You know exactly how important it is to protect your profit margin as an Amazon Seller, but how excited are you about actually reviewing potential Fulfillment by Amazon mistakes every single week? Even if you understand that there are a lot of opportunities to get back the money that is owed to you, it can be hard to commit to a process for discovering these issues (and fit into your daily grind).
Refunds Manager finds Fulfillment by Amazon mistakes, files the claims with Amazon, and helps you get your money back with no payment or fees up front.
If you’ve filled out your own claims before and are wondering if we can handle them in the future, here’s a list of everything we can attempt to get FBA refunds for on your behalf:
1. Items lost or damaged in the Amazon warehouse
While we know that Amazon does their best to handle all merchandise with care, things happen. Items can be dropped and broken, or simply misplaced. We ensure that every item is accounted for and open up claims where we find discrepancies.
2. Items destroyed by Amazon without permission
Sometimes, Amazon is forced to destroy items that are deemed unsellable. Maybe the customer damaged the item or it was damaged during shipment and is not in a state that is suitable for a resell. When that happens, Amazon will destroy the item and refund for you it.
But sometimes, the refund never comes through. We check destroyed items against debits to your account.
3. Uncredited restocking fee
For certain returns, the customer will be processed a restocking fee of 20% of the item cost. If the item is successfully returned to the warehouse and is credited to your account, then you will be owed this restocking fee. But if Amazon gives you the replacement value (because the item was damaged or never returned), you are not entitled to this fee. Refunds Manager helps to catch cases when you are entitled to the restocking fee but did not receive it.
4. Customer received additional refunds
Have you ever returned something only to receive a refund larger than what you originally paid? As a customer, it can feel like a lucky boost, or it could mean that a company was trying to butter you up after a horrible mix up that they don’t want to read rehashed in a bad review.
If Amazon, purposefully or otherwise, gives a customer extra money than the expected refund amount, then that bonus should come from Amazon, not the Seller.
5. Orders that were debited but never returned
Amazon is not the only retailer to give a customer a refund before they’ve actually returned the merchandise. Many large retailers who can afford this level of service are now providing it, including Macy’s–and everyone knows that the entire Zappos business model was formed on having an excellent return policy.
So the fact that Amazon makes returns easy for your customers is great, but it’s not so great when the customer gets the money but doesn’t return the item. If they never follow through on a return, Amazon promises to give you the money back after 45 days. But of course, sometimes that doesn’t happen.
6. Items lost or damaged on their way to Amazon
Items can not only be lost or damaged inside of Amazon or leaving Amazon, but going to Amazon as well. Let’s say that the carrier damages an inbound shipment or that your account was supposed to receive 50 orders of an item, but only received 20. We’ll watch out for issues with inbound merchandise and make sure you get your Amazon Seller refunds.
7. Customer received replacement but did not return original
Issues with item replacement are very similar to the problems that can arise with the return policy. If a customer wants a replacement product, they will receive one right away, often without having sent in the original yet.
If the customer forgets to send back the original and you never receive reimbursement for that item, Refunds Manager will notice the discrepancy and file a claim.
8. Stock deducted after shipment was closed
If you regularly track shipments in your shipping queue, then you might have noticed some discrepancies with closed shipments. Let’s say that you shipped 30 units to Amazon, and they received all of them and closed the shipment–but Amazon later deducted 12 from the count. Refunds Manager can catch this very expensive issue on your behalf (in addition to all these other potential refunds).
9. Items returned and scanned but not returned to your FBA account
If you work hard to optimize your products so they show up in the coveted Buy Box, then you’re well aware that there can be multiple sellers for the same item.
Here’s another less than exciting scenario related to product competition: your customer returns the item, but it is scanned and added to another seller’s inventory. We track individual SKUs, making it possible to catch FBA warehouse errors like these.
10. Returns that were damaged by carrier or Amazon
If there are issues with returned items beings damaged, we can help make sure that Amazon has actually processed that reimbursement to you, without your having to track every single interaction.
11. Orders where the weight or dimension fee was overcharged
Customers complain about paying additional shipping costs all the time, but as an Amazon seller, you know how much weight and dimension fees can affect your profit margin. Shipping costs matter just as much to you.
If your product is only 4 pounds and you’ve entered this information properly into the FBA calculator, then you expect that amount to be accurately represented in your FBA account. If you’ve been overcharged (your item is actually considered larger or heavier) that can have a huge affect on your profits.
Amazon allows for most claims to go back 18 months, and Refunds Manager can check for these errors stretching back that far, starting from the day you sign up.
12. Overcharged commission fees
As you know, Amazon charges different commission fees for different product categories like electronics or cosmetics. You can imagine the difference between 8% and 15% on a year’s worth of sales–or 18 months if the issues stretches back that far. We’ll catch commission fee errors and handle the claim process.
13. Issued reimbursement not showing up
This case is simple: Amazon’s return report is showing that they’ve issued a reimbursement to your seller account, but it is not showing up on your end. They claim to have reimbursed a return, but never actually reimbursed it. We track this error by automatically comparing reports.
14. Restocked inventory not showing up
Similar to the above case, this Amazon FBA reimbursement claim is for times when Amazon is reporting that an item has been placed back in your inventory (after a return) but it never actually shows up in your inventory.)
15. Removal order not received
There are a number of specific reasons why a seller might request a removal order, but they all stem from the fact that product is moving and warehousing fees are rising. The inventory is supposed to show up at the address you’ve selected, but what if it never arrives? We can track this issue as well and make sure you’re reimbursed for the estimated value of the inventory.
We can now handle even more Amazon issues! To learn more visit the home page of our site.
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Have you heard of, read about, or experienced one of these reimbursement issues? Did we miss a scenario? Please let us know in the comments below.
