Maximizing Your Amazon FBA Reimbursements: Guide to Securing Your Refunds

In today's article, I'm talking about Amazon FBA reimbursements, claims and recovering refunds.

• How reimbursement works
• How to claim your reimbursements.

According to GETIDA (an FBA Auditing & Reimbursement service), refund recovery can be anywhere between 1% to 3% of your annual revenue. 

In other words, if your annual revenue is $1,000,000, you can expect about $30,000 in funds to be recovered.

This is worth the read if you don't have an Inventory Reimbursement strategy.

What you need to know about Amazon FBA Inventory Reimbursement Policy

"If an item you send to us as part of the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) service is lost or damaged at a facility or by a carrier operated by Amazon or on behalf of Amazon, we will replace that item with a new item of the same FNSKU or we will reimburse you for it." - Amazon Seller Central Help

The truth is, things slip through the cracks. I don't know one single Amazon or Ecommerce Manager in my 20+ years of ecommerce experience who run audits and talks about it. Here are some of the things you need to check for (from GETIDA):

• Returns Reimbursement: A reimbursement was never paid out
• Returned Not Refunded after 45 Days: The customer received a refund, but they never returned the item
• Return Overcharge: The customer was refunded more than they initially charged
• The wrong item returned: A customer sent the wrong item back and Amazon accepted it,
• Damaged Returns: The product was returned and then damaged
• Return after 60 days: A customer was granted a special after the usual policy window
• Receiving Discrepancy: Inventory was improperly received or miscounted from inbound shipments in the past 9 months
• Lost: Inventory was lost in the warehouse
• Damaged: Inventory was damaged at the warehouse
• Destroyed: Inventory was destroyed without the seller's permission
• Credited more than Charged: The account was billed more than the initial order amount
• Seller Fee: The seller was wrongfully charged for the weight or dimension of the inventory
• Unfair Reimbursement: The reimbursement the seller received wasn't correlative to lost value
• Chargeback not Refunded: A consumer received a chargeback, but the seller wasn't reimbursed
• Reimbursement Error: Reimbursement was issued but the seller never received the money
• Adjusting Balance Sheet: Results of our auditing data and financial recovery services are then applied to the balance sheet and profit and loss statement adjustments for maximum accuracy
• Inventory Replacement: A returned item is said to be back in your inventory but it is not
• Independent Inventory Analysis: monitoring inventory levels independently to ensure that no inventory goes missing
• Missing Inventory: The seller was reimbursed for less quantity of inventory than what was supposed to be reimbursed
• Removal Order: Items are missing from inside the removal order
• Inbound Shipping Damaged by Carrier. While shipping FBA, the carrier damaged the incoming inventory
• Damaged Return by Carrier: Inventory was returned by the consumer and damaged during the return by the carrier
• Removal Order Damaged or Lost: The removal order was damaged or lost in transit
• Multi-Channel: Items sold on different marketplaces were said to be delivered. The consumer never received the product

File FBA Reimbursements Claims 

This section covers everything you need to know about submitting your claim for lost or damaged products/shipments. To view all Inventory related reports, click here. This covers Inventory Reconciliation, Inventory Adjustments and other inventory-specific reports for you to research and provide evidence to submit your claim.

Type of Amazon claims

 The links below outline your claim window, where to look, how and what you need to submit your claim.

• Shipment to Amazon claims - for lost or damaged when you ship them to Amazon.  Must file within 9 months.
• Fulfillment center operations claim - for lost or damaged by an Amazon fulfillment center or a facility. Must file within 18 months.
• Customer return claims - for lost or damaged on your FBA customer orders.  Must file between 60 days to 18 months window.
• Removal claims - for eligible items lost or damaged by Amazon or a carrier used by Amazon while removing your inventory from a fulfillment center to your returns shipping address.  Must file a claim between 14 days to 18 months.

Let's sum it up, there's a path to recover refunds through FBA reimbursements, but it demands a significant amount of time and energy from the seller. To make sure that you receive all the refunds you deserve, you need to proactively file claims within your claim window and manage your support tickets.

Here's what I do.

If you attended any online or in-person Amazon conferences, you probably heard of GETIDA, been around since 2015. I work with them directly to help me get reimbursements for my Amazon account.

Anyone who uses my partner link will receive up to $400 in free reimbursement. After that, they charge a 25% recovery fee. 

At first, I thought 25% was a lot, but then I thought to myself, requesting reimbursement from Amazon is a very manual process. It requires multiple reports, connecting the dots and filing timely claims. It's basically like having someone on staff to help you with audits and claims. 

 The chances are, if you haven't done it in the past, you probably won't have time to do it yourself and you'll miss your (moving) window.