Amazon FBA seller refunds with Ben Chambers

FBA seller refunds  with Ben Chambers (operations manager) of  Refund hunter
Why do people need Refund Hunter/Refund Hunter? 
Amazon FBA seller refunds is a real issue. Often sellers often have unclaimed funds. That's because they:

Don’t have know-how
Don’t have time to get that money back

Who uses Refund Hunter?
Wide range of customers need to get FBA seller refunds:

Corporations doing $10’s of millions
Lots of big Chinese manufacturers these days.
Anyone who can’t scale out a dedicated team of people filing 1000s of cases over year (Some other people have VAs that manually file claims)

Do you support European markets?
Yes - Europe (UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain);  North American markets (USA, Mexico, Canada); and  Japan are all supported.
What are the sources of FBA seller refunds  that Amazon owes?
FBA seller refunds come from 3 basic causes:

Warehouse discrepancies (lost inventory)
Customer returns
Inbound shipments

Under that they branch into 3 fields.
Which is the biggest cause of lost in FBA seller refunds?
Lost inventory!
What’s the problem with lost inventory?
Things get lost in Amazon; Amazon requests 30 days to find product or reimburse FBA seller for it.
After 30 days, Amazon lets you raise a case.
Refund Hunter look at the inventory  (18 months of numbers)

Lost report
Found report
Reimbursements reports

Inventory adjustments report - in warehouse itself
For people who don’t have a lot of SKUs, this isn't an issue;  but if you have 4000-5000 SKUs, it's a big problem.
With say 10-20 SKUs, what are the DIY solutions to getting FBA seller refunds ?
Easiest to find is lost and damaged inventory.
Lost inventory
Simplest way - video 11 minute walk through - click here.
Ben makes a pivot table in excel. Move fields around - sum number at end.
Do It yourself for 2 months to test it.
Inventory codes - for movements and descriptions:
F - found; M - misplaced
Put in date range - downloaded report
100 lost events, 98 found events
Online is cleaner but only 50 lines
Cross reference with Inventory report - if that number isn’t equal, then some units are lost.
From there, file a ticket, and give Amazon the details.
Sometimes if sellers are just starting out selling on Amazon, Ben will teach them how to do this themselves.
Relatively DIY method

Download excel file
Create a pivot table
Contact Ben on a one-to-one basis!

Refund Hunter is for when people start scaling.
Inbound Shipments
Easiest ones to do on own.
Amazon in the last year has started cracking down on paperwork needed for inbound shipment reconciliation.
The hard thing is Amazon starting to ask for paperwork for any level of discrepancy
Manual invoices are a pain.
You'll need a Stamped inbound Amazon proof of delivery - get from logistics provider.
Ideally a scan of a piece of paper and proof
At least an electronic version
Even with just 1 item out of 2000 units, Amazon wants paperwork from manufacturer!
Obviously, this is most  valuable for bigger sellers to get off their plate, especially if they are doing several shipments a week.
Refund Hunter will try to file on behalf of sellers.
Customer Returns
Another tough area because of

Seller initiated refunds

Simple thing is detecting when customer been refunded and not returned product
Hard thing is to know whether Amazon initiated the refund or the customer

Sometimes the seller will refund things themselves

Amazon will say - you’re ineligible for a reimbursement

Some companies are aware of this and they also provide return labels to own warehouses NOT back to Amazon

For them, they already know what they are doing
Other sellers do put everything through Amazon
Especially higher volume folks

For FBA , Amazon is supposed to handle reimbursements.
However, if customer contacts seller directly, seller often refunds them directly.