Amazon FBA Tip – Turn OFF Amazon reselling returned items

Introduction

I read this on Reddit yesterday:

“Recently Amazon implemented a process whereby items that were returned by customers could be automatically repackaged and put back in a seller’s inventory… This seems to have coincided with an uptick in the number of people being suspended for having items for sale that did not follow Amazon condition guidelines. For example items that were no longer “new” per Amazon’s guidelines being sold as “new”. I turned this setting off as soon as I found out about it, apparently it was defaulted to being on.

I myself had a 3 pack of socks returned just a few days ago, reason given was “Size too large/long”. Now my item was in a polybag with tape around it so the only way that a customer could have determined that would be to open my package… When the item was received by Amazon, they marked it as sellable and returned it to my inventory. Thankfully I saw that happen, raised my price to make it not sell and then issued an order to get it sent back to me, I am still waiting on it to come.
In light of this it seems like there is validity to the thought that some people are getting caught up in suspensions by the shipping, return and warehouse processes…”

My experience

Now this hit home because recently I had a message from a user who says the item she bought from me didn’t come with some accessories.  I responded to her and said it was odd that it didn’t, but she should return it back to Amazon.  Instead, she left me bad feedback, which hurts because I have low feedback on Amazon.

After I saw the bad feedback, I messaged her to take a picture of the box.  I haven’t heard back yet, but now I think I know what happened.  There was a return on that item (I had plenty,) and the scammer kept the accessories and returned part of the item.  When Amazon got the item, they assumed it was complete and resold it as NEW.  That’s why my buyer complained she didn’t get all the accessories.  It all made sense now.

How to turn it off

Turn off this setting here – https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/ssof/configuration/refurbish-settings.html

Conclusion

This may be worse than using co-mingled inventory.  You don’t know how Amazon has repackaged your item to sell as new.  If I was a buyer, I’d be frustrated too.  So turn this off option people!  It’ll cost you more to inspect returns now, but it’ll help your account being banned down the road for selling too many ‘not as described’ items.