Amazon handmade - A - Z claims

#1

Can anyone tell me if they feel the same for handmade products .

Many artisans make the products themselves …so they don’t sell as many products as non handmade amazon
Therefore , if a buyer decides they don’t want your product …perhaps because the product was larger than expected -even although the measurements were clearly on the listing …They e-mail you to let you know and although you respond to them immediately asking them to return the product after which you will refund in full …they then open an A-Z claim ??

So …i stick to my guns and await the return of the product …it doesn’t arrive …Amazon refund the money to the customer from my account ??? Buyer now sitting with a free product !

My Order Defect rate becomes 33% …then 25% . I’ve only sold 4 products as i’m a new seller …1 in 4 gives me an ODR below the 1%

My products have stopped selling …strange …i assume this is because of the ODR rate ?

So Amazon Handmade want to be a big player in the handmade market ??

I’ve appealed , written to leadership team , e-mailed some other important people @ Amazon …No answers given

So i’ll need to wait 60 days in total to see if i get another sale as my ODR should reduce to 0% again ?

Its a strange way to treat Artisans and those who put time and effort into hand making their products

I think Amazon need to re-think how to support their handmade side of their business

#2

Unfortunately they treat all sellers the same - handmade artisans and million pound companies
It’s just the big fish usually have the higher number of sales to dilute the odr percentage

Did you direct the buyer to open an official return ?
Have you tried appealing the a-z stating the buyer didn’t return the item ?

#3

Hi

No , i didn’t direct the .
customer to open an official return …but someone did ? …or customer knew how to do this without returning my e-mails to reach a solution

Yes, i appealed the A-Z and Amazon were well aware that the item hadn’t been returned …yet they still upheld the decision

Most e-mails from Amazon don’t answer the issues but attach loads of links on Amazon’s policies …hardly helpful to a new seller .

Leadership team — No one has helped me yet ?

The part i seem to have missed is …After the customer e-mails me advising they want to return and i have responded to their e-mail positively …Then a A - Z is opened ? …I’m not sure who prompts customer to quickly go and open the A-Z claim in such a short period of time and why customer hasn’t the courtesy to respond to my e-mail to simply confirm to me they will be posting back my product before receiving my refund

#4

Hi, I am on Amazon Handmade and I know what you mean about ‘it’s smaller/different size than expected’ - I have written measurements and even state after this ‘please see all pictures to ensure you know the size of the item you are buying’ in my listings. Then I have a picture of a life sized model and a picture with a ruler and a picture with a coin - I’ve still had ‘lovely, but smaller than expected’ in feedbacks on the products! I don’t know what else you are supposed to do to show the size, buy hey :slight_smile:
However, I’ve only ever had official return requests and then I confirm on the official return ASAP that I am happy to accept the return. If they don’t go through the official channel for return then even if you reply to say yes, then it isn’t classed as ‘return request’ and they can take further action.
It sounds as if they just sent you a message rather than going through the official ‘I want to return’ via Amazon, which is how they opened the A-Z?
This is the link, if you ever get this again.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=G6E3B2E8QPHQ88KF
Just send this to the customer if they just message you and don’t go through the official channels.
If it’s via the official channels you get an option to provide return postage or not. If you haven’t got that, then it’s not an official request.
I was caught out when I first started and refunded someone because they had ordered by mistake, I did the refund and then it affected my metrics. I found a helpful Customer Service Rep. (It was a LONG time ago as I was on Professional before Handmade came into play) who told me this and that there is nothing they could do to help my metrics, but going forward to ensure that I use the official return channels for buyers who change their minds.
Sometimes normal messages don’t get through to buyers (due to Amazon’s system/ they opt out), so they might not even have got your reply! I have NEVER had an official return email reply not get to the buyer, so I guess this overrides their preferences.
You could write a snail mail letter to the buyer, enclosing your message reply and ask them to send the product back to you (with your address). I think other than this, there’s not a lot you can do about the metrics. You can contact Amazon again, but in recent years, I’ve found the same as you - emails about policies which don’t answer the question and then after a couple, it gets closed as answered, so you can’t reply.
If you want to improve your metrics in the short term you could advertise one product so that it sells to improve ODR or just wait until it drops off over a period of time.
I understand your frustration, but Amazon is really hard to negotiate as a buyer. I ordered something from Amazon and something from a private seller on Amazon. The Amazon item arrived with something missing - trying to sort this out was an absolute nightmare - 30 minutes on chat, when I eventually got hold of a real person on chat!) and then she refunded the wrong item, so back on to try and get to a human again to tell them that they’d got it wrong and in no way should they have refunded the private seller’s money to me as this item arrived ok - it was the Amazon one that hadn’t! Eventually after about an hour I got the problem sorted, but you can understand why some people wouldn’t be bothered with all this hassle. If they buyer has phoned (Heaven knows how as I couldn’t find a phone number as a buyer!) and Customer Service have said “no worries, we’ll refund you”, then the customer won’t know any better and might not even have your address to return it, so a snail mail letter will at least give them your address.
Hope this helps a little.

