In addition to Amazon’s internal automated responder, many sellers use third-party responders to send messages through Amazon’s seller messaging system.
It’s important to note, however, that Amazon limited the quantity and types of messages that can be sent via its Seller Messaging System. From Amazon:
“You may send proactive Permitted Messages for the following reasons: resolving an issue with order fulfillment, requesting additional information required to complete the order, asking a return-related question, sending an invoice, requesting product review or seller feedback or both, 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.”
Permitted Messages do not include any of the following message types (in many cases we are already emailing customers with this information on your behalf):
- Order or shipping confirmations
- Messages that say only “Thank you” or that you are here to help if buyers have any problems
- Marketing or promotional messaging, including coupons
- Language that either incentivizes or persuades the buyer to submit positive product reviews or seller feedback, including by offering compensation, money, gift cards, free or discounted products, refunds, rebates or reimbursements, or future benefits
- Language that requests removal or an update of an existing product review
- Language that requests a product review only if they have had a positive experience with the product
- A repeat request (per order) for a product review or seller feedback”
Basically, you can only send permitted messages to request for a review/feedback or where contact is required. You can no longer send shipment updates, thanks for ordering, etc.
7 -Create a contact list for emails
Since the seller messaging system and third-party automated responders have become limited, you will need to find other ways to communicate with your shoppers.
Remember: as long as they’re buying your products via Amazon, they’re Amazon’s customers. To get past this hurdle, you will need to build your brand off Amazon and one of the best ways to do that is by building your own email list.
Thankfully, there are a number of ways to create an email list. You can build one through social media. Or you can create a blog that asks for people to subscribe. Another popular method is to add product inserts into existing products, encouraging people to join your list.
Once you have a mailing list, you can request reviews from those who’ve purchased from you.
8 -Utilize product inserts
Easily the most popular way to encourage shoppers to leave product reviews on Amazon is through the use of product inserts. Many sellers insert a card into their packaging, asking shoppers to leave a review.
However, product inserts have recently caught the attention of Amazon. They’ve noticed that some sellers have been breaking all three of the “guidelines” described in the “How to Get Reviews on Amazon (Without Breaking the Rules)” section of this article.
The example picture below is against Amazon’s terms. You cannot divert negative reviews or tell people to email you instead of leaving a negative review.
Here are some best practices for product inserts:
- Ask for product reviews, but remain neutral. Telling people to leave you a five-star review — or even showing a picture of five-stars — is against Amazon’s guidelines.
- Give useful information about the company and the product. Make sure people have ways of contacting you if an issue comes up. Good customer service goes a long way to prevent negative product reviews.
- Incentivize in other ways. While you can’t financially incentivize reviews with a product insert, you can incentivize people to join your email lists or to follow you on social media. This will help you in the future.