It’s inevitable in any warehouse that there will be losses, and damage will occur to stock held. And when you send your stock to an Amazon fulfilment centre (FC) as part of FBA, there’s every chance of a problem. Amazon clearly does take care of your stock. But the scale of the operation is huge. There will be problems. The question is how you deal with it.
Amazon FBA is a useful service that many sellers embrace. You send your items to an Amazon FC. That could be here in the UK or overseas. And then Amazon fulfils your stock as if it was their own. There are plenty of benefits. Amazon FBA items can be bought by those loyal and spendy Amazon Prime buyers that Bezos loves.
Also, it is low stress for you too as a seller. If you have the margins, it’s an excellent service to get your products to buyers with minimum intervention for you. If you get FBA right, it can be a most desirable scheme for the well organised retailer.
But it’s also worth noting that if you should suffer lost and damaged items in the Amazon FBA programme that you need to do the running. Amazon won’t tell you. It’s worth baking this into your monthly routine: run the report for yourself to ensure the you’re not out of pocket.
And remember that Amazon won’t tip you off. You need to do this proactively. Run the report to find out what you’re owed. Yes, it’s rather shoddy that Amazon doesn’t help you out as a matter of courtesy. And the time limits on making a claim are a bit insulting. I spoke to an FBA seller last summer who didn’t know about these regs and realised that he was many thousands of pounds out of pocket. Don’t be him.
This page will give you some help about running the reports.
