Recovering Fees for Online Vendors on Amazon
By John W. Collins,
Co-Founder & CEO — chargeguard
Paying fees is an inevitable part of the process when doing business on Amazon. Since Amazon’s systems are far from perfect, the fees they charge are sometimes erroneous.
Mistaken or not, these penalties can add up to substantial totals, which constitutes a threat to any online seller or vendor. Since Amazon is the largest online platform of its kind, most online sellers and vendors can’t afford to dispense with this marketplace.
The good news is that, while recovering erroneous charges from Amazon is difficult, it isn’t impossible — experts in these negotiations can earn refunds of up to 70% of the amount Amazon garnished. These increased profits can be used in a variety of ways, from boosting the business’s lead-generation budget to delivering bonuses to high-performing employees.
At a time when many experts predict a recession, these additional funds could even make the difference between an online retailer’s termination or survival.
What Fees Does Amazon Charge?
Amazon charges many different fees for everything from shipping the wrong number of items to postal carriers delivering your shipments late. Even if you packaged your shipments beautifully and your products arrived in perfect condition, Amazon will charge you a fee if you didn’t follow their specifications to the letter.
Some of these fees can come as a surprise to the sellers and vendors since the company doesn’t discuss them clearly in its retailer-facing materials. Moreover, Amazon often changes what it charges for these various fees, meaning that the amount you thought you were going to pay for fulfillment services can fluctuate from one month to the next.
Retailers can minimize fees by implementing tight shipping practices, following all of Amazon’s operational compliance specifications, and exercising clean invoicing. Yet even these measures will not be enough to stem the tide of erroneous fees.
The Challenge of Recovering Fees from Amazon
Recovering refunds from Amazon is difficult for a number of reasons. First of all, Amazon no longer accepts certain forms of evidence that many retailers would naturally rely on to support their cases, such as bills of lading and proof of delivery.
Second, Amazon’s coders sometimes make errors. For instance, their system might report incorrect information about the size of the packaging they received at their warehouse. If the package size was incorrect, their system automatically generates a fee, but they will still remain committed to their mistakes and refuse to accept the correct information from the sellers’ or vendors’ records.
If that wasn’t already enough, time can be of the utmost importance. In some cases, Amazon has tight deadlines for when cases must be logged in order to recover fees. For instance, there’s only a 30-day window for protesting chargebacks. When a single case drags on for months or even years, the refund-recovery agent must log repeated requests at strict intervals to make sure the case doesn’t expire. And on top of this, Amazon is always changing its policies and procedures for contesting fees.
Never Fear, Help Is Here
Not many retailers have the time and resources to master all of these difficulties once, much less keep abreast of Amazon’s ever-changing guidelines. Online retailers who use Amazon should therefore consider enlisting professional help in recovering charges.
Skilled experts have the know-how, experience, and proven track records to work with Amazon in a congenial manner on sellers’ and vendors’ behalf. These refund-recovery professionals not only understand Amazon’s policies and procedures inside and out but also analyze particular cases expediently and act strategically to promote their success from the very beginning. What’s more, they know how to get creative and stay patient when a given case runs into the unexpected in Amazon’s byzantine and confusing system.
Combining their high level of expertise with this kind of hard work can net significant rewards. When cases are successful, Amazon will sometimes give refunds surprisingly quickly, and the retailer will receive a deposit in only a few days.
The stakes are too high for any online retailer to accept Amazon’s fees as-is or leave them to chance. Instead, let those who know where to look for hidden fees uncover them for you. The outcome will be increased profits that help your business grow.
