Could you be owed FBA Refunds?
The short answer: yes.
Amazon FBA is a popular choice for sellers to “outsource” inventory management, order fulfillment, and customer returns. Given the vast scope of Amazon’s global operations, occasional mishaps aren’t all that surprising. What may surprise you is that while you’re owed Amazon FBA refunds for these mishaps, Amazon doesn’t automatically issue your FBA refunds. In fact, in most cases, it’s up to Amazon sellers to identify their FBA refunds and then submit claims for these FBA refunds.
If you’re thinking this whole process of looking for where you might be owed FBA refunds and then submitting claims is more hassle than it’s worth, think again. You could be missing out on a substantial payout.
How much are you possibly missing out on FBA refunds?
According to GETIDA, a company founded by Amazon sellers to recover their own FBA refunds, anywhere from 1% to 3% of your annual revenues go unclaimed.
So if revenues were $1 million, you could be losing out anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000. More than enough to be worth the hassle.
Let’s find out what causes Amazon FBA refunds and how you can ensure you get back the money that is rightfully yours.
What Qualifies for FBA Refunds?
There are five categories set by Amazon for FBA refunds. Products registered with FBA are eligible for FBA refunds when anything in your inventory is:
- Lost
- Damaged
- Improperly returned
- Destroyed or disposed
- Overcharged
Note that the maximum payment for a single qualified FBA refund is $5,000. If you carry a product worth more than $5,000, consider purchasing third-party insurance.
Let’s see where you need to look to find out if any of this has happened to your inventory.
Lost Products
Sometimes inventory can get lost during shipping or even at the Amazon fulfillment center.
Review Amazon’s inventory reconciliation reports to see if items are missing from inventory. And, yes, you must continually review these reports because you only have so much time in which to file claims for FBA refunds for lost inventory (within 18 months). Note that products missing in the Amazon warehouse for the past 30 days are listed in the Damaged Inventory Report discussed below.
Damaged Products
The Damaged Inventory Report in your Seller Central account shows details about:
- Products lost or damaged at the fulfillment center
- Items damaged or lost during shipping to or from the fulfillment centers
- Products missing in the fulfillment centers for the past 30 days
Returned Products
Customer returns and refunds represent a significant source of issues that qualify for FBA refunds. This isn’t surprising given Amazon’s highly favorable customer return policy. These issues run the gamut from reimbursements that aren’t paid out, customers that don’t return a refunded item, refunds that are charged back higher than the original charges, wrong and damaged returns, and returns accepted after return deadlines expired.
How do you find these errors? It’s not easy. You have to comb through your Seller account to find any of these return errors.
Destroyed and Disposed of Product
Amazon can destroy and dispose of any FBA inventory it deems unsaleable without notifying you or asking your permission. So how would you know when this happens? The only way is to continually review your Seller account to see if any of your products were destroyed or otherwise disposed of.
Overcharges
Amazon charges you for storage and shipping, as well as commission fees. That’s only fair since they are providing these logistical services. Storage charges are based on a product’s size and weight. If Amazon’s listed dimensions for a product are incorrectly large, you are being overcharged.
To find out if you are overcharged, compare the manufacturer’s listed product dimensions to those listed by Amazon. If Amazon associates higher costs for products with incorrect dimensions, you are owed FBA refunds.
Ways to Find FBA Refunds
So by now, you are probably thinking, wow, this is a lot of time-consuming and tedious work to find my FBA refunds. It is.
Assuming you need to keep your focus on running your business and not searching for FBA reimbursements, you could assign the task to an employee (if you have one) or hire a virtual assistant (VA). The disadvantage to assigning FBA refunds to employees is extra work that takes time from their regular tasks. Hiring a VA adds to your overhead and requires training as well as access to your Seller account.
And just because you, an employee, or a VA find situations that qualify for FBA refunds, that doesn’t mean Amazon pays you. You need to document the issue and submit a claim to the proper department. Incorrectly submitted claims are automatically rejected. In addition, there’s a time limit to submit claims, anywhere from 9 to 18 months depending on the type of claim.
Fortunately, there is an easy and cost-effective way to get your FBA refunds.
GETIDA to Get Your FBA Refunds
GETIDA stands for GET Intelligent Data Analytics. The company was founded by Amazon FBA Sellers to recover their own Amazon FBA refunds. GETIDA software scours the previous 18 months of your transactions for possible Amazon FBA refunds. If there are sufficient FBA refunds to pursue, and with your permission, an experienced team of former Amazon employees submit claims to the appropriate departments and follow up on your claims to ensure success.
The beauty of this is that you aren’t charged for any of this. You are only charged for a percentage of the FBA refunds that are approved. And GETIDA waves charge for the first $400 in FBA refunds.
It’s simple and easy to get started. Click the “Free Signup” button and provide the requested information. There’s no obligation. And the potential of FBA refunds is quite considerable.
This blog was contributed by our partners at Getida.
