In the last post, I showed you how to claim reimbursements for damaged, destroyed and lost inventory when using FBA. But I didn’t show you how to claim reimbursements for returns, for returned items not added back to your inventory.
Customers who decide to return a product are refunded and are expected to return it to Amazon within 30 days. The beauty of FBA is that Amazon is responsible for returns and adding them back to our inventory.
Better yet, regardless of whether returned products are actually returned or not, Amazon is obliged to reimburse us if they are not added back to our inventory in sellable conditions.
At the moment, we are reconciling our inventory and thought it might be helpful to share the step-by-step process I go through to claim reimbursements for returned products not added to our inventory.
Finding returned items
The first step is to find all the returned orders where the customers have been refunded, regardless of whether the products have been added to our inventory or not.
Example #1
First, go to “Reports” and select “Payments” from the drop-down menu.
Then, select “Transaction View,” filter by refund and select a date range.
If this is your first time, select a “Custom date range.” Also, make sure that the end date you choose is a month prior — it takes Amazon about three weeks to reimburse for refunded goods not added to our inventory.
This results in a list of all the orders of customers who have been refunded in a database format.
From this list, find the oldest order, copy its order ID and paste it into “Find a transaction.”
And then click “Go.”
This will bring up all the activities under this order ID.
As you can see from the screenshot, this order was made on the 1st of March 2017. This customer, however, decided to return this book and was refunded on the 5th of March 2017.
You can click on the amount that has left your account, the amount refunded to see a breakdown of this transaction.
From the sale value of £40, I was left with £30.02 after all associated fees.
Amazon refunded the customer the full £40 and added back its referral fee (commission) and variable closing fee to my account, except the FBA fee. Amazon does not return FBA fee, which explains why the amount (£32.28) that left my account is greater than the amount (£30.02) that initially entered.
In this case, the item was not returned to my inventory so Amazon automatically reimbursed us their estimated value (£35) of the item, not the sale value (£40). So I don’t need to claim for reimbursement.
Example #2
Using the same process as in the last example, let’s look at another example.
As you can see the sale was made but the customer decided to return this book and got refunded straight away. But this time Amazon did not automatically reimburse us.
So the question is: was the returned item added back to our inventory or not?
Example #3
Let’s look at one more example where the customer was refunded but Amazon did not reimburse us.
Added back to our inventory?
Let’s check if the products in example #2 and #3 have been added back to our inventory.
Example #2
Here’s how to check if a refunded item has been returned to our inventory.
Select “Fulfillment by Amazon” under “Reports.”
Then select Returns under Customer Concessions on the side menu.
Which should take you the Returns page…
Paste the order ID of the item in the Order ID, and select the event date.
In this case, I pasted the order ID of the product in example 2 of the last section as Amazon did not reimburse us.
And then click Generate Report
As you can see, the customer did return the book, which was then added back to our inventory. The item was in a sellable condition so Amazon added it back to our inventory.
Example #3
In example 3 in the last section, the customer got refunded but Amazon did not reimburse us. So was the product actually returned and then added back to our inventory?
Let’s check.
The search resulted in ‘No results found’. This means that for some reason the product was not added back to our inventory, meaning we are eligible for a reimbursement by Amazon.
To get reimbursed, we will need to contact Amazon and inform them of the order in which the customer was refunded but the product was not added back to our inventory.
Informing Amazon
Returned products not added back to our inventory means that Amazon owes us money. We should claim reimbursement for these products, which we can do by contacting Amazon.
In your Seller Central, on the top right corner, there is an option for help. Click it and select Contact Us from the side menu.
There are a few options here. Choose to contact Amazon.
From the side menu on the left, select FBA Issue under Fulfillment by Amazon. Then something else.
Finally, this will prompt the page we require.
Now, let Amazon know of the issue and ask for a reimbursement.
I use the following email template.
Hello
We are reconciling our inventory and have found this item (Order ID: …) to have been refunded for but not returned to our inventory.
Please review this order and reimburse the amount refunded for this item.
Many thanks
Once received, an Amazon representative will investigate the order and reimburse you within about three weeks, from my experience.
This can also be done in bulk. You can collect returned orders not added back to your inventory in documents of five orders and then contact Amazon for reimbursements.
Yes, claiming reimbursements is repetitive and laborious. But, if you’ve been trading for a while, Amazon is likely to owe a substantial amount of money – so it’s definitely worth pursuing. If, however, you’re super lazy and into automation, you can train a virtual assistant – a better long-term solution.
In summary
- Find refunded returned orders.
- Check if you have been automatically reimbursed for these products.
- See if they have been added back to your inventory.
- If not, contact Amazon asking for reimbursements.