As time goes by, sellers are adjusting to the wave of changes taking over Amazon’s Seller Central web interface. Perhaps the most important and least conspicuous of all is the Amazon Help beta testing phase, which is a promising start to a new era in customer support and order management.
Read along and join us for the next article in our series covering Seller Central’s 2015 overhaul.
Before and After 2015
We’ve already tackled most of the changes brought on by the beta testing phase, namely valid tracking rates, enhanced reviews, homepage changes, and selling coach reports. Let’s turn to the Help page beta, and see what Amazon has in store for its sellers.
While most of the changes are universal, not all sellers, and indeed not all marketplace platforms, will experience the same interface content and functionality. This stems from Amazon’s plan to tailor the interface to particular sellers’ needs and expectations.
As of today, Amazon Canada doesn’t seem to have updated its Help section at all, and it still uses the same interface from days of yore. Other marketplaces are slowly catching up, but Spain is still true to the pre-2015 version.
Before 2015, sellers used the ‘Seller Support’ button to access the ‘Contact Us’ page, where they would then be taken through a ‘Customers and orders’ section. Here they would be given the choice to write concerning:
– Customer Feedback
– Returns, Refunds and Cancellations
– Payment
– A-to-Z Claims
– Other concerns
There were only these three simple steps taking them from their rather stuffy homepage to their Amazon contact form. The process was streamlined, but selecting the wrong field by mistake meant they’d have to go back and start from scratch.
Since the beta testing phase kicked in, however, sellers on the US marketplace and others have noticed various improvements which we will briefly describe below.
We could think of this new type of navigation through the Seller Central Help section as a four-step process, and each of these steps brings something new to the table.
Step 1: Access the ‘Contact Us’ section
Notice the homepage is far less cluttered.
Step 2: Select your sales channel
There’s a clear distinction now between those items listed and sold on Amazon by MFN and FBA sellers, and sponsored products advertised on Amazon. This form of triage simplifies matters for both types of business models.
Step 3: Search for and select an order
This helps you find a specific order using the search and selection tool, rather than browsing through.
Step 4: Choose the reason
Thanks to this section, you may contact Amazon concerning a cancelation, an A-to-Z claim or an unspecified reason, but only after you have selected your order.
As a bonus, those who use this new version can enjoy two new features. Hovering over the Help button grants them access to a Recommended Help section (similar to an FAQ section). Then they also have the Recent Help tab, which reveals recent issues sellers have been complaining of, and the answer given in that particular contexts. For busy sellers eager to handle their customer and order issues quickly, this is a handy tool that eliminates the need to open a case with Amazon in certain situations.
This concludes our list of improvements to the Seller Central Help section, and our series of articles on the topic of Amazon interface changes for the month. Stay tuned as we outline emerging developments, and join us as we keep up to date with the latest Amazon has to offer.
Melanie takes an active interest in all things Amazon. She keeps an eye on the latest developments, and keeps Amazon sellers up to speed.