Shoppers who buy from Amazon’s Marketplace typically like the convenience and prices. But many are also unhappy about the barrage of emails that sellers send them after the purchase.
Sellers often deluge inboxes with requests for product reviews, inquiries about how the process went, and sales pitches for more stuff. Considering the comments on social media, feedback from friends and family, and in posts in Amazon.com’s (AMZN) customer service forum over the past two years, this problem is not getting any better.
There appears to be no way to opt out of this email flood, which is odd, given Amazon’s self-professed zeal for great customer service. One shopper in Amazon’s customer forum thread posted a response from an Amazon service representative that apologized for the notifications and noted that the feedback had been forwarded to the company’s “investigations team.”
However, the rep continued: “It is not possible to unsubscribe from transactional e-mail, such as messages related to your orders or information about your account.”
To be fair, Amazon must consider its merchants. What product maker or reseller does not want a direct link to their customers? But, it does seem like a no-brainer to include an opt-out function to stem the flow of what customers view as spam.
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Users can unsubscribe to each individual sender, but there is no readily apparent way to block or opt-out of all this mail in one fell swoop. “I buy literally everything on Amazon, from hangers to batteries,” noted one disgruntled shopper. “So I get 5-10 of these emails everyday. And I have to manually unsubscribe from each.”
Another customer posted the following:
I used to leave seller feedback for every Marketplace transaction I made. Now I haven’t left any in two years as a direct result of all the spam I receive on a near daily basis. I can opt out on an individual basis after receiving the first spam message, but I cannot opt out across from all Marketplace spam. Not useful when most customers rarely use the same affiliate twice.
Amazon did not respond to several requests for comment.
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This notion of proactive, some would say aggressive, customer service, is not just an Amazon thing. How many people shopping at brick-and-mortar stores are subjected to the third-degree as they try to pay? “Did you find everything you need? Would you like to participate in our survey? Do you want to sign up for our credit card/affinity program/free cup of coffee?” The list goes on.
For many that has become more annoying than helpful. Sometimes you just want to buy what you need and get the hell on with your life.