Amazon returns are draining your money!
FBA Group offers a service to our clients that to may be unique to our company. The service is to accept returns on your behalf (typically damaged / defective marked returns). We have a team that opens each return to confirm things.
The points they are looking for are:
- Is the correct item being returned
- Is the item still saleable in new or used condition
- Is the item missing small parts / is only the box damaged
- Can two returns be combined to make one saleable item
- Is the item truly damaged and where did that damage occur / can we make a claim for reimbursement
We find somewhere between 70-90% of defective / damaged returns are NOT.
Once the product is determined to be saleable, we ship it in to our FBA Group storefront and list it for sale in “Used, Like New” or “Used, Very Good condition”. This is done for two primary reasons:
- It gives your Brand plausible deniability. YOU are not selling used items.
- It changes a dead loss into a revenue stream.
Our standard method of compensation is a 50 / 50 split of the proceeds, on these items. This can be negotiated differently depending on item margin, shipping cost and refurbishment cost. Our team covers the refurbishment process (possibly with some new parts provided by your Brand), new inbound shipping, customer interaction, customer complaints and the like. We also provide the proceeds as a credit on your monthly invoice, to reduce the tax consequences and paperwork required.
As part of this process, we also discovered an additional benefit.
- Roughly 3-5% of (damaged / defective) returns are fraudulent.
The customer sends back an empty box, a box filled with rocks or a knock off bought strictly to be returned as if it is the Branded item. In these cases, the team documents the theft and opens a reimbursement case with Amazon. We average a 90%+ acceptance rate by Amazon on these cases and 100% of the reimbursement goes to the Brand. Our compensation only occurs on the items we sell in used condition.
Note-
This process does not work well for:
- food / perishable items
- intimate clothing
- Adult novelty products
- Digital products
This process is not cost effective on most products selling for less than $25
We are not categorically saying the service cannot be utilizedin the above situations. A serious discussion will need to occur to determine why a particular product is an exception.