Do we lose money when a customer refunds an item?
Hello.
I’m 2 months into my FBA journey and have sold about 2,000 items.
Naturally I have had refunds. I still can’t see return reasons yet (I’m not sure if I need to wait longer or am looking in the wrong place).
On my balance, when I sell an item, my seller account is credited approx. £6 (sale - fees)
My profit is about £1.50.
Looking at the returns, it appears that the change to my seller account is -£10. (The cost of sale)
Questions-
1. Does this mean when a customer returns an item I lose money even though it it FBA? It looks like I lose the fees that Amazon have already taken when I sold the item.
2. How can I see my customer return reasons please?
Thanks.
Do we lose money when a customer refunds an item?
Hello.
I’m 2 months into my FBA journey and have sold about 2,000 items.
Naturally I have had refunds. I still can’t see return reasons yet (I’m not sure if I need to wait longer or am looking in the wrong place).
On my balance, when I sell an item, my seller account is credited approx. £6 (sale - fees)
My profit is about £1.50.
Looking at the returns, it appears that the change to my seller account is -£10. (The cost of sale)
Questions-
1. Does this mean when a customer returns an item I lose money even though it it FBA? It looks like I lose the fees that Amazon have already taken when I sold the item.
2. How can I see my customer return reasons please?
Thanks.
9 replies
Seller_fMsCVAHNu4txH
Here's one of the places you can see it...
https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/voice-of-the-customer
https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/returns/report/
Yes... Amazon will refund you their 'referral' fee, but not any 'FBA' fees.
So, for example, they'd give you back the 15% they took off the total sales price, but won't give you the £3.50 for the postage, packaging, and storage fees that were billed.
Also if you're having the item(s) returned to you (strongly recommended) then there's another £0.40 per item to get them back.
__________
With returns... In theory it should matter what the customers 'Return Reason' is, but Amazon just accept whatever the customer ticks in the box, and they'll 99% tick the one that gets them a free return, so the real 'Reasons' for returns could be something completely different.
Seller_cY6lCdtECU1zF
thanks for these.
Why would one choose returns to come back to me, rather than back into inventory?
Seller_fMsCVAHNu4txH
Because the mess that comes back in from the returns can cause chaos in future.
Amazons 'checking / grading' of returns is practically non-existent.
- A customer opens a product, destroys the proper packaging, maybe even uses the product, decides it's not what they want, and then returns it as 'Not as Described' (to get a free return).
- You (and the SKU) get a black mark for the 'Not as Described' return. And you're out of pocket for the return because you don't get the fees back.
- Amazon receive it, 'grade' it, and then put it back in the nearest warehouse.
- Next customer orders the same item, and receives the same one. They're not happy. They complain.
- You (and the SKU) get a second black mark for 'Selling Used as New'. And you're out of pocket again for the return because you don't get the fees back.
- Amazon give them their money back, and ask you to explain what has gone wrong and provide a plan of action to prevent it happening again in the future.
- Worst case scenario the item gets returned again, and the cycle repeats.
- Best case scenario, they'll mark it as 'Defective' and ask you to remove it from stock.
This is one of the ways that it makes it on to the news where customers are receiving bricks instead of laptops. No-one at Amazon is opening the returns to see if what it says it is, is actually in there. And they're definitely not checking serial numbers or anything like that.
We've had umbrellas, boxes of chocolates, gloves, bin bags, all sorts... Returned from our inventory. We don't sell any of those, and never have.
We've also had our own stock returned, but le-labelled as different stock, because a customer has ordered 2 items and opened a return for the wrong one.
Seller_kSZCywEhJQQ8J
I had a similar case before. The refund looked about £10 higher than I expected, so I contacted Seller Support. They were able to check the return and refund reason, and I was told it was a goodwill refund for customer experience reasons, with the extra amount not taken from my account.
It may be worth raising a case with Seller Support so they can check the refund breakdown for you and confirm whether the full amount is really being charged back to you.
Seller_z4V6mWqmKYON9
They don't tell you the refund reason, Amaozn just refund at will and you lose your money, I have sold on Amazon for 20 years and am now pulling out as Amazon have now decided (with no prior announcemne tor agreement) to allow customers to 'return' food items. You will never find out why Amazon do the things they do, that's how they operate. making a decent profit is not possible on Amazon it just gets your brand out there and the only way to avoid fraudulent negative feedback is to use FBA then they control everything. Good luck!
Seller_CwScJ9tGsJGIl
You don't know what you doing and you selling on Amazon for beanuts modern day slave that's why they fked up every seller because of people like you 1.5 profit you selling sands maybe
