Help please! I think buyer mistakenly bought 2 identical items - what can I do?!
Hi - I’ve just started with FBA and have noticed that the same buyer has made two separate purchases of an identical product, within two minutes:
It’s the same letter, going to the same address, in two separate orders. If I’d been doing seller-fulfilment I’d have sent off a message to the buyer asking if they really did want two of the same things going to the same person - but because it’s FBA it’s all obviously been processed automatically and I wasn’t able to see the details of the buyer and addressee until after the payment had gone through and the items had been sent.
Because I’ve only just started with FBA I haven’t experienced this before. Please could someone let me know what they would do (or have successfully done) in the same situation? Any advice appreciated, thanks!
Seller_77IcbQKVGdZo0
Not much you can do in this situation especially as it looks like the items have been sent to the customer.
The customer may end up returning one of the items if they have placed the order twice which will then be added back into stock if Amazon deem it to be suitable for resell. If Amazon don’t think it is suitable for resell it will go unfulfillable and you will have to request a removal order for it or pay to have it destroyed.
Unfortunately with FBA there is nothing you can do when you get duplicate orders like this. As you can’t cancel/change orders once the customer has placed them.
It is also possible the customer did want 2 and forgot to add a second one to their basket. This does happen as well.
19 replies
Seller_77IcbQKVGdZo0
Not much you can do in this situation especially as it looks like the items have been sent to the customer.
The customer may end up returning one of the items if they have placed the order twice which will then be added back into stock if Amazon deem it to be suitable for resell. If Amazon don’t think it is suitable for resell it will go unfulfillable and you will have to request a removal order for it or pay to have it destroyed.
Unfortunately with FBA there is nothing you can do when you get duplicate orders like this. As you can’t cancel/change orders once the customer has placed them.
It is also possible the customer did want 2 and forgot to add a second one to their basket. This does happen as well.
Seller_7VbclcPFFRTnc
Two children with same initials ?!
Many possible reasons but the beauty with fba is that you leave them to it
Payment complete on fba also means it’s already been despatched
Seller_ae51e0CJoHqCX
When it comes to fba, you are absolved of being able to have anything to do with the transaction.
Amazon will take care of it or maybe not, it doesn’t matter it is completely in the hands of Amazon and the customer. You may even have to refund and it could disappear from your stock or it maybe returned.
Regardless you have to treat this as a numbers game with fba and hope Amazon do the right thing.
1 of 3 things may happen or nothing may happen if the customer intended it.
- one of the items will be returned and it will go back into stock, you will be landed with some fees for this but it is unavoidable, part and parcel of fba.
- The customer maybe refunded for one of the items and may not return it in which case you have lost the item, good luck with spotting it and then trying to get Amazon to refund, although known this to happen.
- Amazon may allow a return and if customer doesn’t return then you just get paid for it anyway.
The overwhelming answer to this as horrible as it sounds and to be fair I think Amazon rely on this is to just forget about it and take it on the chin. You can’t really intervene on anything to do with fba.
Seller_r1BWHFE9Q49m3
Thanks @The_Little_Shop and @JR_Wristbands
This is all as I expected/feared with FBA. I’m trying not to get too stressed about it, and just view it as an interesting experiment. I was thinking that it couldn’t be any worse than the experience of Christmas last year, when I was doing all of the fulfilment myself and relying on Royal Mail. You can imagine how that went, when I was paying for “24 hour” tracked parcels that took 5 days to arrive 
So I guess I just have to suck it up 
Seller_r1BWHFE9Q49m3
Thanks all - you have really set my mind at rest. I would have been worrying about this all day (/week) otherwise, and now I can get on with the rest of my Christmas rush. Good luck with all of yours, too.
I must admit that the best thing about FBA is waking up to find emails saying that basically “Amazon has made money for you while you were asleep” - so I’ll continue for a bit longer with this experiment 
Seller_Vx8KyiEOW1rcH
We have only ever done FBA. We look at refunds, returns the same way we do with losses with bricks and mortar shops. 5% loss was always budgeted due to shoplifting and other damage. Our FBA return/refund rate is well below 5%, so we are actually doing better.
Seller_rygGtrW4gqlcd
People often order separately and repeat the same order when delivery is free ( included…)- on here and other platforms- plus on here FBA it makes no difference to you as you will be charged for each - as in no combined postage saving.
