Amazon announced on Tuesday the availability of a new portal for sellers to review FBA inventory “reimbursable opportunities.” Using the Inventory Defect and Reimbursement (IDR) portal, sellers can now “more efficiently” manage all of their inventory-related defects and reimbursements within warehouse lost, warehouse damage, and customer returns, “in one convenient place.”
Specifically, Amazon said the portal would provide the following information:
- Complete visibility into these defects and their status
- Detailed information for each of these defects, including type, creation date, actions taken, reasons, and current status
- A comprehensive view of these defects from multiple reports and policy checks to identify reimbursable opportunities
- Insights into defect frequency and the resolution rationale
Note that the portal doesn’t include defects under missing from inbound, removals or warehouse disposals.
In a presentation at the Amazon Accelerate 2024 seller conference in October 2024, Amazon said it had heard from sellers that they wanted one integrated view of inventory reimbursement. Currently, it is cumbersome to understand a reimbursable opportunity; raise a claim; and comprehend Amazon’s decision about the reimbursement claim.
Amazon said it was launching the IDR portal in part because sellers were turning to external services or tools for help with reimbursements.
Niti Kalra, Amazon’s Senior Manager of Product, Defect Prevention and Inventory Reconciliation, provided a description of the portal in her presentation, including the “resolve page” that includes all the discrepancies that have either been reconciled, resolved by Amazon, or were deemed ineligible. “This tool completely will eliminate the need for you to refer to multiple reports to understand the open discrepancies and the details,” she said. “This will give you a clear view of the SKU, the defect’s nature, the reimbursed amount, and the method of reimbursement.
“If you disagree with our resolution, you can always raise a case with us, and that is where you will have all the detailed information required to raise a claim,” she said.
Amazon published the following video of the presentation on YouTube (the part about the IDR portal begins after minute 20:00):
The launch of the portal comes soon after Amazon announced a controversial policy changing how it reimburses sellers for inventory it loses, which will take effect on March 10, 2025.
After the policy change was announced last month, Modern Retail interviewed a branded seller and a former Amazon corporate employee who sold on Amazon for 5 years and now offers consulting to sellers, to get their take. The former said with the policy change, he expects reimbursement to drop as much as 70%, and the latter estimated reimbursement for lost Amazon inventory to drop over 42%. The publication also interviewed a company that helps Amazon merchants with reimbursement claims.