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What are the Marketplace Seller Discussion Boards?
The Marketplace Seller Discussion Boards enable sellers to share ideas, opinions, and information quickly and easily. Organized by threads in an easy-to-follow format, these discussion boards are designed so you can quickly locate information, find other knowledgeable sellers, and participate in conversations.

How is discussion board content organized?
The content in the boards is structured as follows:
  • Categories: Categories represent a collection of discussion boards. Categories are used to organize discussion boards into a tree structure so community members can more easily find topics relevant to them.
  • Discussion Boards: Discussion boards are the areas where individual discussions take place. These discussions are represented as a listing of threads.
  • Threads: Threads are the discussions that consist of one or more messages displayed as a list, or in a tree structure of messages and their replies.
  • Messages: Messages are the individual discussion posts made by community members.
  • Replies: Message replies are posts in response to other messages and are organized in a flat or threaded mode.


Do I have to be registered to use the discussion boards?
You do not need to have an Amazon.com account to read threads on the discussion boards, but you must have an Amazon.com account in order to post. Permissions to read or post to various areas of the discussion boards may vary based on user profile, depending on the content and on the purpose of the specific discussion board in question.

How do I log in?
To log in to the discussion boards, click the "Login" link. From there, enter the e-mail address and password you use for your Amazon.com seller account.

What is my Username and where is it displayed?
Your Username on the discussion boards is your Marketplace Seller nickname. This name is always publicly displayed in your forums greeting, and is visible in your discussion board profile under "Username".

What is my Amazon "Pen Name" or "Real Name™" and where is it displayed?
If you have set up an Amazon Pen Name or Real Name™ as part of your Amazon profile, this name will appear in the "Name" field of your Marketplace Seller Discussion Boards profile. To add, edit, or delete your Pen Name or Real Name™, or to learn more about these identifiers, please visit your Amazon profile page. Please note that any changes you make to your Pen Name or Real Name™ will only take effect in the Amazon Marketplace Seller Discussion Boards once you have logged out of and back into the boards.

What do I do if I forgot my password?
To reset your password, click on the "Login" link and then click on the "I forgot my password" link. After typing your e-mail address and pressing the Submit button, you will receive an email with instructions on how to reset your password.

How do I create a thread?
To start a new thread, choose the appropriate discussion board and select "Post New Thread." Type your thread title in the subject line and type a message in the message box. Before you are about to post, you can spell check your message by clicking "Spell Check". You can also choose to watch the thread (which will add it to you watch list, and allow you to receive email notifications when new posts are made) by clicking the "Watch This Thread" box.

How do I post a reply?
To post a reply to a thread, select the "Reply" link next to the message you would like to reply to. If you want to respond to specific text from the original message, click on "Quote Original," and that will add the text from the original post in your message.

How do I set up my profile and view other user profiles?
To create or update your profile, click on "Your Control Panel." Your profile, discussion board preferences, and watch settings may be set from here. To edit these settings, fill in your updated information, then click "Save."

To view the profile for any user who has posted to the discussion boards, click on their username when viewing one of their posts. You can also search for a username or user ID using the search feature.

How do I search the discussion boards?
From the main page of the discussion boards, type your term(s) into the search box, select which board(s) you want to search, and click the "Go" button. You will then be able to narrow your search by using an advanced search capability, if you wish. You can specify a date range, an area of the discussion boards, or filter by user name.

What are watches, and how do I manage my watch list?
A watch notifies you via e-mail if a thread you are interested in has been updated.

To add a thread to your watch list, click on the "Watch This Thread" link at the top of the thread page. Click on "Stop Watching Thread" to end the email notifications. After 30 days, inactive watches will automatically expire. You can also watch specific boards, categories and users. For example, when a new message is posted in a discussion board you're watching, you'll be notified by e-mail.

To view the boards, categories, users, and threads you're watching, click on "Your Control Panel," and then click "Watches." From this screen, you can choose to receive e-mail notifications when new posts are made. Just click on "Add Email Notification" next to the thread for which you want to be notified.

You can delete a watch by clicking in the "Delete" tick box for the watch you want to delete; then click the "Delete" button.

How can I format the text of my posts?
To format your message text, there are three buttons for Bold, Italics and Underline. Clicking on these buttons will add tags to the message field.

For example, typing: "This is [b]bold[/b] text, and this is [i]italicized[/i] text" will appear as "This is bold text, and this is italicized text" once you post the message.

How do I check the spelling of my message?
To check the text of your message for proper spelling, click "Spell Check" on the page where you've composed the post.

If our spell check dictionary does not recognize a word in your message, it will appear in a box. You can correct it yourself by typing over what is displayed. If the dictionary has any suggestions, you will be able to see them in the suggestion box.

To choose one of the suggestions, select the suggestion you'd like to use and click on the "Change" button for each of the words you would like changed.

When you are finished checking your entire message, click on "Post Message" to save your changes and post the message with your spelling corrections. If you want to continue editing your message, hit "Go Back" or "Edit" to return to the message posting area.

What is Community Recognition?
What makes the Marketplace Seller Discussion Boards great? You do, with your meaningful participation, and we'd like to recognize you for it. The discussion boards will remember each of your efforts to help your peers as you collaborate to solve a problem.

Community Recognition icons convey the extent to which a user has been actively supporting the discussion board users. It's our token of appreciation for contributions to the success of our seller community, and a set of milestones for you.

How does Community Recognition work?
  1. One community member posts the first message in a thread, and designates the thread as a "Question."
  2. Community members respond to Questions by posting a "Question Answer" within the same thread.
  3. Question posters read the Answers, and for each Question, they can designate up to 2 responses as "Helpful Answers" and 1 as a "Correct Answer."
  4. The users who post Correct or Helpful Answers each receive 5 points per Helpful Answer and 10 points per Correct Answer.
  5. These points are summed for each user, generating a "Score."
  6. Certain Scores correspond to "Score Levels," and generate special icons for users who achieve those Levels.


What are Questions?
In order to filter through the general discussion "noise", users have the option to flag their post as a question. This provides the community a visual clue to the fact that the poster is seeking an answer to his/her question. Question authors are able to see their open & resolved questions in their profiles. - no points available on this question - points still available on this question

What are Question Answers?
When a community member posts a question, other members are able to post an answer. In some cases, the answer is just a hint, or helpful information to aid the poster in resolving this issue. This is classified as a "Helpful" post (). In other cases, a community member will post the specific answer to the original questions. This is classified as a "Correct" post (). The originator of the post will be able to flag each response as either "Helpful" or "Correct", or not to flag a response at all. The originator of the question will also be able to "close the loop" on the question by flagging the entire thread as answered, which provides a visual clue to the community members.



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