Amazon FBA have sent someone else's inventory, and it is not even the right item

#1

Hello everyone, I hope you are all as well as can be during this time.

I am here to ask for some advice about an issue I am having. I received a message from a buyer Today stating that they had received a lower quality version of the item they had purchased. The buyer attached a picture of the item they received, and luckily enough it has a review sticker on it from another FBA seller which I have subsequently tracked down, and confirmed is on the same listing as me. I am using manufacturer barcodes, so I assume that is how this has happened. I don’t really know what to do about it, and who is ultimately responsible for the refund, or if this is going to affect my stats negatively.

Any advice on the best way to approach this would be appreciated.

Kind Regards

#2

I presume then that its commingled stock which means they just pick either yours or your competitors item ?!

#3

Amazon say that they can trace which seller’s stock it was taken from, but i still think most people would rather use FNSKU labels. As to the refund, it’s FBA so Amazon will sort that out - from your funds i would assume since you shouldn’t get to keep the money.

Ordinarily i’d say remove the stock depending on the quantity but, despite them saying they know which seller owns which stock, they also say if you do a removal order you may not get your exact items back.

#4

Always a risk if you send your stock in to be mixed in with other sellers, for the time it takes to print off an FNSKU label and stick it on your item which makes sure your customer receives your stock. To me it’s a no brainer if you are sending small quantities into FBA BUT if you have hundreds of these to label them it could be very time consuming

#5

I send lots of items in, often I never see the items, they get send direct from supplier, or sometimes they get processed at a prep centre.

#6

Of course, I don’t expect to keep the buyers funds, but I do expect that the situation should at least go back to what it was like prior to the purchase; buyers gets their money, I get my inventory +1, other seller who I can ID gets their inventory -1, and has to answer for why they are sending in cheaper products, also is it not against amazons T&C’s to ask for review? Also if they are comingled, I don’t even know how they ended up in there, because the items the buyer received has a different barcode than the item I sent in.

#7

Yes, this is what has happened.

#8

but you said they were both on the same ASIN ?! If thats the case, the other seller shouldn’t even be on that listing

#9

I know… I genuinely don’t know how this could have happened. I feel confident that I can prove my supply line. I have bought from a reliable wholesaler, I can show how the products moved from supplier to amazon, this is 100% not my fault (unless I should take blame for opting for manufacturer barcodes).

Is there someone at amazon I can contact to have this investigated?

#10

It’s not unusual for FBA items to get relabelled and batches of your stock to get contaminated with other sellers items.
It’s not a co-mingling issue. The warehouse has some weird fetish about sticking fnSKU labels over items to mark them up as something completely different.
We’ve had customers sent Umbrellas, Chocolates, and Gloves (none of which we sell), and they’ve been labelled up as our products even though we don’t use Amazon labelling, and don’t comingle.

Getting Amazon to acknowledge the problem is almost impossible. But recall the stock and you’ll occasionally find random items mixed in there.
Everything we sell has a perfectly good GS1 barcode on, yet they’ll go and place an incorrect fnSKU label over the top of it.

One of the worst things is that you can also end up with defects because customers have received the wrong item. With Amazon blaming you for not checking the items before sending them in.
As well as extra charges when the item they send out is much larger / heavier than the original product.

#11

Thank you for fleshing out a bit of an answer, it is appreciated.

Do you think I should just issue the refund, apologise to the customer, and move on then?

Do you not find it significant that the packaging of the item has a review request sticker on it, pointing to the other sellers store on amazon, specifically asking for positive reviews. This seems like a bit of a kick in the teeth also, as I thought that was against T&C’s.

To be fair I have probably already wasted too much time on this, I should have just apologised straight away and issued the refund, I don’t want this to affect my account, and the item is only £13.

#12

Try not to get drawn in to “he said, she said” about what other sellers can / can’t get away with.
It’ll only lead you down a rabbit hole of having to deal with seller support more than necessary, which is the worst thing you can probably do.
They’re more likely to mess up your seller account, than the others.

Recall any remaining stock to be sure the problem was a one-off, report the issue if you think it might help.
For minor-cost issues, just budget for them happening again in future… They will.

Keep in mind that if Amazon lose “your” stock, they are allowed to replace it with “identical” stock from other sellers, at their own discretion.
It’s part of the reimbursement policy.

#13

I just went to issue the refund, I asked the customer for their order ID, and they have sent me an ID and guess what… I didn’t sell this customer the product, so how have they got in contact with me? Do you think it is possible they bought the stock when that buyer had the BB, and now I have the BB they are thinking I sold it to them?

#14

Yes… Instead of contacting the seller through their ‘orders’ page, they’ve probably looked the item up again, and clicked ‘contact seller’ through the product page instead.

#15

There’s seldom a need to talk to buyers - it’s FBA and you pay Amazon to handle things like this. Generally only apologise for their experience and direct them to Amazon.

#16

Thanks for the help and advice guys, much appreciated.

#17

Hi All, so we got the below email from Amazon, the asin in question is not ours: B083R4DHS1. Our asin is: B07YLVCTF6. Considering we sell FBA, it is clearly an FC issue. Not sure how long the investigation takes, and we are losing sales while it is ongoing, also our NCX rate has gone up due to this, suppressing our vouchers etc. Haven’t managed to get hold of anyone at SS, I will appreciate advice from anyone with any similar experience please. Thank you.

Hello from Fulfillment by Amazon,

Your offer for ASIN B07YLVCTF6 has been temporarily suspended due to an investigation prompted by negative customer return comments.

For this investigation, we have identified item/parts missing issues based on the following customer comments:

  • Customer has ordered this item twice as the first time he received the item with asin B083R4DHS1 (the wrong degree of the pivot), however, the product he wants has asin B07YLVCTF6. When he reordered the item there was the same mistake. it doesnt have the pivot to move the magnet head, there is just a cable.

During this investigation, this ASIN offer will not be eligible to send additional units into Amazon’s fulfillment centers.

Amazon is dedicated to customer satisfaction and our team is working to troubleshoot this issue for you.

The investigation commenced involves checking a sample of your inventory to verify customer reported issues and ensure that units in our fulfillment centers are satisfactory and meet customer expectations based on what is displayed on the listing page.

From the findings of this assessment, we will notify you if corrective measures are necessary for the rest of your inventory or if more information is required from you to fix any issues potentially found.

closed #18

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