Amazon Seller Support

Bulk order refunds (video)

If you are currently handling your order confirmations in bulk through feeds, but have wanted to also learn how to process refunds or cancellations in bulk, take a look at this video for some help. (time: 4:41)

Refunding orders: full or partial refunds

When you want to issue a refund for an order there are several options: full refund, partial refund, and refund concessions.

Which one you choose depends on why you are refunding and how much you want to refund.

To start any kind of refund, the order must have already had the shipment confirmed. If it is not confirmed and you will not ship the item, you can cancel the order and the buyer will not be charged, therefore no refund will be necessary. If the order was confirmed you can proceed with these steps:

1.    Log in to your seller account
2.    Go to your orders section and bring up the details of the specific order you want to refund
3.    Click the "Refund order" button on the Order Details page

To proceed with a Full refund, once you have followed the first three steps above, you would use the default page that comes up when you click "Refund order."

4.    Choose the reason for the refund
You will see several options in the drop-down, choose the most appropriate one.
5.    Write a note to the buyer in the "Memo to buyer" field
While this is optional, a personally written note provides a good customer experience
6.    Click the "Submit Full Refund" button

By following those steps you will have refunded the item and shipping amount.

To proceed with a Partial refund, once you have followed the first three steps above, follow these steps:

4.    Click the Partial Refund tab, which is under the order ID
5.    If the item is listed by name only, click the check box for the item being refunded on the right hand side; if the item details are displayed, proceed to the next step
6.    Select the "Reason for refund" from the drop-down
7.    Enter the "Amount to refund" for the Product or the Shipping or both
8.    Write a note to the buyer in the "Memo to buyer" field
While this is optional, a personally written note provides a good customer experience
9.    Click the "Submit Partial Refund" button

You do not need to enter any information in the two concession fields for either type of refund if you do not want to. A concession is an amount you can refund aside from or in addition to refunding basic order costs. More information about concessions can be found in the Help section in your seller account by searching on the word "concession."

~Aleece

Top 5 Ways to Get Answers from Seller Support Faster

There are a few things that you can do when contacting Seller Support that will help us answer your questions more quickly.

1. Log into your seller account when contacting us.
   Seller Support verifies account security information prior to providing support. If you contact us when you are logged into your seller account we can get right to answering your question.
2. Provide details, even when asking general questions.
   Provide as much detail as possible, including links to the pages you are referencing, either in your account or on Amazon.com, exact wording of an error message you may see, and specific order IDs, ASINs, and SKUs. If you have a general question, providing an example will help us understand your desired result and allow us to share the best methods for getting to that desired result.
3. If you call us about an existing case you’ve created, please mention the case number to the Seller Support associate right after we've verified your account security information.
   If we know the existing case number, we can give you the current status of the actions taken to resolve the issue. This also helps prevent duplicating research already completed for your issue. Referring to case notes can help us shorten resolution time.
4. When using the Contact Us form, take an extra moment and choose the most fitting topic and subject.
   Based on the topics and subjects you choose, your contact is routed to a Seller Support associate who is best able to help with your particular issue. 
5. Check Help pages.
   Seller Support is continually updating and improving Help documentation. Clearly stated information, tables, and videos will help you walk through common seller issues. Check out the Getting Started Guides in seller Help if you are starting out or for a refresher if you are a seasoned seller.

Follow Amazon Seller Support on Twitter

You can now follow Amazon Seller Support on Twitter!  We will be tweeting our latest blog posts, seller news, and best practices for successful selling.  Follow us at http://www.twitter.com/sellersupport.

Handling Post-Order Problems

The majority of holiday sales on Amazon.com go well, but occasionally you may encounter a problem.  Let’s look at some of the most common things that could go wrong with an order and the ways to handle them.

I:  The buyer has made a mistake with an order and wants to fix it.

Below are the most common things buyers may ask you to do to fix an order and how you can respond:

Cancel the order

• If you have not yet shipped the order, you can cancel it.  Buyers only have a 30-minute window to cancel their own orders, but you can cancel them up until the time you ship them.
• If you have already shipped the order, you can't cancel it, but you can ask the buyer to return it for a refund. It's best to wait until you have the item in hand again before you return funds to the buyer.

