Do you rely on Amazon’s “Sold, ship now” e-mails to fill your orders? Starting Feb. 1, those e-mails will no longer contain customer e-mail and shipping addresses. We’ll need to get that order information from our Seller Account or with software Amazon will introduce in two weeks.
Here’s the announcement:
To protect the privacy of our customers and sellers, we will soon be changing the content of “Sold, Ship Now” e-mails.
Beginning on Thursday, February 1st, “Sold, Ship Now” e-mails will contain only the following information:
• A notification that a customer has purchased one of your products.
• The quantity and product title of the items in the order.
We will no longer be including information about the buyer, such as the buyer e-mail address, or information about the order, such as the order ID or the product ID, in the “Sold, Ship Now” e-mail.
On Jan. 15, Amazon will introduce the Amazon Services Order Notifier application.
When ASON is launched, an icon is added to your Windows system tray in your task bar. Running in the background, it periodically polls Amazon.com to retrieve any new orders you have received. When new orders arrive, ASON displays a user-friendly “pop-up” notification to let you know that you have new orders.
Here’s what the new software will look like (click on the pictures for a clearer view):
Pop-up notification:
View up to 30 days of transactions in the Order History window:
View the details of each order and print shipping labels and packing slips:
I’m interested to know the reaction of sellers to this. If this new Amazon software works as advertised, it could make order retrieval more reliable. I’ve had several mishaps this year when my Internet provider, Verizon, deleted my Amazon e-mails, mistaking them for spam.
Amazon’s new software could also reduce the value of some of the third-party software that automates the tasks of printing address labels and packing slips, especially if you’re paying $30 a month to handle those jobs. What do you think?
![[Google]]( http://www.weberbooks.com/selling/wp-content/plugins/easy-adsenser/google-light.gif)
8 Comments
Oy! Another “product” introduced by Amazon.com for Windows sellers, leaving Macintosh Booksellers out in the cold. And yet, another “product” to go wrong, with more announcements stating “our engineers are currently working to get this up. Ouch!
If this application includes, or will include, a repricing function, this could almost instantly plunge the price to 1 cent of a title where two sellers have it set to “lowest price”.
I suppose this could make Amazon ripe for buying opportunities if this becomes rampant…
Also, if it included an option to print/buy postage, that would be awesome.
Anything that makes it easier to get sales data into my database is welcome.
Anything that sits in my system tray and runs in the background is not welcome. I do not like companies using my computer resources just because it’s convenient for them. Did anyone get to beta test this? Will it work with Windows XP x64? Probably not.
You will note that they STILL have not tripped to the fact the postal service does not allow packing slips…I found out months ago when they asked if one was inside…
Your postal worker is in error.
From the Domestic Mail Manual, under Media Mail–
4.4 Invoice
An invoice, whether it also serves as a bill, may be placed either inside a Media Mail piece or in an envelope marked “Invoice Enclosed” and attached to the outside of the piece if the invoice relates solely to the matter with which it is mailed. The invoice may show this information:
a. Names and addresses of the sender and addressee.
b. Names and quantities of the articles enclosed, descriptions of each (e.g., price, tax, style, stock number, size, and quality, and, if defective, nature of defects).
c. Order or file number, date of order, date and manner of shipment, shipping weight, postage paid, and initials or name of packer or checker.
It never ceases to amaze me that postal workers are so badly trained.
In the past month I have had several postal workers give me opposing info on flat rate priority mail envelopes. One worker stated “no tape is allowed over the flap to seal it. It must stay closed on it’s own”.
The next visit it was “you may have one piece of tape; period”.
Then on another visit: “You must not let the tape wrap around the envelope”. GOOD GRIEF! Do we (the customer) need to start carrying the manual around on every visit to get it right? It is aggravating.
This change is terrible! I have a whole Outlook macro automation system built over the years that relies on these emails!
Not having any of that automation anymore will be a huge hit to my productivity.