Amazon recently stopped sharing buyer email addresses for Merchant-Fulfilled (MFN/FBM) orders through their API. This change affects how Feedback Genius can deliver Custom Messages for those orders. Here’s what changed, what still works, and how to keep your messaging covered.
What changed
Amazon no longer returns buyer email addresses in their Orders API or order reports for MFN/FBM orders. Without the buyer’s email, Feedback Genius cannot deliver Custom Messages for those orders.
This change applies only to MFN. For FBA orders, buyer emails are still available through Amazon’s fulfilled-shipments report, so Custom Messages continue to send normally.
What still works
- FBA Custom Messages — Continue to send as normal.
- Request a Review (RAR) — Continues to work for both FBA and MFN orders. RAR uses Amazon’s internal messaging system, which doesn’t require buyer emails.
- Notifications, monitoring, and reporting features — Unchanged.
Workaround for mixed FBA + MFN sellers
If you sell a mix of FBA and MFN, you can keep Custom Messages running on your FBA orders and still have Request a Review cover your MFN orders — at the same time:
- Open your Custom Message and set the Fulfillment Channel filter to FBA only. This prevents the message from attempting to send on MFN orders, which would otherwise fail and block RAR from firing on that order. See: Advanced Message Filtering in Feedback Genius.
- Set the Custom Message to send less than 5 days after delivery. Request a Review’s earliest window is day 5, so sending your Custom Message earlier ensures both can fire on FBA orders without conflict.
- Turn on Request a Review for all your marketplaces, so MFN orders are still covered. See: Turn on Amazon’s Request a Review Automation.
The result: FBA buyers receive your Custom Message, and MFN buyers automatically receive Request a Review afterward.
💡 Pro Tip: RAR’s sweet-spot timing is around 14 days after delivery. If you’re using the trick above, keeping your Custom Message at 1–4 days after delivery leaves a healthy gap before RAR fires.
If you only sell MFN
Custom Messages can no longer reach your buyers. We recommend enabling Request a Review in Feedback Genius — it’s the path Amazon now expects sellers to use for MFN. Setup guide: Turn on Amazon’s Request a Review Automation.
Why we can’t fix this on our side
We investigated every available path — newer Amazon API versions, restricted PII roles, and a direct support case with Amazon — and confirmed there is no compliant way to recover buyer emails for MFN orders. Amazon’s direction is to use Request a Review for these orders.