FBA Product Relabeling Headaches
We use perfectly good, scannable merchant barcodes on our products, which we check, recheck, and triple-check before sending to Amazon warehouses. Why would Amazon employees decide to relabel things at the warehouse? Every time this happens, our products are relabeled with the wrong ASIN! The same ASIN has somehow disappeared upon reaching the Amazon warehouses in two different shipments, while inventory for other ASINs mysteriously increases more than we know it should. We have also had a few returns for customers receiving the ASIN that was supposedly lost that was likely relabeled as the product they ordered. I don't think Amazon will reimburse us for these returns that are not actually our fault. I spent over two hours yesterday on the phone with Amazon reps and even more time over the past few weeks opening cases, trying to get this worked out. A bin check was conducted at the warehouse, where I received three pictures showing that the supposedly lost units are being treated as the wrong ASIN. Apparently, during the bin check, the warehouse staff were only looking for defects, but none were found. Therefore, there is supposedly no issue according to them. I just gave up on trying to get this fixed and did a removal order this morning for most of the impacted units. This will, of course, be at our expense, and we will need to scramble to quickly send in unplanned inventory to replace the removed units.
I am not sure what else we could do to avoid this. Our barcodes are perfectly scannable. We are meticulous about ensuring we send products with the correct barcodes, and we have been separating ASINs with paper if we ship more than one ASIN together. What else can we do?
I see that relabeling mistakes are a common issue at Amazon warehouses. There should definitely be stricter guidelines on who, why, and when products can be relabeled, as this practice seems to cause more problems than it solves.
FBA Product Relabeling Headaches
We use perfectly good, scannable merchant barcodes on our products, which we check, recheck, and triple-check before sending to Amazon warehouses. Why would Amazon employees decide to relabel things at the warehouse? Every time this happens, our products are relabeled with the wrong ASIN! The same ASIN has somehow disappeared upon reaching the Amazon warehouses in two different shipments, while inventory for other ASINs mysteriously increases more than we know it should. We have also had a few returns for customers receiving the ASIN that was supposedly lost that was likely relabeled as the product they ordered. I don't think Amazon will reimburse us for these returns that are not actually our fault. I spent over two hours yesterday on the phone with Amazon reps and even more time over the past few weeks opening cases, trying to get this worked out. A bin check was conducted at the warehouse, where I received three pictures showing that the supposedly lost units are being treated as the wrong ASIN. Apparently, during the bin check, the warehouse staff were only looking for defects, but none were found. Therefore, there is supposedly no issue according to them. I just gave up on trying to get this fixed and did a removal order this morning for most of the impacted units. This will, of course, be at our expense, and we will need to scramble to quickly send in unplanned inventory to replace the removed units.
I am not sure what else we could do to avoid this. Our barcodes are perfectly scannable. We are meticulous about ensuring we send products with the correct barcodes, and we have been separating ASINs with paper if we ship more than one ASIN together. What else can we do?
I see that relabeling mistakes are a common issue at Amazon warehouses. There should definitely be stricter guidelines on who, why, and when products can be relabeled, as this practice seems to cause more problems than it solves.
4 replies
Seller_xo4Akj7FBBnfC
First, I'd check those merchant barcodes on the GS1 lookup page to confirm they resolve to your exact manufacturer and product.
Search Google for “GS1 barcode lookup,” then enter the UPC/GTIN (usually 12 digits) on the (GS1US.org) website as shown below.
Some manufacturers have used lower-cost GTINs licensed from resellers (rather than directly from GS1) that don’t resolve to their company and product — which Amazon now typically rejects — and we’ve found that some overseas suppliers use barcodes with counterfeit GTINs on their packaging, which will eventually be assigned to others.
As discussed in this thread, Amazon has been covering over non-GS1 licensed barcodes with white adhesive paper and then issuing misleading performance alerts that the “Barcode cannot be scanned” or the “Barcode is missing,” even though there was no actual scanning failure.
Seller_Sram36TnVt73c
This happens frequently when you send in mixed shipments that appear similar to one another. Amazon mis-receives, and then they relabel to match the mistake.
That takes the blame off of them and places it on you.
does this sound like a possibility? Do you send in mixed shipments or cases only? If mixed, do the items look similar?
Here's ANOTHER THREAD about this topic.
