Amazon FBA Reimbursements for Lost items – Check and Get Your Money Back from Amazon Seller Central
With Amazon’s FBA program, anyone can start a thriving e-commerce business with ease, without worrying about the nitty-gritty of logistics management. By choosing to sell your products through Amazon’s FBA program, you’re essentially placing your trust in Amazon to handle everything from receiving your products to packing and shipping them to customers when they make a purchase.
Despite Amazon’s best efforts, there are times when your products may be accidentally lost or damaged by Amazon or their courier partners. But, there’s no need to worry because Amazon FBA has a reimbursement policy in place to compensate sellers for any such losses. So, if you’re an Amazon FBA seller, you can rest assured that you’ll be reimbursed for any lost or damaged items.
As an Amazon FBA seller, it’s important to recognize the significance of the reimbursement process. You need to know how to obtain compensation to keep your business thriving. With an in-depth understanding of the Amazon FBA reimbursement process, you can rest assured that any losses you incur will be recovered promptly.
In this article, we will guide you through the following sections which help you to understand the Amazon FBA Reimbursements policy, types of reimbursement, and how you can apply for reimbursement for the Missing FBA items.
- What is Amazon Reimbursement?
- Types of Amazon FBA Reimbursements
- Lost Amazon FBA Inventory
- Damaged Amazon FBA Inventory
- Returned Amazon FBA Inventory
- Destroyed and Disposed of Amazon FBA Inventory
- Overcharges of FBA Fees
- Eligibility for Amazon Reimbursement
- How to check if your items are eligible or not for reimbursements?
- Process of how to get an inventory reimbursement
- Documents you need to submit and document guideline
- Tools for Amazon FBA Reimbursement
- How Amazon Calculates the Reimbrushments Value?
What is Amazon Reimbursement?
Amazon FBA Reimbursement is a process by which Amazon compensates FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) sellers for any inventory discrepancies or issues that occur within the Amazon Fulfillment Center. These issues can include lost or damaged inventory, overcharges for fulfillment or storage fees, or returns that were not properly processed.
Amazon’s FBA Reimbursement policy is designed to protect the interests of FBA sellers, ensuring that they receive prompt and fair compensation for any issues that occur while their inventory is stored and processed by Amazon.
Types of Amazon FBA Reimbursements
Lost Amazon FBA Inventory: Despite your best efforts, your products can still go missing, whether it’s an accidental loss by the courier or an inventory tracking error by Amazon. One possibility is that the inbound courier who transports your goods to an Amazon fulfillment facility can unintentionally misplace them. Or sometimes Amazon will mix up your inventory with that of another seller, or they may not have tracked correctly when they received them from the courier.
Damaged Amazon FBA Inventory: Damages can occur not only at the Amazon store but also while your products are being delivered to the consumer. The Amazon FBA Reimbursements Damage Policy is as follows:
- Damaged products in the Amazon fulfillment center
- Products damaged en route to the customer from the fulfillment center
- Damaged FBA shipments on their way to fulfillment centers
Returned Amazon FBA Inventory: Amazon continuously works to improve the customer experience in order to safeguard its customers at all costs. As a result, Amazon issues a prompt refund to the purchaser; unfortunately, some clients abuse this. There are various circumstances in which this type of reimbursement can apply. Some common ones include:
- Although the customer was given a refund, they never actually returned the item.
- Amazon accepted a customer’s return of an inaccuracy.
- The client received a refund that exceeded the amount they had been charged.
- Amazon accepted the returned, damaged item from the purchaser.
- A consumer was granted a return exception after the standard policy window.
Destroyed and Disposed of Amazon FBA Inventory: Sellers may agree to let Amazon get rid of their goods, If a product has passed its expiration date, or if Amazon needs to get rid of it because of safety concerns, or if it is out-of-date inventory that isn’t selling.
However, you might be entitled to compensation if Amazon disposes of your inventory without your consent by destroying it or otherwise disposing of it.
Overcharges of FBA Fees: As an Amazon seller, it’s crucial to keep an eye on your costs, especially the FBA selling fees. If you’re not careful, you could end up paying more than necessary. To avoid overpaying, you should monitor two main things: the product category and dimension. Amazon charges a referral fee for each product category, and if they miscategorize your inventory, you could be charged the wrong fee. In such cases, you can claim a reimbursement for the incorrect charges.
If you suspect that you’ve been overcharged for FBA fees on Amazon, don’t worry – you’re not alone. Mistakes can happen, and Amazon is usually willing to correct them. By reaching out to Amazon and requesting a refund, you can ensure that you’re not paying more than you should be for FBA fees.
Eligibility for Amazon Reimbursement
As I mentioned earlier, there are 5 main types of Amazon reimbursement. So each type of reimbursement has different eligibility so it’s important to understand which item is eligible for Amazon reimbursement.
- When lost, sellers must use the Amazon FBA program to fulfill the order.
- Only products that meet Amazon requirements and restrictions are eligible for Amazon reimbursement
- Additionally, the products must meet the FBA inventory requirements
- Sellers must input the correct shipping plan that explains your inventory’s items and qualities
- You cannot receive a reimbursement for items pending disposal because of a Seller’s request
- You cannot request Amazon discard your item and then request a reimbursement
- If Amazon has the right to dispose of an item then you cannot receive a reimbursement for that item.
- Only non-defective items can receive an Amazon reimbursement
- Finally, your Amazon Seller Central account must have a regular status to file an Amazon reimbursement claim
How to Check if Your Items are Eligible or not for Reimbursements?
