How to Recover Your Amazon FBA Reimbursement with Ease
Written by Ash, Publish by Hani
Your Amazon FBA business depends on Amazon's fulfillment centers to store and ship your products to customers. However, Amazon may occasionally make errors when handling your inventory. Amazon deals with millions of products every day, and despite using the latest technology, machines and employees are prone to mistakes. Therefore, you need to monitor your seller central account regularly for errors, otherwise your Amazon business may suffer losses. This article will explore the common areas of Amazon FBA reimbursement and show you different methods to recover your money.
Your Amazon FBA business depends on Amazon's fulfillment centers to store and ship your products to customers. However, Amazon may occasionally make errors when handling your inventory. Amazon deals with millions of products every day, and despite using the latest technology, machines and employees are prone to mistakes. Therefore, you need to monitor your seller central account regularly for errors, otherwise your Amazon business may suffer losses. This article will explore the common areas of Amazon FBA reimbursement and show you different methods to recover your money.
How does Amazon owe you money?
We can classify the type of errors as below to understand,
(a) Lost Inventory
Your inventory may get lost in Amazon FBA warehouses for various reasons. You may notice a discrepancy in the number of units in your inventory that is not related to recent orders. Therefore, it is important to analyse the inventory reports and identify the missing units.
Your inventory may get lost in Amazon FBA warehouses for various reasons. You may notice a discrepancy in the number of units in your inventory that is not related to recent orders. Therefore, it is important to analyse the inventory reports and identify the missing units.
(b) Damaged Inventory
Your FBA inventory may be damaged by Amazon or carriers during order fulfillment or customer delivery. This is a frequent area for Amazon FBA reimbursement. The Amazon FBA lost and damaged policy covers sellers from these situations.
Your FBA inventory may be damaged by Amazon or carriers during order fulfillment or customer delivery. This is a frequent area for Amazon FBA reimbursement. The Amazon FBA lost and damaged policy covers sellers from these situations.
(c) Inbound Missing Inventory
You can also get reimbursement for the inventory lost in-transit by providing your proof of inventory ownership or delivery receipts. This is an important step because sometimes, some of the shipment contents may go missing before they reach Amazon warehouse. Therefore, you need to regularly verify the contents in the shipments queue page to make sure nothing is lost and if anything is lost, you can claim it by submitting the relevant documents to recover the loss in inbound processing.
You can also get reimbursement for the inventory lost in-transit by providing your proof of inventory ownership or delivery receipts. This is an important step because sometimes, some of the shipment contents may go missing before they reach Amazon warehouse. Therefore, you need to regularly verify the contents in the shipments queue page to make sure nothing is lost and if anything is lost, you can claim it by submitting the relevant documents to recover the loss in inbound processing.
(d) Customer Returns
Customer returns are inevitable in any e-commerce business. Amazon manages customer returns and refunds for FBA sellers effectively. But sometimes, customers receive a refund without returning the product. This category has a high number of reimbursement claims because of too many returns processed every day. Amazon has to fix the issue within the given time. When a product is returned, Amazon puts it into one of two groups: Sellable Stock or Unsellable Stock.
(d-a) Sellable Stock
An item that returns to the Amazon warehouse in good condition gets the SELLABLE label. This means that the product and its packaging meet the Amazon packaging requirements for resale, and the item goes back to your active inventory.
Here are some reasons for a customer to return a working, undamaged products;
Here are some reasons for a customer to return a working, undamaged products;
ORDERED_WRONG_ITEM
FOUND_BETTER_PRICE
MISSED_ESTIMATED_DELIVERY
SWITCHEROO
UNWANTED_ITEM
APPAREL_TOO_SMALL
(d-b) Unsellable Stock
An item returned to Amazon will be categorised as unsellable. The condition codes that denote unsellable inventory are:
DEFECTIVE – The customer either returned the item as defective or it was visibly damaged. The customer gets a refund, and the product stays in your inventory as “Unsellable”
DAMAGED/CARRIER DAMAGED – These codes indicate that Amazon is liable for damaging the unit. You will get a reimbursement from Amazon for the product.
CUSTOMER DAMAGED – The customer returns the product because it is damaged or the packaging is opened. The customer gets a refund, and the product stays in your inventory as “Unsellable”
EXPIRED – Products with expiry dates, such as foods, may be marked as “unsellable” if they are within 50 days of expiring and will be disposed of eventually
(e) Missing removal orders
You may have to request a removal order and take some of your inventory out of long-term storage to reduce your monthly FBA cost. You can recover a large part of the cost if Amazon does send the goods back to you.
You may have to request a removal order and take some of your inventory out of long-term storage to reduce your monthly FBA cost. You can recover a large part of the cost if Amazon does send the goods back to you.
(f) Order quantity issues
Sometimes, you may encounter problems while processing the orders. Your customer may get one extra item than what they ordered. Most of the time, customers will keep the extra item. Amazon may not notice this mistake. So you have to check your inventory and report order details for any errors noticed.
