How fast do I have to answer customer messages as a B&Q marketplace seller?
24 business hours, Monday to Friday 9–5 UK time. Who writes on B&Q and how often, why 45% of messages arrive after hours, what they are about, and how quickly one seller answered over 90 days.
B&Q gives a marketplace seller 24 business hours to answer a customer message, Monday to Friday 9 to 5 UK time, public holidays excluded. In 90 days one UK furniture seller had 265 customer conversations on B&Q from 736 orders, and 45% of them started outside those hours.
Who writes on B&Q, and how often?
B&Q runs on Mirakl and routes almost every question straight to the seller. Of 736 orders in 90 days, 105 had at least one customer conversation, a contact rate of 14%. That is the highest of the five UK marketplaces the seller trades on; the same products on Debenhams produced a rate near 1%, because Debenhams' own support answers most questions first.
Operator notices are rare on B&Q: 27 in the period, against 265 customer conversations. The inbox is mostly customers, which is the opposite of Argos.
When do B&Q customers write?
45% of conversations started outside 9 to 5 on a weekday, and 9% started at the weekend. Most of the after-hours messages are weekday evenings, after a delivery attempt or after the customer has opened the box. The B&Q clock stops at 17:00 and restarts at 09:00, so an 18:00 message on Thursday is due Friday 17:00, and an 18:00 message on Friday is due Monday 17:00.
What do B&Q customers write about?
The seller's refund count on B&Q in the same period was 55 on 738 orders, about 7% of orders, with “customer changed mind” the reason the operator recorded most often. Which refunds wrote in first.
How fast did the seller answer?
B&Q customers get a faster answer than Argos customers from the same team, for a simple reason: the B&Q inbox contains almost nothing but customers, so nothing has to be sorted out of the way first.
What should the inbox do about it?
- Show the time left on the B&Q clock. A Thursday 18:00 message and a Friday 10:00 message both carry a Friday deadline; arrival order hides that.
- Put the return and refund position beside the message. Return requests are the largest reason, and the reply depends on whether the item is unassembled and in its packaging.
- Send an out-of-hours acknowledgement in the evening, with a cap per run. Nearly half of B&Q messages arrive when nobody is at the desk.
- Read contact rate by product monthly. The seller's highest-contact products were large flat-pack items with faulty-item and missing-parts reasons, which points at packaging. Which orders generate messages.
- B&Q: 24 business hours, Mon–Fri 9–5 UK, public holidays excluded.
- Contact rate 14%, the highest of five marketplaces; almost no operator notices.
- 45% of messages arrive after hours, mostly weekday evenings.
- Returns and faults lead; both are answered faster with the order beside the message.
Questions people ask
Does the B&Q marketplace response time include weekends?
No. B&Q counts business hours, Monday to Friday 9 to 5 UK time, with public holidays excluded. A Saturday message is due Tuesday 17:00.
Why is the contact rate on B&Q higher than on other marketplaces?
B&Q routes questions directly to the seller and its customers expect a conversation about delivery of bulky goods. Marketplaces with an operator support team that answers first show a lower rate for the same product.
Can I answer B&Q messages from a shared inbox?
Yes. B&Q exposes messages through the Mirakl API with a key generated in the seller portal; an inbox that uses the key reads and replies on your behalf, and B&Q sees a normal seller reply.