Before applying for reimbursement, you need to check first if your item is eligible or not. To check this,
Step 1: Go to your “Amazon Seller Central Account” and click on the “Help” Button
Step 2: On the Help page, scroll down a bit and click on the “Get Support” button under the “Need more help” section
Step 3: After that select the “Selling on Amazon” option and then describe your issue in the allocated field and then click on the “Continue” button
Step 4: Now, you need to select your issue based on what you typed, and which one best matches with your issue. Please select “Investigate missing inventory shipped on Amazon (inbound)” and click on the “Continue” button
Step 5: Then it’ll ask you for the Shipment ID. Please provide the shipment ID and click on the “Next” button.
Step 6: Within a few moments, it’ll show you, if your shipment ID is eligible for investigation or not.
Process of How to Apply Reimbrushments for Missing Items?
Amazon is good about reimbursing you for items that it notices you’ve lost most of the time. However, sometimes missing items go under the radar. In this instance, you must file a reimbursement claim. To apply for the Missing items reimbursements,
Step 1: 1st Go to Amazon seller central. From the 3-dash menu tab, click on the “Inventory” and select “Shipments” under the “Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)” section
Step 2: It’ll take you to the “Shipping Queue” page. On that page, you can check the status of your items, Units expected & Units located, Shipment name and date, etc. Now have a look at the “Units Expected and Units Locate” sections. Here you can see, how many items you send and how many items Amazon locates.
Step 3: For example, we sent 5 items but Amazon located 4 items. And the status is closed. Which means we can apply for reimbursement.
Now, click on the shipment name to see the shipment summary.
Remember: But if the status is showing receiving or in transit this means they are still located. For that, we can’t apply for reimbursement.
Step 4: On the shipment summary page, you will see the steps like Shipment created, in transit, delivered date, check-in date, receive date, etc. In the last steps you can see that, the shipment closed with discrepancies
Step 5: Now go above and click on the “Contents” section. Here we will find a few steps. In the 1st step, we will see the number of discrepancies, additional information, etc
Step 6: In the next step, you have to provide additional documents to proof of inventory ownership. Please click on the “Choose file” button and select your document from your laptop and then click on the “Upload Files” button.
Step 7: Now go to the next step and provide additional information about the missing items
After that, a case will be created automatically and we will find it in the Case log section.
Now, Amazon will review your document and investigate the issue from their end. if Amazon can find a replacement product for the lost items, they will update the inventory. Otherwise, they will reimburse you for those items that are missing.
Required Documents and Guideline
For Investigation, Amazon will definitely want proof that you shipped to Amazon. They want proof of delivery, Commercial Invoice, Proof of the package picked up by the courier, etc that they didn’t find, lost, or never scanned.
Document Guideline: Before submitting any documents, please make sure they meet the following criteria.
- Resolution should be 2,000 x 1,500 pixels or higher
- Documents should be properly oriented (not sideways or upside down)
- Only one document per submission, uploaded in a single file
- Submit only .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .tif, .tiff, or .pdf file formats
Things to Remember Before You Submit the Claim
- Check your Inventory Adjustment report to confirm the data and adjustment code of the loss to your item
- Check your Manage Inventory Report to confirm that the lost item was not found or restored to your inventory in a saleable condition or in a damaged condition for which Amazon was not a fault
- Check your Reimbursement report to see if you have already been reimbursed for the lost items. Search by FNSKU and data to filter the results.
Amazon Reimbursement Tools
There are a number of different tools that you can use, each with its own set of features and benefits. Some of the more popular Amazon FBA reimbursement tools include Amzrefund, Refund Genie, Refundly, etc.
Simply follow the instructions to submit your reimbursement request, and all you need to do is wait for a response from Amazon.
How Amazon Calculates the Reimbrushments Value?
Amazon considers several price indicators to estimate the sale price of an item and calculate the reimbursement amount. These price indicators include fluctuations in item prices and variations in prices among different sellers. The price indicators Amazon compares are:
- Your current list price for the item on Amazon
- The average price at which you have sold the item on Amazon over the past 90 days
- The average current list price for the same item by other sellers on Amazon
- The average price at which other sellers have sold the same item over the past 365 days
When Amazon is unable to calculate an estimated sale price using the listed price indicators, it will assign it based on the price of a comparable product. Amazon may request additional information or documentation to help determine the value in such cases.
Final Thoughts,
Amazon FBA Reimbursement is an important aspect of the FBA program, providing peace of mind to sellers and enabling them to focus on growing their businesses while Amazon handles the logistics of order fulfillment and inventory management. However, despite Amazon making the process easier, sometimes mistakes are bound to happen.
Unfortunately, every month your products are mistakenly lost by Amazon or its courier partners. In some cases, Amazon gives refunds to its customers without receiving the items. However, Amazon FBA reimbursement policies ensure sellers are compensated for these types of mistakes.
In order to be reimbursed, sellers must provide documentation that proves the inventory was lost while in Amazon’s possession. Additionally, there are certain timeframes within which reimbursement requests must be made, so sellers should be diligent in tracking their inventory and reporting any losses as soon as possible.
We have provided an explanation of all the important elements to help you understand the Reimbursement of Amazon and how you can apply for the missing FBA items. If you have any queries please let us know through the comment box or email us at the following email address: info@ecomclips.com
To know more about Amazon, please check out our other blog. Also, you can check our YouTube videos related to Amazon.
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