Normally, Amazon refunds the seller when a customer returns a product. This happens automatically, but sometimes customers don't return the product to Amazon. If the item isn't returned within 45 days, Amazon charges the customer and refunds the seller. However, sometimes this refund doesn't happen, so the seller needs to check and request reimbursement if necessary.
If a customer returns a sellable item to the Fulfillment Center within 45 days of the refund, Amazon returns it to the seller's inventory without reimbursement. But if the item is not sellable, Amazon decides who is responsible. If Amazon is at fault, they reimburse the seller and don't add the item back to their inventory.
Note: Amazon doesn't take responsibility or reimburse for returned items that are damaged by the customer, recalled, defective, or against Amazon policies. These items go into the seller's unfulfillable inventory.
To view the products for which refunds have been received from Amazon
1. Select "Payments" from the "Payments" tab on Seller Central and click on the "Transaction View" tab.
2. From the "Transaction Type" drop-down menu, select "Refund" and choose the required "From" and "To" dates.
3. Click "Update" and then "Download" to download the report in .txt format, which can be viewed more easily in Excel.
4. This report shows all the orders for which the seller received a refund from Amazon.
To determine whether refunded units were shipped back to Amazon or whether any returned items were not refunded, the seller must download another report.
1. To do this, select "Fulfillment" from the "Reports" tab on Seller Central
2. Click on "FBA Customer Returns" under the "Customer Concessions" header (scroll down the page to see more options in the left panel menu).
3. Select the "Download" tab and the same date range used for the Refunds report.
4. Click the "Request .csv Download" or "Request .txt Download" button to download the report.
5. Once downloaded, the seller should compare the Order IDs in the Returns Report against those in the Refund Report to see how many refunded orders are missing from the Returns Report.
Use the VLOOKUP function in Excel to quickly identify unreimbursed returns on the Returns Report.
Note:
- If an Order ID is marked as "N/A", it has not been refunded yet. Sellers should monitor Order IDs that are more than 45 days old and still marked as "N/A".
- If an Amazon return has not been refunded after 50 days, the seller should open a case to request reimbursement.
- To expedite the process, sellers can split their Order IDs into batches of 10-15 and investigate each batch in a separate case. This allows Amazon to attend to each batch more quickly.
