Amazon FBA Refunds. If You’re Missing Out, You’re Losing Money
If you’re wondering what Amazon FBA refunds are, you’ve come to the right place. And you’re not alone. Many sellers aren’t familiar with Amazon FBA refunds. Unfortunately, that unfamiliarity is costing them money they could be using to improve their bottom line.
Amazon FBA refunds are owed to you whenever Amazon makes mistakes managing your inventory and customer returns or overcharges your FBA fees for storage and processing. How often does that happen? Your Amazon FBA refunds can amount to anywhere from 1% to 3% of your annual revenues. So if you’re making a million dollars, you could lose up to $30,000.
If you think that Amazon should probably issue refunds for their errors automatically, whether they should or not isn’t the point. Sometimes they do. But many times they do not. It’s up to you to identify the errors and miscalculations within certain timeframes and submit claims to the appropriate departments.
Does that sound like a lot of work? Yes, but it doesn’t have to be. There is an easy and cost-effective way to recover Amazon FBA refunds owed to you. But before we get into that, let’s first look at:
- What qualifies for Amazon FBA refunds
- How to identify your Amazon FBA refunds owed to you
- How to get your Amazon FBA refunds
- The easy way to ensure you are getting all your Amazon FBA refunds
What Qualifies for Amazon FBA Refunds
Amazon FBA is a great option to outsource order fulfillment, inventory management, and customer returns so you can focus on building your brand. However, mistakes happen. And when Amazon makes mistakes, you are eligible for Amazon FBA refunds. These mistakes involve:
- Lost or damaged products
- Amazon’s acceptance of improper miscredited returns
- Items Amazon destroys or disposes as unsellable (Amazon does not need your permission to do this)
- Storage overcharges based on incorrect product dimensions
How to Identify Your Amazon FBA Refunds
There are various places to look in your Seller Central account to identify potential Amazon FBA refunds.
Lost or Damaged Products
To determine if and when Amazon lost or damaged your products, check the following Seller Central reports:
- Inventory Adjustments. Identify the date and adjustment cost of a lost or damaged product.
- Manage FBA Inventory. Make sure a lost or damaged item was not found and is still sellable, or the damage was not caused by Amazon.
- Reimbursements. Search by FNSKU and date to ensure you haven’t already received Amazon FBA refunds for lost or damaged goods.
Incorrect Returns
Customer returns that are miscredited, lost, or otherwise mishandled are a prime source for Amazon FBA returns. These return issues include:
- Reimbursements for returns owed to you but not paid
- Customers who receive refunds without returning the products
- Customer refunds issued higher than the original charges
- Wrong and damaged returns
- Late returns that shouldn’t be accepted
To find potential Amazon FBA refunds, review your Seller account to identify anything amiss regarding returns and refunds.
Destroyed Unsellable Inventory
Amazon can destroy and dispose of any inventory it considers unsaleable without your approval and even without notifying you. So the only way to know if Amazon has destroyed or disposed of items in your inventory is to continually review your Seller account.
Incorrect Storage Charges
Amazon FBA storage charges are based on product dimensions. If Amazon assigns a heavier and larger weight to a product, that can result in an overcharge.
Compare the manufacturer’s listed product dimensions to Amazon’s. And, yes, you have to do that comparison for all your SKUs.
How to Get Your Amazon FBA Refunds
Identifying potential Amazon FBA refunds is only the first step. You must file a claim for each incident to the appropriate department within a certain deadline (usually 18 months, but some are within 90 days. The process to submit claims is as follows:
Lost or Damaged Products
For lost or damaged products at the Amazon Fulfillment Center
- Lost: submit the product’s FNSKU
- Damaged: submit Transaction ID listed in the Inventory Adjustments report
Open a case with Seller Support. Alternatively, go to the Fulfillment Center Operations claim help page and select the tool to submit the claim.
For products lost or damaged in transit to the Amazon Fulfillment Center:
- Confirm shipment contents and number of units correlate to your shipping plan.
- Check the Contents tab in your shipping plan for discrepancies between your shipping plan and what the fulfillment center reported as received.
- Check the Reimbursements report to see if you have already received Amazon FBA refunds for the lost or damaged item(s).
To submit this type of claim for items damaged in transit, contact Seller Support and provide your:
- Shipment ID
- Proof of ownership
- Tracking information
Returns Claims
For returns that aren’t properly paid out to you, or that a customer either didn’t return returned damaged, or accepted late that Amazon refunded or replaced on behalf of your Seller account. In addition, you need to file a claim no sooner than 60 days (the period Amazon allows to accept returns) and no later than 18 months after the customer’s refund or replacement.
Removal Claims
If Amazon or a carrier used by Amazon damages products shipped from its fulfillment center to your returns shipping address, submit a claim no sooner than 14 days from the last confirmed shipment. For an item damaged in transit, submit a claim as soon as you receive it. Claims submitted later than 18 months from the date the item was removed from the Amazon fulfillment center are automatically rejected.
Product Dimension Overcharges
Submit claims within 30 days. Attach the stated manufacturer dimensions and those stated by the Amazon FBA storage charge for the item in question.
The Easy Way to Get Your Amazon FBA Refunds: Getida
Identifying your Amazon FBA refunds and then submitting claims is highly time-consuming and tedious work. You could take the chance that the effort isn’t worth all the aggravation, but the chance you’re taking could also cost you a lot of money.
It’s a risk. But there is a risk-free way to know for certain if you are owed Amazon FBA refunds.
Getida (GET Intelligent Data Analytics) is an Amazon FBA refund solution that’s easy to use and risk-free. It’s a two-part process. Specialized Getida software scans the previous 18 months of your Amazon Seller account for potential Amazon FBA refunds. If a sufficient number of potential Amazon FBA refunds are found, you can authorize Getida to submit and follow up on your Amazon FBA refund claims.
There are no fees for this up-front work. The only fee is a percentage of the approved claims for your Amazon FBA refunds. And the first $400 in claims are free.
Sign up at Getida for your free review. You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.