Upgrade the shipping

• If you have not yet shipped the order, it is up to you to decide whether to upgrade the shipping at the buyer’s request.  Sellers aren't obligated to provide a service that a buyer hasn't paid for or to accept promises of future reimbursement from buyers (sellers can't invoice buyers for extra costs, including postage).
• If you have already shipped the order, provide the buyer with information about the shipping method you used, give them a realistic timeframe for delivery, and ask them to be patient. Here's the information Amazon provides to buyers about delivery expectations: Marketplace Shipping Times.

Ship the order to a different address

• If you have not yet shipped the order, and the buyer says they cannot receive the order at the address they provided originally, you should cancel the order. The buyer can then return to Amazon.com to place a new order using the correct address.  Amazon policy requires sellers to ship only to the address provided in their Seller Account.
• If you have already shipped the order and the buyer states that they won't receive the package at the address they provided, you can’t cancel the order but it may still be possible for the buyer to get the package re-routed if they know the recipients. Packages should be routed back to you and you can then refund the buyer.

II:  The buyer hasn't received the item they ordered.

As you might expect, buyers are often anxious to receive their holiday orders and will contact you by e-mail to check on the shipment status.

• In many cases, the shipment isn't late but may not have arrived as early as the buyer hoped. It's possible that the package didn't arrive at the earliest estimated date.  In the case of "slow" packages, you will often need to explain the delivery time frames.
• If the outside delivery date has passed, the best solution is to refund the buyer. Compensating buyers for lost shipments is simply a cost of doing business.
• In the case of a "lost" item arriving in an empty box, you should contact the shipper to report the issue and ask about the options available to you. For a "late" item that may be lost, you may want to engage your carrier for assistance in locating the package and moving it along.
• For an item that never arrives and is truly lost, you may be still able to recover your costs if you purchased insurance originally. You will need to determine your own level of acceptable loss when deciding to insure packages.

III: The buyer has received the order but wants to return it.

Here are the basics on handling returns:

• As per your selling agreement, your return and refund policies must be at least as favorable as the current Amazon refund policies. You have to accept returns within the guidelines spelled out in the policy, even if the item was exactly as described and the buyer simply no longer wants it.
• Returns of new items are different from returns of damaged/defective/materially different items.
• Buyer returns should be postmarked within 30 days of the original shipment sent by the seller.
• Returns should be posted to the address included on the outside of each package. It's a good idea to also include your return address inside the package and to confirm it with the buyer before a return is shipped.
• In cases where there is nothing wrong with an item, buyers should cover the cost of return shipping.
• In cases where an item is damaged or defective, or when it is materially different than the item described on the product detail page, sellers should cover the costs of return shipping. You can do this by issuing a concession to the buyer in advance of the return.
• Sellers can charge restocking fees (up to 20%) for returned items that are not damaged, defective or materially different. These fees are meant to cover the extra handling costs to take the item back into inventory and relist it for sale.

We hope this information has been helpful.  If you have further questions about how to deal with order issues, please see our online seller Help pages.

Package Orders With Care

A great deal of orders placed in the weeks before Christmas are intended as gifts. Buyers not only expect to receive them on time, but also in excellent condition. Having to return items that got damaged in transit would not be a good buying experience any time of the year, and even less so during the holiday season.

To help protect your items and provide a world-class buying experience, follow some "best practices" when packing orders for shipment:

Package Orders Carefully

• Prepare a professional, clean package. Wipe away dust or debris that may have collected on the item while in storage. Use new shipping/packing materials. Seal all shipments tightly.
• When sending fragile items, package them using bubble wrap or polystyrene chips. Use a “Fragile” sticker or mark the package clearly.
• Put your item in its original box (if you still have it), then put it in a slightly larger box and fill out the gap with paper, polystyrene or cardboard. Shake the box and add more packaging if there's movement.
• Include a packing slip in the package. You can print one from the Manage Orders page.

Label Packages Clearly

• Use a complete shipping address. You can cut an address label from your printed packing slip and attach it to the package.
• Use a complete return address, typewritten or printed in a neat and legible manner, on all packages.
• Orders may arrive sooner if you use the nine-digit ZIP Code associated with the buyer's shipping address. You can find the extra four digits for any U.S. shipping address at www.usps.com.
• The use of metered postage is recommended. Avoid excessive postage and the use of small-denomination postage stamps.

