You have started the process of returning an item on Amazon and one of the first things you get is an email saying you’ve only been refunded a penny, which is way less than what you paid and you would like to know why and if you’re going to get the rest of your money back.
The short answer is, yes, you will get you money back, when we get the item back and check it in. So why the $.01 refund?
There are two types of sellers on Amazon;
- Amazon. Also known as Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA). They have their own warehouses stocked with products and those are the PRIME products you see advertised. Being the behemoth of a company they are, Amazon refunds money on items returned to them BEFORE they receive it and check it in. Even if the item is broken or you send something completely different back, they refund before they get it in most cases. They can afford to do this because they buy products in bulk at a discounted rate and they don’t have to pay the (up to) 20% fee they charge to the merchants who sell on their site.
- Merchants. Also known as Fulfilled By Merchant (FBM). These are privately owned small businesses that warehouse their own products and sell them on Amazon and ship them out to you. Also known as “the little guy.” Amazon charges a fee to to merchants who sell products on their website that can be over 20%.
When you return an item to a Merchant, it goes back to that merchant and starts an automatic process with Amazon. Amazon allows many reasons for why a buyer will not get a full refund when they return an item, such as restocking fee or damaged item fee. However, if a merchant does not refund ANY money on a return, Amazon refunds the full amount back to the buyer when the tracking shows the item was delivered back to the merchant. Which means a buyer (not you of course) can ship back an empty box and automatically get a full refund.
By refunding $.01 we stop the automated refund process. Why? Because about 20% of the returns we receive are not eligible for a full refund. Why? Here are a few reasons;
- Item didn’t arrive. The tracking shows it was delivered, but we didn’t get it.
- The package arrived with something other than the product that was sold. This happens when a customer is returning more than one item they bought online and mixes up the shipping labels.
- The item is returned damaged.
- The item is returned missing components that came with it originally.
- The item is returned used and cannot be resold.
- The buyer bought the item by mistake and we cannot recoup what we paid in shipping.
The main things is we are not trying to frustrate you or make you think you’re not getting a refund. We are a small company playing in a big pond and we are doing our best to get you taken care of and we want you to be happy.
Hopefully this sheds some light onto the return process of Amazon and puts your mind at ease.