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Very low reimbursements for warehouse damaged items
This has been a trend lately where Amazon is providing incredible low reimbursements for products they damage in their warehouse. As an example, I had 2 copies of a used book, both listed at $48. They damaged one of them in the warehouse and the next day I sold the second, same condition copy for $48. This book has a history of selling used at close to $50. They gave me a reimbursement value of $19, took of their fees and gave me $11 instead of the $35 proceeds I received from the same book I sold a day later. I paid about $15 for each copy of this book.
Went through seller support, they send me back FAQ's on what a reimbursement is as is typical for Amazon seller support. Same thing happened today - a book that typically sells in the $60-$90 range was damaged in warehouse and they reimbursed me $18, again below my cost.
In previous years the reimbursement amounts were always less than you would get selling it but at least it seemed like an honest attempt at repaying you for their mistake. Anyone else noticing this?
16 replies
Seller_4zBzdtgCyS9EI
This is the price you pay for having more sales because of FBA. You pay fees, you pay storage and you pay loss of inventory.
It wont change either. Especially with used book sellers, they have shown no interest whatsoever to keep you all around...
Seller_4T5h8YltzQ9s3
What are the odds they damage two different books in such a short span of time. How does someone in a warehouse operation even damage a book?
Seller_XGeV5Iu8TOORw
I honestly believe that someone is this decision making chain does not know Amazon sells used books.
Seller_CW0P5hgbsiqWX
Hopefully, you still made some profit. You will not get reimbursed for the price you are asking, only the price you paid. Amazon is not that dumb. Doubt if your insurance would reimburse any more without documentation showing you actually paid more.
Seller_uPq5eGdaHy05p
Same thing happened to me. I sold a bible for 26 dollars and when they couldn't ship it because it was damaged, they gave me $3 and change for it. I was told that it had not sold in a year, as I had a pending sale for the item. INFURIATING.
Seller_i2pPkGxURzrLh
Here's what is happening.
Some higher up at Amazon looks at the financials quarterly aka balance sheet. They say, hmmmmm, this Other expense for reimbursement paid needs to be looked at as it's hurting shareholder value. So what happens is they find any way possible to shrink and possibly even cap or put a budget on reimbursement liability.
It is worse than ever and it started at the beginning of last year when they stopped reimbursing for items they actually lose when they put away your shipments. The loss taken at the whatever the cost is expense is the worst part. All to increase value to Amazon.....just 0 accountability to take ownership of their own faults and instead pass the buck and everything else to the seller. Sickening. $$$$$$$$$$
Seller_U2iypJCercyzc
We had over 3,000 units damaged by Amazon. Getting refunds involved taking photos of packing slips and merchandise. It was abhorrent, but it got worse. Amazon began refusing any kind of refund on the grounds that they can destroy packaging and not be responsible.
These are gift items that were literally torn apart.
But that's not the worst of it. Amazon was sending the damaged goods to customers, and our product reviews were plummeting. We did three bin checks where Amazon sent photos of fully in tact merchandise. Still the reviews were plummeting. Finally we were forced to remove all the inventory, which was considerable for the Christmas season, Amazon charged us almost $1/item. Though the merchandise was clearly damaged in the warehouse, Amazon not only refused to issue a refund for the damages, they refused to refund the cost of the returns.
The insult to injury ratio was off the charts.
TaylorR_Amazon
Hi @Seller_hdIy2FKSRdp0e, I just reviewed the FBA inventory reimbursement policy.
Amazon takes several factors into consideration when deciding on the reimbursement value:
- The median price at which you have sold the item on Amazon over the past 18 months
- The median price at which other sellers have sold the same item on Amazon over the past 18 months
- The current list price you have set for the same item on Amazon or the mean list price if you have multiple listings for the same item
- The current list price for the same item from other sellers on Amazon
If we don't have enough information to calculate the estimated sale price of a unit using the price indicators described above, we will assign an estimated sale price based on the price of a comparable product.
It sounds like that last bit could be why your reimbursements were lower than you expected. If you have any specific cases you would like me to look into, let me know the case ID. I may be able to escalate.
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