Every Amazon seller has had their own set of challenges. Although your listings may not have been hijacked, you have most likely been frustrated by high returns or inventory damage in an Amazon warehouse. Did you know that while Amazon intends to reimburse you for these common problems, you sometimes receive the money you’re owed?
A customer may receive a refund without returning an item. Amazon Seller Support may promise to reimburse you for a large amount of damaged inventory, but this never happens. It’s easy to let mistakes slip through the cracks when you’re busy running your business and managing your personal life. To ensure that you receive Amazon FBA refunds for all issues (no matter how common or obscure), continue reading to learn about three options for tracking refunds and then decide which is the best fit for you.
Option 1: Handle all FBA reimbursement claims on your own.
One method for dealing with reimbursements is to investigate the discrepancies and file the claims yourself. The disadvantage is that it takes significant time, but you get to keep the entire reimbursement amount. In addition, because hunting for errors is so detailed, it’s difficult for the human eye to find all available reimbursement opportunities.
Check your account for any errors.
The first step is to understand what to look for. Some of the issues that FBA sellers face are as follows:
- Items damaged or lost in the Amazon warehouse Items damaged or lost during inbound shipping (when using a partnered carrier) Items that were misplaced or damaged during outbound shipping The Customer received more units than they paid for. They are being refunded for the item(s) that were not returned. The Customer received a replacement for the faulty item but still needs to replace the original.
- Items are returned by the Customer but are not added to the seller’s inventory.
- Amazon has not received inbound inventory (or only partially accounted for)
- Misappropriated weight or dimension charges
- Incorrect storage charges
- Overpayment of commission fees
- Reimbursement for any of the issues above not received by the seller
Depending on the type of discrepancy, issues with your account can be found in Seller Central reports such as Manage Orders, Inventory Adjustments, Inventory Event Detail, Received Inventory, and Daily Inventory.
Submit a claim to Seller Support.
If you discover one of the issues listed above in your account, you must wait 30 days for Amazon to detect the error and reimburse you in their own time. After that period has passed, you can file a claim by sending an email to Seller Central support. Include all pertinent dates, ASINS, and reports. In addition, mention that you waited 30 days before requesting the refund and double-checked to ensure that the problem still needed to be resolved.
Check to see if you were reimbursed.
Set a reminder for 21 days after Seller Central’s support team confirms that your claim is being processed and that you will receive a refund to double-check that the correct amount has been added to your account.
Option 2: Educate your assistant.
Training your assistant is the second option for locating and filing Amazon FBA refunds. The benefit of this is that you avoid tedious, manual labor. The disadvantage is that you are paying for your assistant’s time, with no guarantee that the cost of their time will be offset by the number of reimbursements you receive. As previously stated, the first option is also complicated to obtain.
Create and document your process.
Every entrepreneur who has ever hired help in their business understands how time-consuming it is to train someone. To increase your chances of success, create obvious procedures for your assistant. This could imply downloading all reports weekly, opening them in Excel, and comparing them for issues. It may also entail managing internal reminders to file for reimbursements or confirm that they have been processed.
Option 3: Make use of a reputable Amazon reimbursement service.
The third option is to hire an FBA reimbursement service to find and submit claims on your behalf. For three reasons, this is the most popular among Amazon businesses of any size:
- A good reimbursement service will have highly trained account auditors and likely use software to detect errors that the human eye cannot see.
- Time is saved – Smart entrepreneurs value their time and recognize that they cannot (and should not attempt to) do everything independently; otherwise, their businesses will stagnate.
- There are no up-front costs. Unlike the other options, there are no internal employee time costs or lost opportunity costs.
If you’re like most sellers, those reasons sound very appealing. So in your new service, you should look for the following features.
You will not be charged for issues that you submit yourself.
Finding a company that won’t charge you for problems you create yourself is also a good idea. Even though you’ll most likely rely on a third-party service to detect errors, there may be times when you can spot a major flaw on your own. In that case, you should be able to file a claim without paying a commission to the third-party service.
There are no upfront fees.
Not all reimbursement services do not charge any upfront fees. Some of them (especially those who do not use software to detect more issues than the human eye) must charge a fee upfront to cover their time. While Amazon regularly owes most sellers money, there are no guarantees.
Conclusion
You need to optimize your profits even if you’re busy growing your business. Overcharging for FBA fees can be a significant drain on profits. However, handling your reimbursements may be an option if you have a lot of time.
However, a software and service combination is a much better fit if you want to spend your time marketing your private label products or sourcing new products. You’ll get the money you wouldn’t have found on your own.
FBA Claims360 is the best Amazon FBA reimbursement service. Learn more and sign up to receive more money and protect your profits.
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