Preparing your packages with care and professionalism makes good sense. Happy holiday selling!

Changes “Behind the Scenes” for Selling on Amazon

Every day there are new ideas being explored for the Amazon.com web site, and every day teams of people are working hard to make the site “a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.” As a seller, you are part of the result of these efforts. There are also people working to keep the seller business running while they make incremental changes to support all seller businesses on Amazon.com.

Here are just a few of those incremental changes that have happened recently.

INVENTORY REPORT: This is a tool in Seller Central that has been available to sellers who sell non-media products. There was a glitch causing anything with “zero” inventory to not be included in the report and many of you told us those were actually the products you needed to know about. That has been changed and now the inventory report is a list of all your products with the inventory, even if it is at zero. If this was something on your wish list or something new to you, check it out at the Inventory tab in Seller Central or click on the following link to learn more about Inventory Reports.

DISBURSEMENT INFORMATION: In order to provide more specific information about your payments account, the Payments pages have been changed to display revenue, reserves and what is available for disbursement, rather than a total settlement as in the past. There is new information about the account summary and reserves here in Seller Central or here on Amazon.com

ONE ACCOUNT IS ALL YOU NEED: We’ve simplified registration so that when signing up for the Selling on Amazon program you only need one account to list products – both media and non-media. Media is generally books, music, videos and DVDs and non-media is everything else open for selling on Amazon.com. To get started, or for more information, go to Amazonservices.com to sign up today.

There is still a choice to make, though, because two pricing options are available. “Sell a little” is for those of you who don’t have many products to sell (typically when you expect less than 40 orders a month) and “Sell a lot” is for those who are ready to take the professional seller route (“pro” account), no matter what you have to sell. There are some advanced options for detail page creation and bulk upload with the pro account. Don’t worry, if you choose one today you can switch later! For more information before you choose, check out the tabs on Amazonservices.com to see How it Works, to learn about Getting Prepared, and to read What Customers Say.

Condition Guidelines for Music, Videos and DVDs -- Cover Art and Liner Notes: We are working to reduce confusion about what is allowed or not in listings. Until now, sellers have only been permitted to list Music and Video & DVD products that are missing cover art, liner notes or other original inclusions on the Amazon.com website when granted an exception by category managers. The change made recently allows all sellers listing in the Music and Video & DVD categories to offer these items. In doing so, we hope to meet buyer demand for media content while also setting clear expectations for sellers about the used products they may list on Amazon.com.

For Music CDs and cassettes, and for Video tapes and DVDs, we have revised our condition guidelines to state that products missing cover art, liner notes or other original inclusions may be listed as "Used – Acceptable." These products may not be listed in any other "Used" condition, and they may not be listed in any "Collectible" condition. Check out the Condition Guidelines for more specifics.

Support Updates: Our Seller Support team is always fine tuning and making changes to improve your experience. This is a quick reminder about how to take advantage of that help – you may find something new as well! There are links on most tool pages to “Learn More” that take you to help pages. In the Help pages there is additional information worth browsing and reading as you optimize your business. When you really need help, don’t hesitate to use the links to Seller Support and choose either the email or “click-to-call” option where you input a phone number and the support team calls you back.

Keep Safety and Security in Mind

Amazon wants to be the safest place to buy and sell online. Here are some things you can do to help us in that goal:

• Only accept payment through Marketplace Payments by Amazon for your orders. Transactions that are conducted outside of the Marketplace Payments by Amazon system are not protected by the Amazon.com A-to-z Guarantee.
• Ship orders only to addresses provided to you by Amazon. If you are asked to ship to a different address, cancel the order and ask the buyer to place a new order with the preferred address selected.
• Learn about “spoof” emails and how to report them to us immediately.
• Change your password regularly.
• Consider setting up a separate bank account for disbursements from your Marketplace Payments account.
• Amazon.com never asks you to verify sensitive information via e-mail. Submit such information only when completing an order on our website, registering for Marketplace Payments by Amazon, or contacting us directly through our online forms.
• Review the terms of our online Privacy Notice and our other Privacy & Security resources.

