Amazon will change a policy announced two days ago, and slightly lengthen the interval when it sends feedback reminder e-mails to customers.
Earlier this week Amazon said it would send feedback reminder e-mails 15 after the transaction instead of the usual 30-day interval.
Apparently Amazon got an earful from sellers. Here’s today’s announcement:
Update: Feedback E-mail Reminder Timing
Posted: Sep 22, 2006 9:08 AMDear Sellers,
Thank you for sending us your thoughtful feedback regarding the revised timing of feedback reminder e-mails. We value the comments and experiences sellers have shared with us over the last few days, and we appreciate the time you took to write to us about this issue.
The concerns about consistency with shipment expectations messaged to customers and the increased risk of negative feedback from the reminder e-mail arriving too soon make sense. The overwhelming suggestion from sellers has been to move the e-mail reminder date to 21 calendar days after an order is completed. We will switch to the 21 calendar day interval starting next week.
We also want to reassure you that in the first week since the change to 15 days, we have seen no significant shift overall in the rate of negative feedback relative to positive feedback.
We look forward to working with you as we continue to make improvements for the benefit of sellers and buyers. Please feel free to e-mail your suggestions to feedback-feedback@amazon.com. Thank you again for your thoughtful suggestions.
Many longtime sellers — including yours truly — strongly disagree with the 21 calendar day interval also. Perhaps this was the goal all along: To change to 21 days while making us sellers think we’re getting a great deal.
What a crock.
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9 Comments
This does sound a bit dubious. While not a long time seller, I do see the wisdom is keeping the feedback system at 30 days like it has been. I don’t know how they arrived at this “happy medium” of 21 days…did a lot of sellers really write in requesting this? I know I certainly did not!
And Amazon’s mention of things being hunky dory with no “significant shift” after just a few days of changing the feedback system makes no sense at all…time to write another letter…
I tend to think that Amazon intentionally set the time period at 15 days knowing they would toss us a bone and make us feel like we won a battle. Last night, for the first time, I jumped into their discussion board and offered to host a page on my website dedicated to the third-party seller ranking of Amazon.com. The entire board was hot about the decision to change their reminder period to 15 days, but the sellers did not seem too interested in participating in anything that could potentially produce some statistically significant data. It seems their method of chaotic ranting worked … or maybe as previously suggested, the 21 day reminder was the plan all along.
Anyway, thanks Steve, I enjoyed the exchange of email yesterday.
I think I might be the lone voice of dissention here. I think anyone with a positive experience will have it fresher in their mind after 21 days as opposed to 30 days. 15 days would be a disaster, but I think 21 days is actually better than 30. I actually think the amount of positive feedback will go up.
I agree with uncertainty publishing with the idea that Amazon’s concept of time is a bit off. How could they have heard of any problems with the 15 day change in a timeframe of only a few days?
I am a new seller, but am not happy with this change at all.
Thanks for your blogs Steve, they are a great learning tool and so is your book!
I agree with Steve and uncertainty publishing. It sounds planned. In my email to Amazon, I also suggested eliminating media mail. The only service available would be priority. We could all get free boxes from the post office; and it is much simpler to print postage at home.
I also raised another point. With all of the security issues, one disaster could impact delivery. I think Amazon is not thinking ahead. Thank you, Steve, I learn alot from your blog.
It’s a ploy. Amazon has never yielded to seller input before. They couldn’t care less about us sellers. They never listen to us or decide anything actually in our interest.
They wanted 21 days all along. They started with 15 days, so that they could then “relent to seller’s overwhelming feedback”. This supposedly kind reaction now very conveniently proves that they DO listen and conveniently takes the wind out of the critics’ sails: everything I claimed about them in my first paragraph now seems to be WRONG. We at Amazon DO listen to you! What a hoax.
What difference does 21 days make from 30? People have the full mental capacity to remember their purchases at 21 days, but they mysteriously flick a switch shortly after, so by day 30, all their memory of having purchased this book is suddenly gone?
Man, we all could have saved so much time and effort by just leaving things as they were, rather getting into this back-and-forth: 30 days – 15 days – 21 days! What’s next?!
Well,
I myself said yesterday 3 weeks would be fair. Not great, but fair. I do think THE BEST thing for Amazon to do would be to require Priority Shipping. Most folks won’t mind paying a couple of extra dollars for shipping, and they would certainly be happy to receive their book in 3 or 4 days. Not only that, I worked for the USPS for fifteen years, and have seen how little concern parcel post and media mail receive. It’s all about the premium services. You can get in trouble for not delivering a priority in a timely manner, but I’ve seen parcel post and media packages sit around for days before they got delivered.
I don’t need to rehash the 21 days argument, but I’m not sure that making Priority Mail mandatory is the solution…this is part and parcel of another problem altogether.
In my sales, the percentage of people requesting Priority over Media Mail has been about 10-12%. Most people out there are notorious cheapskates…there wouldn’t be a market for penny books if people weren’t trying to follow in the footsteps of Ebeneezer Scrooge.
After getting hit with huge postal fees for a few really heavy books, I’ve learned the hard way that as a seller you have to be very careful what shipping options you offer. I’m sure some of the more experienced sellers can share many tales about this, but it just isn’t financially feasible with Amazon’s current system to offer Priority shipping on each and every order. And there’s still International…