#5

Yes but did they open a return request and did your auth that request within 24 hours?

#6

That’s what I think too @MonkeyBoy

#7

Thank you Lesley for your informative response and taking the time to reply …this will help other buyers as well as myself to move forward .

Yes, i think they did just sent me a message as i don’t remember an option to provide return postage or not

It was all so confusing at the time .

I remember it was listed under ‘Manage Returns’ …and i think there was an option to ‘allow return request’ …i cant quite remember now …but i remember i didnt want to press that option because i wasn’t sure if it would trigger a refund from me .

I have since written to the buyer by snail mail to return my product before the end of the month .and i’m sure they already have my contact details etc

I think i’ll wait until the ODR rate drops off.

Thankyou

Karen

#8

Thanks Monkey Boy for your advice too

#9

Do you find that you give the refund within two business days and then wait for the product to be returned ?

If i was selling something around £2-£5 , then i would just refund the money immediately as i wouldn’t be bothered with all the hassle and time/cost it takes however my product was £43.00 approx and i didn’t want to refund without ensuring my product was returned .

To date , this buyer has a free item

#10

thats why then, it would’ve just allowed them to return it - it wouldn’t have triggered a refund
all return requests must be dealt with in 24 hours otherwise buyer can automatically open - and win - an a-z

#11

no - the buyer must return the item before you refund
you then have 2 days from return to inspect it and refund

#12

Thank you ‘Little Shop’ for your thoughts

I did return the e-mail to the buyer within 24 hours asking them to return the product and i said i would be happy to refund the money however the buyer didn’t respond to my email ?

Had they responded , i could have communicated further , hopefully preventing them from taking the A - Z step

Maybe as Lesley has said - sometimes normal messages don’t get through to the buyer ?..but i can see the messages on the message e-mail trail.

I think this may be one for me to draw a line under …however i’m a lot more knowledgeable now thanks to all your comments which i appreciate

Had i been able to speak with a competent customer service person …as i tried many times to speak with one …they could have guided me through the system , considering i’m a new seller .

#13

you actually needed to approve - or decline their official return request

#14

I can see that i think i’ve missed a step in the process but surely someone at Amazon could check the way i had handled the process and guided me along seeing i am a new seller . I did speak with a number of customer service people at the time ?

Next time i’ll just pop onto the seller forum for advice …i’ve had a lot more help doing it this way …I may need to wait a while until my defect rate gets back down to below 1% !

#15

Amazon never check anything.

I find most customers opt out of amazon messages so when you reply it goes into their spam and they never read it

The customer could have called amazon customer service when the refund wasn’t accepted, and the agent has opened the atoz for them.

#16

Thanks Lyndsay

I would have thought that Amazon customer service could have seen the e-mail i returned to customer and let the customer know …or contacted me ?

#17

If they can they don’t do anything. It’s all about the customer not the seller. Welcome to amazon

#18

Thanks Lyndsay , your right !

BUT …i mentioned above that i had written privately by snail mail to the customer and asked for the return of my product by the 30th April 2022 …otherwise i would be prepared to take civil action .

I am happy to report that i received my product back today ! (30th April) with a message about not being able to get to post office due to another bout of covid . …So , i now do not need to start the civil action .

The product was posted by ‘Special Delivery’ at a cost of £12.18 …paid by the buyer !

I think that’s a good result as a seller …it did take me a good bit of time to sort it out …but going forward …I will confirm refund and if my product is not received back …i’ll send a letter by snail mail .

Now that all of that is sorted …I’ve had no more sales on Amazon yet and my ODR rate is 25% …so maybe i’ll be back up and running as at 1st June (after my 60 days punishment ).

Thank you all for listening to my trail of events , you’ve all been a great help and encouragement to me with all you experience and knowledge

Karen

#19

Glad you got your goods back at least

Sorry to add a downer to this thread but you need to keep an eye on your performance notifications.
A new seller with such a high rate of ODR is in a risky situation with regards to potential suspension

#20

Yes, i know …but Amazon do not understand the handmade market by individual artisans .

Depending upon what you make , will depend upon how many you sell if you are an individual artisan .
Therefore someone who sells higher priced items they make themselves …which takes more time to make …will sell less of them …it only takes one item to be returned and it results in a higher ODR rate .

If i could only speak with someone at Amazon handmade who could understand my dilemma …then i think they may see the issues i am having and take the right decision and override the ODR rate …to me …that would make sense and help the individual artisan .

Maybe someone at Amazon handmade will read this trail and try and make that decision ?