Sometimes, you may encounter problems while processing the orders. Your customer may get one extra item than what they ordered. Most of the time, customers will keep the extra item. Amazon may not notice this mistake. So you have to check your inventory and report order details for any errors noticed.
(g) FBA fee errors
Amazon FBA fees vary depending on the category, size, and storage of the item you are selling. These fees include commission fees, storage fees, long-term storage fees, and shipping fees. You may sometimes pay more than you should.
Amazon FBA fees vary depending on the category, size, and storage of the item you are selling. These fees include commission fees, storage fees, long-term storage fees, and shipping fees. You may sometimes pay more than you should.
(h) Chargebacks
You may have to pay the costs related to the transaction if you do not get a refund for a chargeback.
You may have to pay the costs related to the transaction if you do not get a refund for a chargeback.
(i) Commission fees
You may not know that you are paying too much for the commission fee of a certain product, for example paying 17% for the Electronic accessories category when your product is a Electronic Devices and should pay much less(say 9% only). You can claim a refund and get back the money lost due to this error.
(j) Weight and dimension fees
You may be charged for weight or dimension costs that you did not expect. You can get a refund for your affected purchases going back to last year.
(k) Missing order credits
If your customer got a refund but you did not get the amount credited back to you in your account, you can claim a refund if it has been more than 45 days since their initial payment was refunded.
(l) Restocking fees
According to FBA policy, Amazon gives you a 20% restocking fee as a credit for customer returns that were received slightly after the 30 day return window. You need to check that Amazon actually processes this credit. If they do not, you can claim a refund.
All of these errors may account for a major part of your FBA reimbursements, especially if you haven’t kept track for several weeks and months.
How do we claim Amazon reimbursement?
We have a few methods to get the reimbursements. Let's see the details.
(A) All by yourself
This is the most cost-effective method - doing it by yourself without any help. But the downside is that you may make mistakes, things may get more complex, or it may take a lot of time - which may cost you more than the amount you get back from these claims. You don't want to waste hours on reports just to send some invalid claims. Do you? Unless you are an expert in Amazon's reports, this may not be the best method for you.
(B) Amazon FBA reimbursement tools
You can use some of the available automated/manual reimbursement service providers for auditing your FBA inventory reports. In most cases, this is the simplest way to get reimbursements. However, the companies may charge you a percentage of your Amazon refund fee. You may try ChannelMAX for this service.
How to Submit the Claims?
Review the FBA reports below to track the inventory or orders according to the type of discrepancies you are looking for and find the FNSKUs that qualify for reimbursement. Once you have the FNSKUs, go to the case submission panel and submit the cases, either by FNSKU or in batches of 5 FNSKUs as Amazon likes. However, it is always advisable to validate the data before submitting the claims because too many invalid case submissions may damage your seller account.
Manage Orders
Customer Returns Report
Inventory Adjustments
Inventory Event Detail
Removal Order Detail
Reimbursement Report
Daily Inventory Reports
Conclusion
To sum up, I would say that as an FBA seller, you deserve reimbursement if Amazon makes any errors. It is essential to manage your seller account and protect your hard-earned money. Amazon FBA refunds your money most of the time. So, you need to audit your account regularly and use the best-automated tools like ChannelMAX to do your job.
Also Read:
How to Fix Amazon's Potential High Pricing error?
Common Reasons For Amazon Seller Account Suspension or Deactivation
About ChannelMAX.NET:Also Read:
How to Fix Amazon's Potential High Pricing error?
Common Reasons For Amazon Seller Account Suspension or Deactivation
Disclaimer:
Amazon is the registered trademark of the e-commerce brand.
Amazon is the registered trademark of the e-commerce brand.
ChannelMAX offers Amazon Repricer that runs on the latest AI Repricing algorithm to do Amazon Pricing Management or Amazon Repricing. Based on Amazon SP API, the repricing engine or repricer runs 24/7 and efficiently manages Amazon prices to maximize your BuyBox with profit optimization. Established in 2005, ChannelMAX has been integrated with Amazon technology since 2007, helping thousands of third-party sellers on various eCommerce platforms. Some of the eCommerce platforms, aka marketplaces, supported by ChannelMAX.NET, are Amazon, Walmart, eBay, and Shopify. Some of ChannelMAX key offerings include ChannelMAX Amazon Repricer, 2ndly, ChannelMAX Amazon FBA Audits and FBA Refunds management, an offering for managing Amazon FBA Refunds Reimbursement management for lost or damaged or misplaced inventory for which Amazon is responsible and for which sellers deserve appropriate credit reimbursement from Amazon. ChannelMAX Services offer Remote (aka Virtual) Full-Time eCommerce Assistant to help 3P sellers run their daytoday business.
Check ChannelMAX at Amazon Selling Partner Appstore, an application with a 5 star rating.