There’s a new kind of spam email in town, and it’s maddening. I’ve noticed many of my Amazon orders prompt unwanted follow up messages from the vendor, and I’m sick of it. These always come disguised as a “thanks for your order,” “helpful tips,” “let us know if there are any problems,” email or similar, but what they’re all REALLY about is prompting the buyer to leave an Amazon review. Today’s post explains what opened the spam floodgates last year, and how to stop Amazon seller emails.
What Changed?
You may recall reading about Amazon’s purge of paid reviews a couple years back. A purge of “received this product free or at a discount in exchange for an honest review” reviews followed, just last year. Both of these types of reviews are now banned on Amazon. The changes put Amazon sellers into a panic: how would they get reviews now?
Autospam: It’s Not A Bug, It’s a Feature!
Enter the “customer contact” industry, or as consumers would generally call it: autospammers. Sellers pay autospam services to automatically send out boilerplate emails to every purchaser based on triggers chosen by the seller. One seller I ordered from sent three emails based on a single order! If you’re wondering why Amazon allows this, the answer is that they don’t.
Amazon has very strict guidelines about seller contact with purchasers, but many sellers either don’t know or don’t care about those rules. The seller gets away with it until angry consumers start reporting the spam to Amazon. If you’ve got better things to do than be Amazon’s pen pal, you can opt out of ALL seller emails on the Amazon site instead.
How To Opt Out Of ALL Amazon Seller Emails
1. Login to your account on the Amazon site.
2. On the Your Account page, scroll down to the Email alerts, messages, and ads box (shown below), and click the Communication preferences link.
3. On the Communication preferences page, scroll down to the Email Preferences section and navigate to the Promotional Emails section (shown below). Click the downward-pointing arrow to expand the box.
4. Scroll down the list and uncheck the Seller Communications and Seller Feedback boxes, as shown below, then scroll all the way to the bottom of the form and click the Update button to save your changes.
You will see a warning telling you that making this selection will stop ALL seller emails, including some that may be important like recalls or warranty information. This is not really a concern because sellers will still be able to contact you by going through the pre-existing, manual steps they’ve always had available through the seller marketplace. They just can’t autospam you any more.
Note that these instructions are accurate as of this writing, on 4/17/17, but Amazon site layout and policies are subject to change at any time in the future.
You’re welcome!
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