I've got a long history selling on eBay but only picked up Amazon seriously a little more than a year ago. Obviously while I'm a newbie on Amazon, I'm definitely not one to the overall process. Here are a couple of ways I hurt my account in 2015:
Mistake #1:
I had a buyer send me a message asking a question about one of my products. I did what I always do in this situation (on eBay):
"Thank you!"
I didn't reply. What should I say? Thank you for thanking me? Well a day later, I got a bad mark on my account because I had a buyer message that was more than 24 hours old, and Amazon is fussy if you don't respond to your messages fast enough. I'm quite confused until I realize it's the "Thank you!" message messing me up. I go to the message and realize there is a little check box at the bottom that says something like Mark this as No Response Needed. I marked it and all was good.
Lesson learned: On Amazon, you either send a response or mark as no response needed. Otherwise your metrics drop.
Mistake #2:
I get my first repeat buyer. Great. She buys from me four or five times. She leaves seller feedback. She even left product reviews. Then I get a message from her. She bought five lots of items at 12 per lot and should have gotten 60 items. She claims she got 58. Okay, whatever, I'm not going to argue.
I write her back and apologize and tell her I will ship her 2 items immediately. Her message had made it clear that she wants the 2 items. This I do using Amazon's shipping.
Color me confused when the next day, I see my metrics have dropped on shipping time. What? I've never shipped anything late. Except it looks like I did. Because I used Amazon to purchase and print a new label for her. Even though it was the second shipment on that order, the way the Amazon system works, it counts it as the shipment was late.
Lesson learned: When shipping replacement items, for whatever reason, don't buy the shipping through Amazon. Buy it some other way, and send a message to the buyer with their tracking number. (At least, this is what I've been doing, there might be some other, better way to handle it but doing it this way doesn't hurt your metrics.)
In my experiences on eBay, not responding to a message doesn't count against you. Shipping a second time on an older order doesn't count against you.
I think these are easy pitfalls for someone just starting on Amazon to make - hopefully you read this and don't make the same mistakes I did. When you're just starting out, especially at low volume, one little mistake can really harm your metrics.
Mistake #1:
I had a buyer send me a message asking a question about one of my products. I did what I always do in this situation (on eBay):
- Read & understand the question the buyer is asking.
- Go check my product page to make sure the information is posted there. If it's not, I'll fix that. Buyer questions are very rarely incredibly useful when they point out some way that the product page is lacking.
- Professionally reply to the buyer, answering their question.
"Thank you!"
I didn't reply. What should I say? Thank you for thanking me? Well a day later, I got a bad mark on my account because I had a buyer message that was more than 24 hours old, and Amazon is fussy if you don't respond to your messages fast enough. I'm quite confused until I realize it's the "Thank you!" message messing me up. I go to the message and realize there is a little check box at the bottom that says something like Mark this as No Response Needed. I marked it and all was good.
Lesson learned: On Amazon, you either send a response or mark as no response needed. Otherwise your metrics drop.
Mistake #2:
I get my first repeat buyer. Great. She buys from me four or five times. She leaves seller feedback. She even left product reviews. Then I get a message from her. She bought five lots of items at 12 per lot and should have gotten 60 items. She claims she got 58. Okay, whatever, I'm not going to argue.
I write her back and apologize and tell her I will ship her 2 items immediately. Her message had made it clear that she wants the 2 items. This I do using Amazon's shipping.
Color me confused when the next day, I see my metrics have dropped on shipping time. What? I've never shipped anything late. Except it looks like I did. Because I used Amazon to purchase and print a new label for her. Even though it was the second shipment on that order, the way the Amazon system works, it counts it as the shipment was late.
Lesson learned: When shipping replacement items, for whatever reason, don't buy the shipping through Amazon. Buy it some other way, and send a message to the buyer with their tracking number. (At least, this is what I've been doing, there might be some other, better way to handle it but doing it this way doesn't hurt your metrics.)
In my experiences on eBay, not responding to a message doesn't count against you. Shipping a second time on an older order doesn't count against you.
I think these are easy pitfalls for someone just starting on Amazon to make - hopefully you read this and don't make the same mistakes I did. When you're just starting out, especially at low volume, one little mistake can really harm your metrics.
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