The Latest Guide to Amazon FBA Reimbursements
Attention Amazon sellers: you probably are owed Amazon FBA reimbursements.
Basically, Amazon FBA reimbursement is due to you whenever Amazon mis-handles your inventory. Amazon manages something like 350 million products worldwide, so it’s not surprising that inventory discrepancies are going to sometimes occur. When they do, incorrect transactions for lost, damaged, or destroyed, or other Amazon fee overcharges are eligible for Amazon FBA reimbursement.
For the most part, it’s up to you to identify occurrences that qualify for Amazon FBA reimbursement and submit the appropriate claims. The whole process is tricky and time-consuming. Also, note that claims for any of these errors must be filed within 18 months of their occurrence.
This guide breaks down what Amazon FBA reimbursement is, and how you can most easily recover money that is rightfully yours.
Types of Amazon FBA reimbursements
The five main reasons for Amazon FBA reimbursement are:
- Lost inventory
- Damaged inventory
- Returned Inventory
- Destroyed and disposed inventory
- Amazon FBA fee overcharges
Let’s look at each in more detail.
1. Lost inventory
It’s not unusual for inventory to get lost in the course of shipping or misplaced in the warehouse. Another common cause is incorrect barcoding. Whatever the reason, the only way to be sure what’s going on in your inventory is to carefully review your inventory reconciliation reports for possible discrepancies.
2. Damaged inventory
Inventory gets damaged in the warehouse and in the course of shipping. There is a Damaged Inventory Report in Seller Central. This report details products lost or damaged:
- In the Amazon fulfillment center
- En route from the fulfillment center to the customer
- En route to fulfillment center
- Missing in fulfillment centers for the past 30 days
3. Returned inventory
Sometimes customer returns are improperly credited and/or not returned to inventory. Returns errors represent a significant proportion of Amazon FBA reimbursement discrepancies.
A proper Amazon audit helps you determine returned inventory discrepancies. Specifically, this audit uncovers:
- Returns Reimbursement: reimbursement not paid out
- Returned Not Refunded after 45 Days: customer received a refund, but did not return the item
- Return Overcharge: customer refunded more than initial charged
- Wrong Item Returned: incorrect item returned but Amazon accepted it
- Damaged Returns: item returned and then damaged
- Return after 60 days: customer granted an exception to the return policy after the usual policy window closed
4. Destroyed and disposed Inventory
Amazon can destroy or dispose of your inventory without your permission. But they do owe you Amazon FBA reimbursement when it does. The only way to determine this is to continually track inventory within your Amazon seller account.
5. Amazon FBA fee overcharges
Amazon weighs and measures products to determine storage fees. Incorrect product measurements and weights can result in higher storage, shipping and commission fees.
It is your responsibility to determine if such fees are overcharged and provide proof in an Amazon claim that supports lower product weight and dimensions.
Types of Amazon FBA reimbursement services and solutions
There are basically three ways to manage your Amazon FBA reimbursement process:
- Do it yourself
- Hire a Virtual Assistant
- GETIDA Amazon FBA reimbursement solution
1. Do it yourself
To do this yourself (or assign to someone else on your team, assuming you have someone), you need to:
- Become fully familiar with templates and Excel files commonly used in the Amazon FBA reimbursement claim process.
- Continuously review your reports for ongoing discrepancies
- Calculate your estimated claim and provide all relevant available data
- Navigate Amazon seller support with your claim tickets
Most Amazon sellers are busy trying to run and grow their business. Assuming you don’t have the time to constantly audit their reports for possible Amazon FBA reimbursement, there are two other options.
2. Virtual Assistant (VA)
You could hire a VA to track and submit Amazon FBA reimbursement claims. But that adds a salary expense that may or may not cover what you are owed. Plus, you have to train your new VA hire (assuming you yourself know what to look for) and trust them with access to your Amazon seller account. So add on additional time and effort to properly vet anyone working within your team and submitting Amazon FBA reimbursement claims on your behalf.
Which brings us to what we believe is the best option to get the Amazon FBA reimbursement owed to you without a lot of hassle or up-front expense.
3. GETIDA Amazon FBA reimbursement
GETIDA (GET Intelligent Data Analytics) is the largest provider dedicated to Amazon FBA auditing and reimbursement. It is a robust solution that performs a full Amazon audit of up to 18 months of all your transactions to identify discrepancies eligible for Amazon FBA reimbursement. There’s real-time visibility with an online dashboard that displays all open cases, case status, and received reimbursements, as well as FBA inventory transactions, refunds, and seller data analytics.
There’s no cost to you for GETIDA to perform this analysis. If you decide to act on the discrepancies the GETIDA review uncovers, a team composed of former Amazon FBA reimbursement employees presents and follows up on claims to the appropriate departments. And still you pay nothing. You only pay a percentage of whatever claims are successful.
Some services may only offer audits on customer refunds or returns, while others may not have the right team in place who knows what to look for. GETIDA offers a complete end-to-end solution for Amazon FBA reimbursement.
Sign up for free. You can get $400 in free FBA reimbursements to try them out.
This article is contributed by Getida.