How do I set up automated responses for customer queries outside business hours on Mirakl marketplaces?

The Mirakl seller portal has no auto-reply setting; the acknowledgement comes from the tool that reads your inbox through the API. Set it to send once per conversation, only when the customer wrote last, only for messages that arrived after the gap began, and with a cap per run, then rehearse it against last week before switching it on.

Why send anything outside business hours?

For one UK furniture seller, 37% of customer conversations over 90 days started outside 9 to 5 UK time and 12% started at the weekend. The marketplace clock pauses for those hours; the customer does not know that. A two-line note saying when a person will reply turns a silent 40 hours into an expected one, and it costs nothing on the marketplace clock because it is sent while the clock is stopped.

What is allowed on each marketplace?

On Mirakl marketplaces (B&Q, Argos, Debenhams, The Range, Tesco Marketplace, Home24) a seller reply sent through the API is a normal seller message. The operators' rules forbid links, e-mail addresses and phone numbers in messages, so the acknowledgement must carry none. On Amazon an automated buyer message is against policy; a tool that sends one there puts the account at risk, so the acknowledgement must never run on an Amazon channel.

What does a safe acknowledgement look like?

Short, honest and specific: who you are, that a person will read the message, and when. No offer, no link, no request for information. If the customer wrote in German or French, send it in their language; the reference text stays in English and the translation is generated per message.

Which rules stop it going wrong?

An acknowledgement is an automation that writes to a marketplace, so the question is not what it sends but what stops it. Growstall checks thirteen conditions in order before every send, and the order matters.

1. A kill switch that stops every automation in the workspace.
2. No sends while a marketplace is still importing its history, or during a full re-scan.
3. A pause set by the breaker (below) or by a person.
4. The switch is on.
5. It is outside business hours right now, on the team calendar or the marketplace's.
6. The thread is a customer conversation, not an operator notice.
7. The customer wrote last.
8. This thread was never acknowledged before.
9. The message arrived after the current gap began.
10. The message is younger than the age limit (default three days).
11. The message is newer than the marketplace's previous successful sync.
12. The thread can receive a reply.
13. A cap per run (default ten). Passing it trips a breaker: acknowledgements pause until the end of the local day and the team is told.

Rule 11 exists because of a real incident. In August 2026 a pagination fix widened a seller's message list from 600 to 7,481 threads, and an acknowledgement without that rule replied to 323 old conversations, the oldest from 2022. The post-mortem.

How do I switch it on without a surprise?

1. 1Write the text and set the gapThe note goes out only when the next business window is more than a set number of hours away (default 16): a Tuesday 19:00 message before a normal Wednesday gets nothing, a Friday 19:00 message does.
2. 2Read the rehearsal before savingHow many conversations would receive it under the current rules. Above ten, the switch stays off until you confirm.
3. 3Keep the cap at ten for the first weekRead the acknowledgement ledger each morning: the customer's message time, the send time and the gap in hours between them.
4. 4Leave it off on AmazonThe tool should not offer it there at all.