Amazon owes you back your damaged inventory! Get it back!
Amazon takes care of the seller’s inventories. Its policies are so designed to give the money back to the seller if any loss is incurred to the inventory. However, the money is not returned in a hassle-free manner and is not as automated as promised. Hence, the seller needs to go through some convoluted steps to get back the money for the compensation of the loss.
Hence, it is extremely crucial for an Amazon seller to know the steps in detail to reclaim the money that Amazon owes them. Go to your accounts and perform some maintenance checks to make sure that any of your inventory that has been damaged, misplaced, or destroyed has been credited back to your seller accounts. If you are not careful about your own inventory, Amazon will not really be bothered about paying you back.
You can do it manually and keep a track of your inventory reports. You may also switch to online tools and software to automate the work and save your precious time to focus on business strategies.
Different Types of Reimbursements Amazon May Owe You
These are the following types of reimbursements that you may be entitled to:
- Reimbursements for lost and damaged inventory.
- Reimbursements for customer returns.
- Reimbursements on FBA inventory lost at Amazon FBA fulfilment centres.
It seems that Amazon has kept the data complex on purpose so that sellers do not bother to take care of this and Amazon can escape its obligation of reimbursement.
Now comes the most important question- How shall we get the reimbursement of the damage caused by Amazon?
How to Get Reimbursed for Amazon FBA Lost or Damaged Inventory?
The Amazon warehouses are really mammoth. You have a multitude of people, machines and even robots handling the products of the inventory and keeping the complex supply chain in function. Items are bound to get damaged while at the fulfilment centres.
Go through a step-by0step guidance to recover the inventory data and report and send it to Amazon, asking them to reconcile with it and reimburse you for the lost or damaged products. Their stated procedure is that they will automatically reimburse us after 10 days of an item being damaged. Unfortunately, that is not always the case.
So, check out these steps so that you can submit your own case to request some money back from Amazon.
- Go to Reports and select Inventory from Fulfilment option.
- Click on Show More and go to Inventory Management.
- Select Damaged and set your time period for which you want to monitor
- Copy / Paste the data to a spreadsheet
- Sort by FNSKU (Fulfilment Network Stock Keeping Unit) in your spreadsheet
- Delete those items which have been reimbursed automatically. These include those rows showing “Damaged at Amazon…” and “Transfer to holding…”
- Delete any lines that have only “Transfer at holding…”
- Reconcile the items on your spreadsheet. Save the excel sheet as .csv file
- Go to Help and then Support on Amazon page and launch a new case.
- Scroll to the bottom of that page and click the Get Support button
- On the next screen, select Selling on Amazon
- You will see a menu on the left side
- Select Inventory Damaged or Inventory Lost in Warehouse from Fulfilment by Amazon.
- Press the Select Issue button next to Investigate Inventory Damaged in FBA Warehouse
- Click on the Contact Us link if you do not have a Transaction ID
- Fill up the information
- Use Add Attachment to attach the .csv file
- Finish it off by pressing Send.
- Amazon will reply to you within 48 hours
- Receive your reimbursement in 3-4 days
Your claim with Amazon should look something like this:
Lost and Damaged Inventory Research
I am reconciling my Amazon account and found there are items lost or damaged in the warehouse. I have taken out the ones that have already been credited to my account. There are still some that have not been reimbursed as shown in the attached file.
I am attaching a .csv file with the items that still need to be reimbursed.
Can you please research these and credit my account where appropriate?
Thanks.
Checking for Lost Amazon FBA Inventory
Look up the list to check if the quantity Missing (M) and Found (F) match on the Inventory Adjustment report. If they do not match, then some items may be lost or some extra items are there.
You can click on Learn More to get the summary of their complicated codes.
Now check each FNSKU to see if the total for missing and found matches. If they match then delete these rows from the spreadsheet.
If there are more Missing (M) than Found (F) then highlight this row as you will need to submit this to Amazon.
Checking for Warehouse Damaged FBA Inventory
You need to match up ‘Damaged Sellable -1’ with ‘Damaged Unsellable +1’ and ‘Transfer to Holding Account -1’. This means that a product has been returned to Amazon as damaged, added to your inventory temporarily and then returned to you. You can remove these rows as they are now dealt with.
If there are any FNSKUs that do not match, you can send this to Amazon as the items were damaged but have not been reimbursed.
How to Claim on FBA Items Refunded but Not Returned?
What if you customer is unsatisfied with the product and wants to send it back?
They will be refunded automatically by Amazon, and the seller will be mailed confirming the same. What if the customer has been refunded, but your product has not been returned yet to your inventory? If your product is returned you should get a second mail. If not, check the FBA Reports > Returns. If nothing shows up within 45 days, you need to raise a claim with Amazon. They will get back within hours and get to action regarding your problem.
How to Claim for Items Lost in Transit to Amazon FBA?
Some of your products can get lost in transit. Keep a close check on your products and shipment to ensure that none is lost, or you are repaid if something is lost.
You may capture photos of the items being packaged, so that they can be used as proof if there is a dispute.
To track this, you need to go to Shipping Queue from Manage FBA Shipments in the Inventory tab. The totals of Shipped and Received columns should match. If not, it indicates Amazon has lost something. You can raise a case within 6 months before the case closes permanently.
Final Thoughts
Seems like a lot of work? Go hassle-free with automation.
Time is money and that time is better spent in sourcing inventory than scrolling through reports.
Tools that Automate
Let the online tools like Refund Genie of Helium 10 take care of the reports and tally and work for your reimbursement!
Follow the guide and you can get your reimbursement. Run an audit with Helium 10 every 3 months to reconcile against return and refunds.