Keeping Your Account Active on Amazon.com

With the holidays approaching rapidly, this might be a good time to do a review of your business on Amazon.com to be sure you know how to manage to the performance metrics. Falling short on these can lead to suspension of sales, and it is much easier to stay ahead of that than to dig out later. For more information about the basics, see Putting it All Together

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 he number one customer metric is, of course, feedback. Keep your business on Amazon.com active and vital by ensuring that the Amazon.com buyers experience the same great customer service no matter who is selling. That means the product is as advertised, it arrives on time and in great shape, and if there are any questions about the transaction the service is fast, fair and friendly. The path to trouble is when part of that fails. Feedback is the ultimate measure of the experience for each individual buyer, but our systems also measure other aspects of your business practices on Amazon that are indicators of problems along the sale-order-fulfillment-adjustment lifecycle.

To avoid performance actions – warning, suspension and block – manage your business in a way that includes “reading” the cues from the Customer Metrics in Seller Central. Go to that report page as often as you do the inventory and orders page, which should be often. You’ll be maintaining current inventory, updating product details, managing orders, shipping, responding to buyers, confirming fulfillment and making adjustments when necessary – a daily minimum check is advised. Add to this reading feedback, responding to claims and chargebacks, reviewing stats for other customer metrics, and checking for performance notifications to monitor the health of your business; this will better prepare you to make fast business adjustments as needed.

Do not wait for those warnings from Amazon Seller Performance. For example, our audit might find that you have a high rate of refunds occurring on your orders. Reading feedback regularly can help you fine-tune your business practices. Although we encourage buyers to do product reviews separately, repeated comments in buyer feedback about the quality of the product and having to return it for a refund may be about the product, but they also reflect poorly on your business choices. Perhaps you want to find a different supplier for that product. Or if you find that you are making too many refunds because the product wasn’t what was expected, check to make sure you’ve listed your product correctly.

For late shipping, the same type of process applies. Don’t wait for a warning or suspension that says you have too many orders shipping late. Check for orders daily, be aware of the service level requested (standard or expedited), ship to those service levels, and confirm your fulfillment quickly. Late shipping and high pre-fulfillment cancellation rates indicate that your company is not providing the customer service Amazon.com buyers expect. It may be due to problems in your shipping systems, running out of inventory, or problems with your fulfillment upload. Notice these before buyers and Amazon systems do to avoid problems.

Beyond the measures on the Customer Metrics page, understand the policies for doing business on Amazon.com found in your seller Help Pages. Even if you’ve been selling a while, take a moment for a refresher. More importantly, make sure everyone on your team knows the policies. You don’t want someone on your customer service team saying that a buyer can only refund 10 days after the sale when you’ve agreed to take refunds up to 30 days. And you don’t want someone in the marketing group sending emails about your website when such diverting of customers is prohibited.

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tuff happens. You’re a great seller, but something has happened that has triggered a performance notice. Don’t Panic! Read the notification with the Customer Metrics and policies in mind. Be proactive, not defensive. The point of the warnings is to alert you to needed corrections and first suspensions are a “time out” so your company can get back to green.

Always respond to the notifications professionally and with information related to the business at hand. This helps the investigator at the other end of that email queue evaluate the situation. They do not know everything about every business, so the more precise you can be, the more smoothly the process works. Got a suspension and didn’t see warnings? Check your settings in Seller Central and your email processes at your end to be sure there is nothing interrupting the flow of communication.

If a Plan of Action is required, fairly evaluate your business on Amazon and determine where you can improve to avoid the same issue in the future. Not just a band-aid, but a real change that means it won’t happen again. This will improve your chances of staying active and being successful in the future.

Remember: the goal is a great buying experience. We all need buyers to trust buying online to increase business for everyone. Look at this as a way to improve your business or find process gaps you may not have noticed before. Staying on top of ALL the business metrics, including customer metrics, knowing the policies, and handling issues proactively are the keys to staying active on Amazon.com – whether at the holidays or all year round. Be prepared!

Optimizing for Search and Browse

The power of the Amazon.com web site is the discoverability of products. When buyers can find what they want, that influences conversion from looking to buying.

The technology and philosophy behind that power is the use of the single Product Detail Page  combined with strong search and browse capabilities.

