Amazon recently updated its privacy policy regarding personally identifiable information. All Amazon sellers and third-party aggregators are required to delete any and all personally identifiable information about orders 30 days after the order is shipped. The update will take effect on August 16 and will affect all existing and future orders processed by Amazon.
Personally Identifiable Information (PII) includes, but is not limited to, a customer or seller’s name, address, email address, phone number, gift information, survey results, payment details, purchases, cookies, digital fingerprints (e.g., browser, user device), IP address, geolocation, or connected device product identifiers.
“You will retain confidential information only for as long as you are involved in the Services or to fulfill statutory obligations (e.g., taxes) and, in all cases, delete such information upon termination or when statutory obligations cease to be fulfilled. The above judgment does not limit your right to share confidential information with government entities that have jurisdiction over you, provided that you limit the information disclosed to the minimum and make it clear to the government entity the confidentiality of the information shared.”
Amazon European Services Business Solutions Agreement
To accommodate these changes, Linnworks’ Amazon listing tool now automatically deletes all personally identifiable information downloaded from Amazon 30 days after an order is processed.
The data that Linnworks will delete includes:
·name
·surname
·email address
·telephone number
·Shipping Address
Billing address
·postal code
Customer-facing order records
Buyer’s VAT number
Removing buyers' personally identifiable information would affect many aspects of the business, such as providing customer support and referring to previous records and warranty periods. It may also affect sellers’ tax compliance – for example, if the buyer’s VAT number has been removed, any orders shipped to the EU VAT-free should record the buyer’s VAT number.
Linnworks said sellers can download the data before it is deleted, but if the data is exported, the seller is responsible for complying with Amazon's data protection policies. If the data is not needed, then don’t download it, and if the seller only needs partial data, then don’t save details that are not needed to fulfill future obligations.
Of course, some sellers have expressed their doubts about this policy, which will lead to more and more negative reviews! Why do I say this? A seller said: "If customers complain 30 days after the order is shipped, how can we find their orders and their information at that time? We can't help them return or exchange the goods at that time. Buyers can't solve their own problems and will leave bad reviews for the product!"
Some sellers also said that this policy will affect product recalls...
This stems from the GDPR (EU General Data Protection Regulation) and will apply to all third-party multi-channel management tools and the data they hold about you. Generally speaking, it’s a good practice to delete all data when you no longer need it to fulfill legal obligations — if you don’t hold your customers’ personally identifiable information, then it can’t be hacked and stolen.
As a result, the requirements for sellers' products are getting higher and higher. If the product quality is high, the seller will not receive product quality complaints 30 days after the order is sent out. Of course, it also tests the sellers' endurance. If they encounter some difficult customers and wait until 30 days to complain, they will not be able to find their information by then, and the failure to handle the problem will increase the chance of leaving a bad review. Therefore, sellers must be cautious when handling orders!
