Month: April 2017

Categories
FAQ News

All About the Amazon Opt-Out

Amazon.com, Inc. (“Amazon”) recently began blocking messages that are sent to buyers who have chosen to “opt out of unsolicited messages” from Amazon. Many sellers have come to us with questions, so we’re sharing our answers here.

What does it mean if a buyer “opts out of unsolicited messages?”

Buyers who have opted out of unsolicited messages will only receive emails with information that is critical to completing orders, including product customization questions, delivery scheduling or issues with a shipping address. As of March 31st, 2017, Amazon offers a way for customers to opt out via the emails and website.

What happens if I send emails to these buyers?

No penalty will be imposed for attempting to send an email to a buyer who has opted out of unsolicited emails. Amazon will simply block the message, and you will receive a notification that the buyer has opted out. Currently, this is the only way to identify buyers who have opted out.

What if I need to contact the buyer?

You can send messages to the opted-out buyers if you have information that is critical to completing orders. The messages should be sent directly from Buyer-Seller Messaging and the subject should be “Additional Information Required.” Sending non-critical information by this method could result in a penalty, including suspension of your seller privileges. Non-critical items include shipment confirmations, product manuals, out-of-stock notices, and feedback or product review requests.

How can I avoid sending additional emails to these buyers?

Forward the Amazon opt out notification email to the personalized email address available on your ZonMaster Dashboard. We suggest setting up an autoforward filter in your email (read more here). ZonMaster will add the buyer’s email address to the Amazon Opt Out list and never send them another email.

Can I identify buyers who have opted out of unsolicited messages?

Amazon does not currently provide this information to sellers in Seller Central or through their API. We’ll provide an update as soon as opt-out information becomes more widely available.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Categories
News Instruction

Mastering the Block – Part 2…automated

As you know a lot of people are reeling from Amazon’s changing of the rules about allowing customers to opt out of emails from sellers. Some people think that this means that you can no longer contact customers. This is not true. If you try to contact a customer Amazon will not deliver the message and will inform you that the customer has opt-ed out. They then expect you to not try to contact the customer via regular methods again.

A couple days ago (3 days after the new policy from Amazon) ZonMaster implemented the bulk blocking tool.

Now we announce another method that might be easier for you: setting up and automated rule in your email to simply forward Amazon’s notification email to us. We’ll do all the rest.

When you log into your ZonMaster account now, on the dashboard in the lower right you’ll see an ‘Additional Info’ box. In there will be a cryptic long email address. This is your personalized email address for forwarding Amazon emails. Do NOT use this address to try and communicate with ZonMaster as it is not human monitored.

In most mail systems you’ll need to verify an email address to forward to. We’ll discuss that below.

All mail systems are different, but, in general here are the steps you need to follow:

  1. Log into ZonMaster and get your personalized email address
  2. Log into your email client (example: Gmail)
  3. Set up a rule. We suggest something like (again, this is how you would do it on Gmail)
    1. Match on subject CONTAINING ‘Your message to a buyer could not be delivered’ or has the words ‘buyer has opted out of unsolicited messages’
    2. We also suggest ‘archiving’ the messages so that they don’t appear in your inbox (or notify you on your phone).
    3. Forward message to your a new address
      1. In Gmail you’ll be taken to a screen to add the new address. Enter your personalized email address from the ZonMaster dashboard. We’ll get notification and email you back a code to authorize
  4. Apply to existing emails
  5. Sit back…we’ll do the blocking and blacklisting for you

It’s early days for this system. If you experience any difficulties in setting this up send us an email via the Contact Us form and we’ll do our best to walk you through it.