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hese are the two primary methods for finding products on the Amazon.com Web site and we encourage sellers to optimize their listings to take advantage of both. Utilizing the functionality for both search and browse are especially important for success in selling in the various non-media departments.

Search is the primary method buyers use to locate products. They search by entering words in the search box, either on the home page or on any other page on Amazon.com. These are typically words that they think of as related to the product they want to find. The Amazon system matches relevant products based on those words and returns a page of search results.

When listing your products for sale, well-chosen search terms can increase the visibility and potential for sales. The Amazon system already searches against the words in the title, brand/designer/manufacturer/manufacturer part number, and standard product ID (UPC, EAN, GTIN) so there is no need to repeat those. Instead, think of all the different words a buyer might use to find your product.

The system does not search bullets and descriptions, so those are often words to consider when creating search terms. If you sell pillow shams, for instance, you will include that in the title. It is relevant to use the word case or pillow case or pillowcase as a search term – you know what buyers want for your products!

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ere are some tips for optimizing your search terms. Relevant is the key to the best buyer experience. The faster a buyer can find what they are looking for, the more likely they are to make a purchase, especially if it’s exactly what they wanted.

1.   Utilize all the search terms you can for every product

2.   Use detailed product names

3.   Do not re-use words in the search term fields

4.   Don't use quotation marks in search terms

5.   Use only relevant search terms

There are also opportunities for disappointing. For example, if a buyer searches for a black backpack and you’ve included black in your search terms for the blue version, this is a poor experience when a blue backpack surfaces in their search. That isn’t what they were looking for. However, if you know that many people think of your blue version as aquamarine, but that’s not the true title, then aquamarine is a relevant search term.

6.   Use legitimate alternate spellings and synonyms

Legitimate spelling differences are relevant too. Is the name of your product racket but it might be searched racquet? That’s a good search term. Or a synonym might help if your product is a pair of slacks but someone might search pants and/or chinos, for example.

7.           When entering several words as a search term, put them in the most logical order

8.           Minimize use of abbreviations

9.           Do not use misspellings as search terms. Amazon.com's search engine compensates for common customer misspellings and also offers corrective suggestions

10.       When entering several words as a search term entry, you don't need to use punctuation - our system ignores commas. Just make sure to put spaces between your words if you want them treated as separate terms.

These are typically words that they think of as related to the product they want to find. The Amazon system matches relevant products based on those words and returns a page of search results. There are more ideas about search terms in Seller Central Help at the topic Use Search & Browse.

If you aren't getting the sales you expect, keep experimenting with your product names and search terms. To determine what words will be useful for your product, do a search first on Amazon.com yourself. If you get a high number of matches, try other words to see if you can narrow the results.

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rowse is another way buyers find products and narrow the results. Most people are fairly familiar with the mechanics of search. Where Amazon.com really adds value is in the browse structure presented to the buyer.

Thousands of merchants sell millions of products on Amazon.com. To help customers find products easily, we developed a detailed product hierarchy or browse-tree structure. Customers refine by category and subcategory links until they reach the most specific product type.

Amazon.com uses your Item Type Keywords to classify your products under the correct browse nodes. In order for your products to continue to appear when customers refine their category options, they must be classified correctly to the deepest level. For example: This means your pasta pots should be classified as pasta-pots and not just pots or not just as Kitchen. Or your sun dresses classified as sundresses and not just dresses or Apparel, and further classification can put those into more specific classifications for junior, kids, and women’s.

Each step along a customer's browse path is called a browse node. Amazon assigns your products to one or more browse nodes based on how you classify your products using the terms in the Item Classification Guides (ICGs). These are category-specific documents that provide you with the proper Item Type Keywords and attribute values for setting up your products. These values take advantage of the browse structure for categories on Amazon.com. See latest classification Guide.

You describe your products instead of assigning them to a particular browse node, you do not need to reclassify your products if the browse structure changes. This is an important difference between Amazon.com and other online marketplaces. The more accurate and thorough your classifications, the better Amazon.com can place your products in relevant browse nodes across the site.

Example:

For more information about this, check out the Home & Garden Category Style Guide. More of these to come for other categories soon! If you are looking for other ideas try any of these features described at Use Search & Browse, or for more tips go to the Increase Sales help topic in Seller Central.