Hi Everyone - Used to post occasionally at the other place, did not move over once they started the new forum. Had no idea this place existed until I found it in Google. Sorry, this will probably be long.
We have been having an issue with dimension remeasurements. A lot of our items are pretty close to the threshold of going into oversize (3rd side is 6 or 7 inches, other 2 sides are over 8). So we end up with some items in oversize that don’t belong there. About 8 months ago we had one of our more popular SKUs suddenly show up in oversize. We open a case, it comes back as still in oversize. We fight, send images, etc., they won’t relent. We decide to go the Bezos email route, we send images with measuring tape showing the size, show the size of box we ship in, etc. The response we get is basically that their machine is still registering as oversize and to kick rocks. Our items are in lightweight poly bags and our guess is that the machine was catching the poly bag (which of course does not affect the size box it can be shipped in). So we figure every couple months we would try again.
About a month ago we open a new case, we notice a few days later that the fees on our product have gone down and probably a week later, they finally respond to the case with a measurement that puts it in regular size (the place it belongs). In the past it was really simple. Once the measurement gets fixed, they reimburse all of the orders. We have hundreds of orders that we were charged incorrect fees on. But in the email they list the reimbursement and its for less than 30 orders. We respond back and explain that they owe reimbursement on hundreds more orders and give them an example. This of course puts us in the circle of death with SS as we try to get anyone to understand the issue instead of just repeating back what the measurements are and it doesn’t result in reimbursement. Eventually someone says that we respond again to the case that they might take away our ability to open cases with SS.
Fast forward to last week and this exact same thing happens again with another SKU. We open a case to have remeasured. The fees update and then a week later they respond to the case and say we aren’t owed a reimbursement. We respond back and explain they owe reimbursements on hundreds of orders but it’s going the exact same way as the last case. We have looked at orders and can see they were charging us the incorrect fees for the entire month the SKU was active. We provide them examples. They still won’t reimburse.
Does anyone know if something changed drastically to Amazon’s policy or what could be happening here? This process used to be one of the things that actually wasn’t that difficult to deal with over there so it’s a little jarring having these issues.
This is going to be a tough nut to crack. Ever think of using a shrink bag for these items? That will get rid of the fudge factor Amazon is using to steal from you on the fees.
Hi - The items come from the manufacturer in poly bags. Would be a net loss after labor if we put shrink wrap around each item unfortunately, even if we factor in this money that Amazon has just decided to keep after they overcharged. Never used to happen this way. They’d automatically refund every order with the incorrect fee.
I hate myself (a little bit more) for what I’m about to suggest…but have you considered posting publicly about this on Amazon’s social media or BBB page? Sadly, there have been a few situations where public shaming has escalated the issue to the right eyeballs.
We’ve considered it. I think we’d be worried about some sort of retribution or something deep in the Amazon seller agreement that they can take action against your account. We’ve thought about leaking to some journalist that might find “Amazon straight out stealing from small businesses” an interesting story. Since it has happened to us twice, I’m guessing there are hundreds of others or more that have had similar issues.
Is it possible to get the manufacturer to shrink bag it for you? It would save you on storage as well as possibly fulfillment fees. If the manufacturer does it as part of the final production process it usually does not cost much if they have the equipment to do it already.
There are also FBA prep services out there that can do this for you, I’ve never used any of these services but there’s tons of them out there, if you do your research and call around you can get an idea of how much it’ll cost to have this done. While this may be difficult/costly to do yourself, a company that does this professionally and has the right equipment/procedures to do it can do it a lot more efficiently.
I think in the long run fighting amazon to constantly correct their issues is going to be a losing game, especially for your sanity. If you can’t find a way to prevent the issue from reoccurring, or the cost to adjust the packaging isn’t supported by your margins on the product (and you can’t hike prices to cover the additional costs), it could be a case where the product might just not be worth selling on Amazon thru FBA if the cost/hassle to do so is > the reward.
As far as retaliation goes you’re right to have those concerns. They can issue you a section 3 suspension with little explanation/recourse. There have been a few claims on the official seller forums where sellers said they were retaliated against for saying bad about amazon the forums. (Suspended for “inappropriate communication with the amazon community”).
Many are the products for which we’ve had to revamp for no-better reason than to ease their passage through the AFN (“Amazon Fulfillment Network” aka FBA/MCF).
How could this be? You’re only making 5 cents a unit profit? That’s all this should cost to do, if you were to do it yourself + valuable time of course.
I literally made 30K shrink wrapped 2 packs myself in my basement when we first started on Amazon over a 2 year period. Then, we moved that responsibility over to our manufacturer as we succeeded.
Based on stepping up a rung on the fee list, I can’t believe it’s cheaper to just let this go.
