Have you ever heard of Elaine Heney? I got an email from her a little while back. She wanted to discuss how her methods of getting reimbursements from Amazon had landed her over $6,100 that she didn’t even know she was owed. That got my attention!
Her process is so simple that I asked her to share part of it with you so you could see:
1. That Amazon isn’t always diligent about getting reimbursements to sellers for destroyed items.
2. That you may very well be owed a good deal of cash for inventory that Amazon has destroyed for one reason or another.
3. That you may also have money coming to you for damaged, lost or other types of inventory — IF you ask for it.
After going through what Elaine references below, I was sent a reimbursement email from Amazon telling me I’d gotten $68.80. It took about 5 minutes. Wanna give it a try? Keep reading! Take it away Elaine…
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I started selling private labels products on Amazon just under a year ago. Like most Amazon businesses I was working crazy hours researching new products, contacting suppliers, getting in samples, applying for brand registry, launching products on Amazon.com and in five European countries, handling customer service and making sure everything was running smoothly.
One thing I didn’t handle was my reimbursements. I knew from listening to the grapevine, that Amazon doesn’t always automatically process refunds if they damage or destroy inventory that you shipped to their warehouses. Sometimes Amazon loses products and occasionally Amazon can overcharge the FBA fees on products they sell.
On one hand, Amazon has a HUGE amount of units in all their warehouses so I understand how small things can fall through the cracks. From my FBA seller’s perspective, however, if Amazon owes me money because of missing or damaged stock, then I would really like to get the reimbursement! Wouldn’t you?
If you have ever looked at the reports in Seller Central, you know they are not simple to figure out. So I sat down one day just to see if I could somehow get a handle on how much (if anything) Amazon owed me that they hadn’t paid me for.
Within a couple of days, I had received over $2800 back from Amazon USA & Amazon UK. In another week, this figure had risen to over $6100 in missing refunds! Now, filing for various types of refunds is a part of my regular Amazon business routine and it almost always brings in additional cash that would have otherwise been lost. And all I had to do was ask!
Let me show you my ultra-simple process for determining if you have any inventory that Amazon has destroyed and how to get paid for it.
The first step is to check to see if they have reimbursed you for destroyed inventory already.
1. Log into Seller Central.
2. At the top of the page, hover your mouse over ‘REPORTS’ and click ‘FULFILLMENT’.
3. On the left of the screen, under ‘INVENTORY’ click on “show more.”
4. Click on ‘Inventory adjustments’.
5. Select: reason group = DESTROYED. [UPDATE: “Destroyed” is not longer in Amazon’s list. Choose a different option (Damaged, Lost, Disposed Of, etc.), but follow the same process outlined below.]
6. Select: event date= Last 365 days (or longer if you need to, whenever you started your business).
7. Click “generate report.”
8. Each order listed may (but not always) qualify for refund.
9. Take a screengrab (picture) of this Seller Central screen.
10. Then download the inventory adjustments report by clicking on DOWNLOAD. Select EXACT DATES, and put in the start date for your business (I put in the date before I started to sell on Amazon) and the end date (today’s date).
11. Save the downloaded ‘destroyed inventory’ file to your computer.
12. Open the file in a spreadsheet program and put a filter on the top row.
13. Look at the column REASON.
14. Use the filter so it only shows letter D and the number 5. These are some of Amazon’s adjustment codes. (See below.)
15. This is your list of destroyed products.
16. To apply for a refund, scroll to the end of the page in Seller Central and click on ‘Get Support’.
17. Click on the ‘Contact us’ button.
18. Click on ‘Selling on Amazon issue > FBA issue > Something else.’
19. Write Amazon this message:
Hello,
Could I get reimbursed for the items destroyed by Amazon? See the attached list of the inventory items that have been destroyed.
Thank you. Have a great day!
20. Attach either the downloaded ‘destroyed inventory’ file to the message, or attach the screengrab you took earlier.
21. Send the message to Amazon.
Amazon will usually reply within 24-48 hours.
I got $15 back 🙂 thanks
I followed the directions from this article and am getting back $163 dollars! Needless to say I just ordered the pdf via your link!
thanks!
Peter
Excellent! thanks for sharing, Peter.
I have a question. I did the screenshot and downloaded the report. They both have the same 10 destroyed items. How do I know I wasn’t already reimbursed for these items? Is there a way to check or do I just make the request with Amazon and let them tell me if they’ve already reimbursed me for these items?
Thank you!
Hi Kari, to keep it simple just email amazon & ask them to check if you’re due a refund for the 10 items. They can double check this for you. They are usually very quick – between 12-24 hours. Elaine
Off topic 2 questions: 1. where can I find out what happens to items that are destroyed at fulfillment centers. Is this at the sellers choice over requesting the items back due to cost? Meaning it’s cheaper to take the loss write off over paying for merchandise to be returned? Is there an economic reason why sellers (or Amazon, not sure) would not donate over destroy,crush and burn? This would be good merchandise not damaged or expired.
2. Does Amazon sell merchandise by the giant boxes by the truck load , you won’t know what is in it exactly kind of a surprise box. Has anyone done this and what value do you get for what is in truck? More how much per box and is there a category to each load or will it be broken cookies to fit bit bands, books cheap battery/ electronics? Really just would like to get the facts.
You’d need to contact Seller Central to find out what Amazon does with destroyed items and whether they sell giant boxes of items by the truckload.
I did the preliminary “free” technique explained in the email above and received refunds totaling almost $3300.00. WOW. It definitely works. I am going to use my windfall to buy the entire course and see what more they have for me… Can’t wait. Thanks Karon.
Awesome! Very cool! Thanks for sharing, Jim.
Hi,
I’ve followed your directions, but on the inventory adjustment page, there is no ‘destroyed’ option on the Reason Group drop-down menu, The only options are:
Damaged
Disposed of
Found
Lost
Other
Has this form changed? Do I get the same results by selecting ‘Disposed of’?
Thanks,
Mike