When Amazon makes mistakes calculating your FBA fees, you are owed Amazon return fees. Mistakes happen. But when mistakes happen, how do you find out they happened? And after you find these mistakes, what is the best way to collect Amazon return fees owed you for reimbursement?
Let’s take a look at:
- How Amazon FBA fee errors occur
- How to determine if Amazon FBA fees are wrong
- How to collect Amazon FBA fees
- How to get help with Amazon FBA reimbursements and improve your Amazon business.
When an Amazon FBA Fee is Wrong
There are a number of reasons why Amazon FBA fees may be incorrect. These include:
- Incorrect product dimensions that are larger than the actual product packaging, which results in a higher fulfillment fee.
- Errors in refund reconciliation, e.g.:
- Customer is refunded, but the product is never actually returned.
- Product is properly returned, but Amazon refunds a larger amount than is actually due.
- Returned undamaged product with damaged packaging is supposed to go into unfillable inventory, but is somehow misfiled and lost and not returned to you.
- Inventory is damaged, lost, or incorrectly counted at Amazon fulfillment center.
- Overcharged referral fees for products that are incorrectly classified at a higher rate.
Given Amazon’s size and the complexity of global logistics, it’s not all that surprising these kinds of errors happen. Sometimes Amazon finds these mistakes and issues the appropriate Amazon return fee. But don’t count on it. For the most part, collecting Amazon return fees is mostly your responsibility. Failure to do so can cost you a significant amount of money and affect profitability.
There are basically three ways to be sure you collect the Amazon return fees you are owed.
- Track Amazon free returns yourself.
- Use third-party software to identify and track Amazon fee returns.
- Work with an established company that specializes in auditing and collecting Amazon return fees.
DIY Collection of Amazon Fee Returns
The least expensive option is to track Amazon FBA fees yourself in Amazon Seller Central and identify and collect Amazon fee returns that you are due.
You can find guidelines about Amazon fee return policies on Seller Central. There are different processes to follow for different types of claims. And if you don’t follow the right process for a particular Amazon fee return claim, it gets rejected and you have to refile. In the meantime, you aren’t getting your Amazon fee return and your cash flow suffers.
And that’s just to file a claim. To even know if you have the grounds for a claim, you have to track and reconcile inventory, shipments, and returns. This is a time-consuming manual process that is easily a full-time job. If crunching numbers, tracking paperwork, researching Amazon’s sometimes not all-together clearly stated policies, and writing detailed descriptions about why you are owed an Amazon return fee isn’t your particular cup of tea, then this probably isn’t a good option. Plus, there are just so many hours in the day. Perhaps most importantly, doing this yourself distracts you from your primary objective run your business and promote your brand.
Instead of doing it yourself, you could hire someone to track and collect your Amazon return fees. However, there is software to make this manual process easier. So even if you do hire someone to help with the accounting of Amazon return fees, you can free up this person’s time to perform other support tasks, which might better justify the added salary expense.
Amazon Fee Return Collection Software
There are a number of third-party software solutions that identify and submit claims for Amazon fee returns. Pricing and terms of service vary among these companies. In some cases, the provider earns a percentage of the Amazon fee return, which can be as much as a third or more of what is collected.
These software providers also come with limitations and restrictions, such as only conducting the first claim process and not following up on errors. We’ve even found software that doesn’t update accordingly whenever Amazon updates its claims process. Moreover, Amazon may only reimburse a portion of the claim which some software providers fail to dispute or follow through on, money a more proactive provider might recover.
Dedicated Case Managers to Get Your Amazon Fee Return
Unrecovered Amazon FBA fee reimbursement can average as much as 3% of your annual revenue. The bigger your business, even 1% of overcharges that go unnoticed can represent a significant loss of Amazon fee returns that impairs profitability.
Given the time it takes to find mistakes that warrant Amazon fee returns, file claims, and follow through on claims, a combination of comprehensive full-service software combined with a dedicated case manager to oversee the process is a worthwhile consideration.
GETIDA auditing software keeps track of your Amazon FBA inventory transactions, refunds, seller data analytics, and FBA reimbursements easily and clearly. We maintain an agreeable, established relationship with Amazon, and our dedicated case managers draw on that relationship when filing and following up on FBA reimbursement claims on your behalf.
Key GETIDA differentiators include:
- We follow up with you on Amazon fee return claims that need more information in order to be reimbursed.
- We can locate more claim types because we have actual human beings reviewing your data.
- These human beings on our team are ex-Amazonians familiar with the inner workings of the company who understand the best practices for filing claims and how to stay compliant.
- Full transparency. An easy-to-read dashboard displays robust analytics to help you fully understand what we are doing on a daily basis.
GETIDA makes the process of claiming Amazon fee returns easy so Amazon sellers can concentrate on the fundamentals of their business. With zero commitment and no monthly fee, we get paid when you do. GETIDA charges a service only when a claim we file is successfully reimbursed.
Get $400 in Free Amazon Seller Refunds with GETIDA.
