Shannon Curley
Shannon Curley is Head of Content at Carbon6. She has 10+ years of experience in content production, brand marketing, and creative management across industries including technology, health, education, and nonprofits.
Congratulations, you’ve set yourself up as a Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) seller!
Now what?
Amazon’s marketplace includes a number of areas, tools, and trade secrets that FBA sellers should know about. But there’s one that even the most experienced sellers often overlook — and it happens to be essential to optimizing your store’s profitability: Amazon reimbursements.
Amazon is huge. Currently, there are about 10 million registered sellers on the platform, marketing over 564 million products to 300 million active customers. A whopping 73% of these are FBA sellers, so Amazon stocks and ships all their inventory as well.
With such an enormous volume of products shipping in and out of Amazon’s fulfillment centers every day, accidents and mistakes are inevitable.
RELATED: Why Amazon’s New Reimbursement Policy Will Anger FBA Sellers
As convenient as FBA is, it also requires sellers to keep a keen eye on their inventory at all times. Lost or damaged inventory can be a huge headache — and a hit to your revenue.
Fortunately, tools like Seller Investigators can help FBA sellers find and recover the money that Amazon owes them, which could be in the thousands.
Amazon owes 99% of sellers money. Chances are, you’re one of them.
Here’s a simple principle to follow: If Amazon or a carrier loses or damages your FBA-registered product and doesn’t replace it with one of the same Fulfillment Network Stock Keeping Unit (FNSKU) within 30 days, you’re entitled to file a claim for reimbursement.
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So instead of asking if Amazon owes you money, start asking how much money Amazon owes you.
Seller Investigators can answer that question for you within 48 hours for free. To find every penny that Amazon owes you, they’ll conduct:
When it comes to recovering money from lost or damaged inventory, there a few things sellers should keep in mind:
FBA reimbursements are generally split into three main categories:
Lost inventory, which happens when Amazon:
Damaged inventory, which happens when Amazon:
Missing inventory, which happens when Amazon:
As a seller, you’re entitled to file a reimbursement claim if Amazon mishandles your inventory and doesn’t replace it within 30 days.
Every day, items get lost or damaged in the warehouse, in transit, or during order fulfillment. Maybe the item isn’t scanned. Maybe it’s credited to the wrong seller’s account. Either way, Amazon takes responsibility… but only if you ask them.
You have to head to Amazon Seller Central to let Amazon know you’ve discovered a discrepancy, provide the necessary evidence, and submit a claim through the official channels.
Many sellers choose not to claim reimbursements because they’re worried about possible reprisals, such as store bans or other severe sanctions. But if you play by Amazon’s rules and file your claim through the right channels, you shouldn’t have any problems.
Using Seller Investigators can take worry directly out of the whole process. The app knows exactly how to work within Amazon’s Terms of Service to ensure you get the money you’re owed quickly. Because Amazon frequently audits their processes, you need to know how to play the game and adapt to Amazon’s ever-evolving rules.
Managing your Amazon reimbursements is a tedious, time-intensive task. It requires time and energy that would be far better channeled into more exciting activities that will scale your business, like marketing and product development.
That, of course, is exactly why the top 1% of FBA sellers automate their reimbursements through an accredited audit and recoveries service.
The best way to get the money you’re owed quickly is to use an audit and recovery service like Seller Investigators to streamline the whole process.
To figure out if a service like this would benefit your business, start by considering how much time and money you’d need to devote to filing reimbursement claims.
Having a professional audit and reconciliation service manage your FBA reimbursements is basically free. You only pay a service fee on actual monies recovered — after they’ve hit your bank account.
As an added bonus, software like Seller Investigators will recover more money than you could on your own. They’ll also manage the whole process, from audit to reconciliation to filing to tracking cases. That means zero effort on your part.
If you are going to choose a software tool to help collect reimbursements, just make sure your provider::
As a go-to service trusted by the top 1% of Amazon sellers, Seller Investigators has all this and more, including:
It’s one thing to know you’re losing money on lost, damaged, or missing inventory. Now it’s time to do something about it.
Every seller should have a strategy and system in place for managing reimbursements. For the best results — and the most money — consider partnering with an audit and recovery service like Seller Investigators to automate and streamline the process. With an effective and efficient service like this on your side, you’re sure to save time and gain back money you didn’t even know Amazon owed you. To learn more, sign up for a free audit, or find out how much money Amazon owes you, check out Seller Investigators.
