Amazon announced on March 16 it would remove customer information from emails it sends merchants notifying them of orders. Amazon announced 2 days later it would hold off until it could thoroughly reviewing changes with its seller community.
Amazon's announcement explained, "While it is still our intent to make relevant changes along these lines in the future, we will be delaying them until we believe we have a better solution for our sellers. We are currently working on a number of viable alternatives to meet our objectives while mitigating any impact to seller productivity."
Amazon initially said it would change the "Sold, ship now" emails, commonly called SSNs, in order to "protect the privacy of our customers and our merchants." Amazon was going to change SSN emails on April 30 so they would contain only a notification that a customer had purchased one or more products, along with instructions for locating the orders in the sellers' Seller Account section.
Recently Amazon also began requiring all zShops and Auctions transactions to be paid through Amazon Payments, effectively capping those transactions at $2,500. Currently Amazon requires all Marketplace transactions to use Amazon Payments, but had let auction sellers accept other forms of payment.
Amazon said it has learned through the Marketplace experience that, "having Amazon manage the payment process from beginning to end ensures both buyers and sellers have a smooth, secure transaction. Shoppers can buy with greater confidence, knowing that their purchase is backed by Amazon's A to Z guarantee, which protects purchases up to $2,500."
Amazon is making changes as incidents of fraud and phishing on the Internet seem to be on the rise, with techniques that are becoming increasingly effective at tricking even savvy online users.
Over the years, eBay has limited the ability for its buyers and sellers to directly contact each other outside of the eBay system, and it is expected to soon decrease the time email addresses are shown on the eBay site from 90 days to 14 days.
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