. These changes were initially scheduled to take place on April 27, 2022, but will now come into effect on May 10, 2022.
We received your feedback on the announcement, and wanted to answer your frequently-asked questions.
1) Will I still get an email notification when I receive an order cancelation request?
Yes. You will continue to receive email notifications for all buyer-initiated order cancelation requests
2) What should I do if a buyer requests a cancelation in the buyer-seller messaging tool, and doesn’t respond when I ask them to cancel their order officially by submitting a cancelation request in “Your Orders”?
If a customer requests a cancelation solely in the buyer-seller messaging tool, it’s considered an unofficial cancelation, and canceling it will impact your cancelation rate metrics. To cancel their order, the buyer must go to Your Account, Your Orders, and select Request cancelation.
If the buyer doesn’t respond to your request in the buyer-seller messaging tool, you can send a critical message. Your email will be delivered to a buyer even if they have opted out of non-critical messages.
3) Will I need to download order reports to see buyer-initiated cancelations?
No. You will be notified about buyer-initiated cancelation requests via email, the Manage Orders page, and APIs.
If you use Order reports to process orders, you can enable the Buyer-Requested Cancel field to view cancelation requests in your Order reports. The advantage of downloading order reports is that you are able to see all buyer-initiated cancelations in a single report.
Thank you for your feedback. We’ll continue to monitor the forums responses for further questions.
We’ve updated our Help page to include the details above. For more information, go to Upcoming changes to the buyer-initiated order cancelation process.
Worst program ever…. As a seller I immediately honor cancel requests…. As a buyer I send a message and will not jump through hoops to further cancel and order… I will just return or refuse shipment.
It appears this is just another way Amazon wants to keep commissions and shipping income.
The current system is working the best and easiest it has in years – buyers actually understand how to cancel. Now going back to the old way of trying to explain to buyers where YOUR ORDERS are to begin with – then to get them to actually do it is a ridiculous backwards move. Many buyers just will not do it. Amazon needs to realize buyers need things to be easy and quick or they just won’t do it. They want to email the seller and be done with it. I’ve sent hundreds of directions to buyers – they just ignore my emails. Why is Amazon insistent on making things almost impossible for sellers? There is absolutely no reason a seller should be punished for a buyers cancelling orders. Just another problem created for sellers to try and deal with!!!