Overview

Amazon’s Buyer‑Seller Messaging (BSM) platform lets third‑party sellers converse with customers directly inside the marketplace while keeping personal email addresses hidden. The system routes every exchange through encrypted aliases and logs each message for compliance. Sellers who master BSM can meet Amazon’s response‑time standards, avoid policy violations, and protect their account health.

Key Points

• Encrypted aliases — Amazon creates a unique, masked email address such as [email protected] for each buyer‑seller pair, so real addresses never appear in the conversation.
• Single inbox — All inbound and outbound buyer messages are consolidated in the “Buyer‑Seller Messaging” tab of Seller Central, giving sellers a unified view of customer inquiries.
• 24‑hour response rule — Amazon records the time between a buyer’s first message and the seller’s reply; responding later than 24 hours can lower the seller’s performance score.
• Permitted content only — Messages may address order fulfillment, returns, or direct buyer questions; promotional language, external links, or review‑soliciting requests are blocked by the platform.
• Buyer opt‑out enforcement — If a shopper disables non‑essential seller messages, any attempt to contact them beyond order‑related matters is automatically filtered by Amazon.
• Template library — Seller Central offers pre‑approved response templates (e.g., “Your shipment is on the way”) that can be inserted with a single click to speed up replies.
• Attachment limits — Only PDFs, JPEGs, and PNGs relevant to the order (such as a customs invoice) can be attached; other file types are rejected by the system.
• Audit trail — Every message is stored in Amazon’s database and can be retrieved for dispute resolution or policy reviews.
• Performance impact — Consistently fast, compliant replies boost the “Customer Service” metric, which influences Buy Box eligibility and overall seller rating.