Selling books on Amazon using FBA takes a lot less time and effort than fulfilling your own orders. But this method of fulfillment has a drawback: loss of control. If you use FBA, you will lose some control of your business, like how Amazon staff members handle your inventory at FBA warehouses. This was our biggest concern about using FBA.
But Amazon FBA isn’t perfect. Some of your stock will get damaged or lost on their way to Amazon, in an Amazon fulfillment warehouse, or even during delivery to customers. So don’t be surprised when it happens.
The good news: you can claim reimbursement for any damaged or lost goods. Amazon will reimburse you the sale value of any goods they damaged or lose, as it’s in their policy.
If you’ve been trading for a while, Amazon is likely to owe you money. So in this post, I want to share with you how I claim all reimbursements that Amazon owes me.
Finding lost or damaged inventory
Finding damaged or lost items in your Amazon inventory is easy. You can find this information in a document called Inventory Adjustments Report, which you can download as a spreadsheet or view in a spreadsheet-style in Seller Central.
Downloading the Inventory Adjustments Report
If you have Microsoft Excel or similar, then I would recommend downloading the file. This will make things a lot easier.
To download the Inventory Adjustments Report click ‘Reports’. Then select ‘Fulfillment by Amazon’ from the drop-down menu. Next click on ‘Show more’ on the left-hand menu and select ‘Inventory Adjustment’. Finally, click on the ‘Download’ button and choose the timeframe of the report.
Here is a visual illustration of how you can download the Inventory Adjustments Report on Seller Central.
The produced report is in a text format, which you need to change to a spreadsheet file to make it easier to work with. To achieve this, simply copy (or cut) the data in the text file and paste it into a new Microsoft Excel document.
Your Inventory Adjustments Report is likely to have a lot of data since it contains every recorded activity. You, therefore, need to filter items we can claim a reimbursement for. More specifically, we need to filter items coded as:
- E, damaged. Items damaged at an Amazon fulfillment warehouse.
- M, misplaced. Lost items.
- Q, miscellaneous. Units with no further information available.
- D, missing. Missing items.
From my experience, items reported as miscellaneous or missing items usually mean lost.
Here’s how to filter for these kinds of units and then to convert them in the correct format.
Viewing the Inventory Adjustments Report in Seller Central
If you don’t have a spreadsheet software, you can still find units eligible for reimbursements by viewing the Inventory Adjustments Report in your Seller Central. Processing data this way is more involved, especially if you have lots of items eligible for reimbursement. But definitely worth doing since you can recoup a lot of the money that Amazon owes you.
Viewing your Inventory Adjustments Report is straightforward: go to Inventory Adjustments page using the same instructions as above, but then, instead of downloading the report, select View Online:
As you can see from the screenshot, the Inventory Adjustments report in Seller Central is very similar to a spreadsheet document. The report will have all the units eligible for reimbursement within a date range you select.
Informing Amazon of all lost or damaged units
Unless you’ve just started selling on Amazon, your Inventory Adjustments Report, whether viewed online or downloaded, is likely to be large. It will have too many units for an Amazon representative to work with.
You can make it easier for the Amazon representatives and yourself by breaking this raw report into smaller, more manageable reports. Amazon recommends creating report files containing no more than five eligible units.
Processing raw report using an Excel spreadsheet
This is how I process my Inventory Adjustment Reports using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.
Follow the instructions in the video above and create individual spreadsheet documents for the rest of your units. You should allocate every unit in your report to a spreadsheet, each containing no more than five units.
Processing raw report without using an Excel spreadsheet
If you’re viewing your report on Seller Central, the process is more laborious — you will have to use a text editor to create reports of fives. This means, for each report, you will have to copy and paste the details of every item instead.
Here is how I would do it.
Repeat the process in the above video for the rest of the units until every text file contains no more than five units.
Importantly, regardless of whether you a spreadsheet or a text editor, make sure to save these files in an easy-to-find location on your computer.
Creating a case log on Seller Central
Now that you have these smaller, individual excel files, you need to contact Amazon Seller Support and inquire about the units in each file. More specifically, whether they have reimbursed you for these units or not.
In your email inform Amazon that you are reconciling your inventory and would like them to investigate units that have been lost or damaged. Here is the email template I use.
Hello
We are reconciling our inventory and have found some units that have been indicated as lost/damaged/destroyed by Amazon.
Please see the attached file.
It includes a list of five units that I believe Amazon has not issued a reimbursement for.
Could you please inquire if these units have been reimbursed for?
Thanks
Once received, an Amazon representative will investigate every unit in the file you attach and reimburse you for items eligible for a reimbursement — and the status of the other units.
Verifying Amazon Reimbursement payments
Normally, Amazon will reimburse you within two weeks after confirming the units eligible for a reimbursement. You should check if they’ve actually reimbursed you after this period.
You can find units that Amazon have reimbursed you for in a report called Reimbursement Report, which you can download or view in Seller Central.
Downloading the Reimbursement Report
If you have a spreadsheet software, here is how you can download it:
Click Reports and then select Fulfillment by Amazon.
Click on Reimbursements under Payments at the bottom left.
Choose Download and select a date range (ensure date of reimbursements fall in this range) for Event Date.
The produced report will in a raw text file, which you can convert to a spreadsheet file using the same instructions outlined earlier.
In the case log, the Amazon representative you contact will include the details of all the units eligible for reimbursement. After about two weeks, look these units up in the Reimbursement Report. If they are not in the report, it means Amazon did not reimburse you. You would need to contact Amazon again in this case.
Viewing the Reimbursement Report on Seller Central
You can view the Reimbursement Report in a readable format in your Seller Central too. Instead of downloading choose View Online.
Similarly, find the reimburse units. If you can’t, it means Amazon has not refunded you, meaning you will need to contact Amazon again.
In Summary
- Download the Inventory Adjustments report and filter only those items eligible for a reimbursement, items that Amazon have lost or damaged but have not reimbursed you for.
- Inform Amazon of all lost or damaged items, preferably in manageable documents containing no more than five items.
- Download the Reimbursements report and look up the reimbursed units. If they are not in the report, contact Seller Support until a staff member reimburses you.