Amazon recently reminded sellers about changes to its fees for high return-rate products that are set to take effect on June 1st. It had announced the changes in December along with other fees, including the highly controversial low-inventory-level fee policy that attracted the most attention from sellers, with numerous sellers saying they felt fees were getting too complex and it was becoming difficult to predict their costs. (It has since made some adjustments.)
On Tuesday, Amazon published the reminder about the return penalty fee changes, which attracted numerous responses. “So what about my returns were because FBA delivered after the promised delivery dates,” one seller asked. “Do I now get stuck with a new fee on top of the item that can’t be resold because it was delivered late and the customer decided to open it anyways just to return it?”
Amazon explained the fees, posting the following in its reminder announcement:
“The updated returns processing fee looks at product returns across a three-month period of time starting with the month the product shipped and ending two calendar months later. For example, for products shipped in June, returns will be tracked through June, July and August. The fee will only be charged if the total number of returns for the products shipped in that month exceeds the threshold set for the specific product’s fee category, which are now published on the Returns processing fee page. If the returns threshold is exceeded, the returns fee will apply to each returned unit above the threshold.
“For products that ship less than 25 units in a month, the updated returns processing fee is not applied for that month. Additionally, for products enrolled in the New Selection Program, we will waive the fee for the first 20 returned units that exceed the return rate threshold.”
One seller asked if Amazon was going to exclude returns caused by Amazon errors or items “accidentally ordered” by customers, and asked what Amazon was doing to help prevent returns abuse.
An Amazon moderator responded to questions, including the following replies:
- “If a return is the result of Amazon’s error, it will not be included in the fee calculation. This applies to shipped and returned units as well as return rates.”
- “The returns processing fee will only apply to products that have the highest return rates relative to other products in their category.”
- “The fee will only apply to products that are physically returned.”
Orders not sent through Amazon’s FBA fulfillment service are not impacted – the moderator explained: “This fee is an FBA fee, previously announced via Seller News and this thread from late last year. It is not an FBM fee.” (FBM stands for Fulfilled by Merchant).
A seller on an industry board advised sellers to make sure they placed their products in the correct category, as the high return-rates fee will vary by category.
how does one get more dinged, and dunked and bamboozled than selling on one of the marketplaces? sign up for FBA…..AND consider yourself lucky if you get near your inventory back at the end, that you calculated should be coming back