They wouldn’t be suspended with the reason “because you publicly complained about us,” it would be a generic suspension citing other things Amazon finds on their account when manually reviewing it.
It could easily be justified by saying they reviewed the account because of these claims being made, and they found the seller was actually guilty of violating whatever policy and suspend them for that.
We ship 20kish units to Amazon a month. While this has got our attention because its Amazon just straight stealing money from our company, the total amount involved is around $3k. And it’s not happening every month so even that $3k is spread over an amount of time greater than one month. When factoring in labor cost of my employees to shrink wrap (or getting an outside company doing it), hard to see how this wouldn’t cost us quite a bit more than $3k. And probably some unhappy employees having to shrink wrap 1k items a day. They are also odd shaped items that could be damaged if shrink wrapped too tightly. The poly bags aren’t loose and they are taped so there is no guarantee it would stop the problem either. Was just a guess on our part that the bag somehow caused the incorrect oversize designation but no guarantee that was the problem.
Thank you to everyone for the suggestions. Sounds like we just need to factor that going forward, Amazon is just going to overcharge us on a SKU occasionally and never refund the money. I think we probably will just be more diligent about going through our listings more often to check for items that are being overcharged. So if something is incorrectly put in Oversize, we catch it quicker and there are less orders to refund.
I mean arbitration is also an option, and is outlined in the seller agreement. I know of at least one seller here that I believe is in arbitration now.
I was wondering about how that was going just a few hours ago, but I decided not to PM or ask for an update in the SAS thread until he makes a response on the decision to proceed.
Ok, with that information that changes things a bit.
Let’s say the 3K they steal from you happens every 3 months – you ship 60K units in that time frame, that’s a nickel per unit on average. You can just consider that the cost of doing business with FBA.
I wouldn’t bother chasing after it. Getting better with catching it quicker so you can get it corrected quicker is absolutely the right way to go. If they don’t refund you on the overcharged units so be it.
If you’re so inclined, save all your records for overcharges, and go to arbitration with them if/when you’re done selling on Amazon.
We used to offer our product in a very luxurious sand blasted bag which customers loved and then the measurement changes took effect where amazon changed the size tier limits And our profit was cut by half due to increased cost of shipping.
Amazon charges the full corner to corner size of the packaging EVEN though when they ship the units - the packaging was flexible so the cost to actually ship would be on lower size tier (always).
So then we had to go through the process of literally stuffing our product in box packaging which actually restricts our units but also is the only thing that compresses them enough to abide by the stupid measurements. But unit integrity often gets compromised as our items are not supplements.
Stupidassshit - And yes we had that happen to us too where amazon just refuses to reimburse for money owed - after multiple emails back and forth we just took the L
Straight up stealing but then again I’m ruthless af when it comes to the amazon buyer side as long as its FBA.
Selling on amazon is being in an abusive relationship with a Psychopath.
Wouldn’t it be nice if 60% of Amazon’s sales on the site and even more of the profit (when PPC is considered) banded together and went on strike against Amazon and just threatened to all shut our listings off on a certain day if we aren’t heard…
I don’t think it’d be possible to get even 0.1% of total GMV in sellers to go along with that.
Let’s put it this way, there’s roughly 140K active subreddits, 7K went “dark” to protest that API change a few months ago (which effectively shut down many popular 3rd party apps). That’s about 5%, and people who run subreddits generally don’t make any money in doing so. Organizing random people online doesn’t do much.
I know, trust me. Money is the most important thing in life. It’s sad that sellers will choose business as usual over trying to make a point and hurt Amazon where it hurts most - the wallet…
Imagine what would happen to the stock price if a movement like this started… Amazon would be crippled financially without all of us idiots lining their pockets with PPC $.
OK, pulling out would be hard thing to get everyone together on but pulling their marketing could be more attractive and almost as damaging to Amazon.
That’s their cash cow.
Anyway, just making some points here. I know it’s not gonna happen.
Hitting PPC is actually possible. If an influencer campaign started against it to educate buyers that sponsored products are NOT a good deal (which is ACTUALLY true a lot of times), and maybe even encourage people to click but not buy those products, it would drastically reduce the efficacy of PPC campaigns (more clicks, less conversions) which would in turn encourage sellers to abandon them.
It’s also a legitimate message that can gain momentum, as a lot of people are starting to get tired of being bombarded with ads everywhere.
Right now, I believe this is the best path, but continue to document when Amazon refuses to reimburse for their errors.
You might consider setting a weekly review reminder, in whatever way you like to remind yourself of routine tasks: schedule it, set an alarm, add to a subordinate’s to do list as a recurring task, etc.
Sadly, there have been a few situations where public shaming has escalated the issue to the right eyeballs.
