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Amazon to Provide Anonymized Buyer Phone Numbers

Jason S
Jason S
  • Updated

Highlights:

 

Here's the announcement from Amazon to sellers:

"You or your delivery carrier may only contact the customer via phone for delivery issues through our phone number anonymization system.
 
"When calling a customer, use the temporary phone number, including the extension if provided, and follow the prompts. The phone number will expire once the package is delivered. This system is scheduled to be rolled out over the next few weeks.
 
"As a reminder, in accordance with our Communication guidelines, you should only contact customers to fulfill an order. If you need to contact a customer for any reason other than package delivery, please use the Buyer-Seller Messaging Service.
 
"Refer to the Prohibited seller activities and actions policy for information about appropriate use of customer phone numbers."

What is changing?

The Orders API section and the Reports API section are now returning anonymized phone numbers for some selling accounts, to help protect customer privacy. These new phone number values contain more characters than those previously returned by Amazon MWS.

We have already begun rolling out this change, and we expect to be returning anonymized phone numbers for all selling accounts within the next few weeks.

Here are the operations and reports that are affected by this change:

  • ListOrders, ListOrdersByNextToken, and GetOrder. The Phone element will return the new phone number values.
  • Flat file Order reports (_GET_FLAT_FILE_ACTIONABLE_ORDER_DATA_, _GET_FLAT_FILE_ORDER_REPORT_DATA_, _GET_CONVERGED_FLAT_FILE_ORDER_REPORT_DATA_). The ship-phone-number field will contain the new phone number values.
  • XML Order report (_GET_ORDERS_DATA_). The PhoneNumber element (contained in Address) and the BuyerPhoneNumber element (contained in BillingData) will contain the new phone number values.

Which marketplaces are affected?

This change applies to the US marketplace.

Who is affected?

You or your delivery carrier may only contact the customer via phone for delivery issues through our phone number anonymization system.

Developers with applications that consume phone number values from the Orders API section or one of the Order reports from the Reports API section are affected by this change.

What action is required?

If you have an application that is affected by this change, be sure that it does not apply any length or format validation to phone number values returned by the Orders API section or the Reports API section.

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