Gift Yourself with Holiday FBA Reimbursements 

It’s that time of year again when holiday shopping is in full swing, which means it’s also the time of year when holiday FBA reimbursements are likely to peak for your Amazon business. Why? As more shoppers are placing orders now, ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the higher-than-normal order and fulfillment rates during the holiday season often correlate to an uptick in FBA order errors, fulfillment issues, and customer returns. Ultimately, this means increased Amazon FBA reimbursements for Amazon sellers–but only if you’re willing to file for them. Amazon processes millions of orders daily, even more so during holidays, and while most of these orders are handled properly and efficiently, mistakes do happen. And if mistakes are made on your orders, unrecovered holiday FBA reimbursements can affect your holiday profitability and cash flow.

If you don’t already know, FBA reimbursements are owed to FBA sellers whenever Amazon makes mistakes managing your inventory, customer orders, and returns, and/or charges you higher fees based on incorrect package sizes. FBA reimbursements are not automatic, and holiday FBA reimbursements are no different. It’s up to you to:

• Review your Seller account to identify errors that qualify for FBA reimbursement
• Submit claims to the appropriate Amazon departments within certain deadlines (anywhere from 60 days to 18 months of the occurrence of the error) 

If you don’t submit the proper documentation in time, you’ll be left without the money your Amazon business is rightfully owed. This means that it’s critical you submit your claims well in advance of the deadline, especially right now as Amazon recently updated its reimbursement claims window. As of recent announcements, any potential reimbursement claims outside of the previous 60 days will no longer be valid, if those claims are not filed before the October 23 deadline.

Since the holiday season is a key time to promote your brand and your products, it’s critical that you have the most working capital available possible to take advantage of every potential opportunity that comes your way. To get prepare for the holiday rush, you need to make sure to: 

• Stock inventories at sufficient levels to meet adequate demand (but not get stuck with a lot of leftover stock you can’t sell after the holiday season).
• Ensure product listings provide complete and proper detailed descriptions and pricing information, keywords are SEO optimized, and enhanced with A+ content.
• Update your Amazon store with sponsored ads, coupons, promotions, and discounts.
• Develop and implement a holiday email campaign with gift suggestions or guides, special holiday offers, and classic “X amount of shopping days until Christmas” reminders to get shopper attention.

Expect to ship more during the holiday season–through FBA and other fulfillment methods, if necessary. Shipping with Amazon FBA costs 70% less than comparable offers by other U.S. fulfillment options, however the cost does increase during the holiday season and it’s imperative that you apply for FBA reimbursements owed to you or else they’ll eat into your profit margins. Higher shipping volumes during the holiday season means higher chances of errors, which typically culminates in greater holiday FBA reimbursements for sellers. To maximize holiday profits and ensure that you’re keeping your cash flow at its peak, you’ll need to make sure you are getting your holiday FBA reimbursements. 

In this guide we will detail what’s eligible for FBA reimbursements, as well as the best options for identifying and recovering your holiday FBA reimbursements. Ready to get your business into the holiday spirit? Let’s dive in! 

When are you owed holiday FBA reimbursements? 

There are a wide variety of circumstances where you can find yourself owed holiday FBA reimbursements, which means that it can be hard to always remember them. And, actually, Amazon FBA reimbursements can occur anytime throughout the year, often making them hard to keep track of. Let’s review what situations would qualify your Amazon business for FBA reimbursement claims, so that you can ensure you get every dollar you’re owed: 

• Your product gets lost during shipping or at the Amazon fulfillment center. This happens when products are mistakenly put in another seller’s inventory, sent in an incorrect order, or a barcode is read incorrectly. 
• Products are damaged in the course of shipping and can no longer be sold. This can happen during a return by customers or in the course of receiving and storage in the Amazon fulfillment center. 
• Given Amazon’s highly favorable customer return policy, it’s not surprising that most holiday FBA reimbursements are caused by improperly processed customer returns. Amazon may improperly credit the return to you, or the customer is credited but fails to actually return your product, or the returned product is damaged and unsellable. Regardless, you’re not liable for the cost of products damaged on Amazon’s watch, and are entitled to reimbursement for the cost of that inventory. 
• Amazon destroys or disposes of any products that are in unsellable condition. Note that while Amazon doesn’t require your permission to do this, they do owe you for the cost of product. 
• Incorrect Amazon FBA fees from inventory storage charges based on a product’s size dimensions and weight. Faulty scanning can cause Amazon to assign a product to a higher dimension and weight tier than is specified by the actual manufacturer dimensions–meaning that it’s important to keep a close eye on this for discrepancies. 

How to Know About Your Holiday FBA Refunds

In most cases, holiday FBA reimbursements (or even non-holiday refunds) are not issued automatically. You must continually review your Seller account for possible refunds and file claims to the right departments within the right timeframes. And, fun fact, if you file incorrectly, your claim is automatically rejected.

As you might imagine, this is a lot of work. So much work that you might wonder if it is worth the time and effort to get your holiday FBA reimbursements.

On the one hand, failure to obtain your holiday FBA refunds can affect your profitability. On average, FBA reimbursements represent between 1% to 3% of your annual revenues. If you’re making a million dollars in sales, that’s $30,000. Considering that many FBA sellers count on holiday shopping for most of their sales, holiday FBA reimbursements significantly impact cash flow.

On the other hand, your holiday FBA reimbursements might not amount to much. But how would you know otherwise, and is it worth the gamble not to know?

Fortunately, there is a quick and easy way to know what holiday FBA reimbursements are owed to you. Best of all, it doesn’t cost you anything to find out.

Getida: The No-Risk Solution for Holiday FBA Reimbursements

Getida software reviews not only holiday season transactions, but the previous 18 months of your Amazon FBA transactions to identify errors that qualify for reimbursement. There is no charge to do this review.

An easy-to-read dashboard provides details about all potential holiday FBA reimbursements for your review. If holiday FBA reimbursements are owed to you, with your approval Getida’s experienced FBA reimbursement team files and follows up on claims to the appropriate Amazon departments. There is no fee to file claims.  Getida’s only fee to provide is a percentage of claims approved by Amazon. And the first $400 in holiday FBA reimbursements is free.

This blog was contributed by our partners at Getida.