In just a few days ManageByStats will no longer receive from Amazon customer info such as buyer name, recipient name, and shipping street address. This affects not only us, but all software providers, and the hammer has already fallen for many.
You have time to make adjustments. The change will have a minor impact in most cases, and for some users it will have little to no impact at all.
We’ll also be taking a few automated actions to help.
What’s The Gist?
With the worldwide increase in focus on the protection of buyer identity and personal privacy, Amazon has chosen to make changes to greatly enhance the security of their customers. To this end they will no longer be sharing certain customer info with their 3rd party developers.
This affects some of the functions ManageByStats has been providing for years.
How It Affects Your SellerMail
SellerMail will no longer receive information with which to fill in the following message variables:
- ${buyer-name}
- ${first-name}
- ${recipient}
- ${ship-address1}
- ${ship-address2}
That means anywhere those variables are used in your SellerMail email rules, no data will be available with which to fill them in.
When Does This Go Into Effect?
September 20th will be the last day this PII information is available to MBS.
What You Should Do
Between now and September 20th, you’ll want to take a look at your email rules in SellerMail and either:
- Replace the above affected variables with other text, or
- Rework the text of your email body so as to not use those variables.
- Let us make changes automatically
For example, say the body of your email rule currently says:
Dear ${first-name}, we’re glad you decided to purchase …
You could either replace the affected variable:
Dear Valued Customer, we’re glad you decided to purchase …
Or you can rework the text in a way that doesn’t use the variable:
We’re glad you decided to purchase …
As a reminder, your email rules can be found in your ManageByStats under:
SellerMail > Email Rules
What MBS Will Do
On the 19th we’ll go through all affected email rules and auto-replace the following variables as follows:
- ${buyer-name} with Valued Customer
- ${first-name} with Valued Customer
- ${recipient} with Valued Customer
That should cover all instances where those variables are in use, with a readable and valid alternative. If you’d like to let us automatically make those changes, you don’t need to take any action. That will happen on the 19th, and your messages will go out after that as above.
If, however, you’d like to make your own custom adjustments, do so before the 19th by removing the above, affected variables.
How It Affects The Rest Of Your MBS
ManageByStats is known for its customer analytics. FBM info (Fulfilled By Merchant) will still be available, therefore our intention is to preserve our robust customer reporting system. We’ll populate customer info in cases where we have it.
Geo Analyze, customer lists for tools like SellerBlast and other MBS exclusives will continue to work. All other data analytics, graphing, dashboards, etc. will continue to work as before.
In short, the impact of this change on other areas besides SellerMail will be minimal.
We’re In This Together
As always, we’re here if you need help. Contact our amazing team at:
We’re family; we’re in this together. Your challenges are ours, your successes our wins. Amazon has thrown us a challenge, but we’re rolling with it and we know you will too. Challenges, overcome, build strength.
Many new, exciting, great things are on the way. We’re happy to have you with us for the journey ahead.
All best wishes,
Your ManageByStats Team
