Amazon's new feature is under fire! Let sellers give away products for free?

Amazon recently launched a very radical feature. Although it is convenient for buyers, it greatly increases the cost of sellers. Sellers have been criticizing it in the background news page, with nearly 500 dislikes!

The new policy is a prepaid return label program for self-delivered orders. When consumers who purchase self-delivered products want to return or exchange them, Amazon will provide non-return refunds and free exchanges for eligible self-delivered orders.

Amazon said that the return and after-sales problems of self-delivery have always troubled consumers and sellers. In the past, Amazon's return policy for self-delivery orders was only a prepaid return label plan. Now, with the new policy, in addition to return refunds, Amazon also allows consumers to directly refund without returning the goods. At the same time, for self-delivery orders that do not meet the non-return refund conditions, consumers can also choose to directly exchange the goods, without having to apply for a return first and then place a new order as before.

In fact, this policy contains two contents, one is non-refundable return , and the other is free exchange policy. Here we will also talk about the old return policy prepaid return label plan.

Self-delivery prepaid return policy

For all professional plan sellers and individual plan sellers who have registered for the "Prepaid Return Label" plan, the platform will automatically approve return applications that comply with Amazon's policies. After approval, the seller will provide customers with prepaid return shipping labels through "Buy Shipping Service". After the seller prints the return label by himself and affixes it to the product and sends it out, the label fee will be automatically deducted from the seller's account.

Prepaid returns will not be refunded directly to customers, but Amazon will track the progress of the shipment. If the seller does not refund within two working days after receiving the return, Amazon will automatically deduct the corresponding amount from the seller's account and refund the customer . A reminder: the above two fees "prepaid return label fee" and "order refund" are only executed after the seller receives the return. If the shipment is lost, the seller needs to handle it separately.

The policy stipulates that all professional plan sellers are required to participate in this prepaid return label program . Only certain categories can be exempted. Here is the official exemption list.

The categories that can be exempted are actually very limited, and most sellers will be forced to register for the prepaid return program. However, this old program has a bad reputation among both sellers and buyers. It is equivalent to Amazon intervening in the simple return process, using labels to disgust both buyers and sellers, and the improvement of the return experience is very limited.

Because of this, Amazon has launched two new return methods: refund without return and free exchange.

No Return Refund and Free Exchange Policy

The non-return refund is easy to understand. The seller will directly refund the customer without the customer returning the product. Of course, the conditions are also very strict. The buyer is not allowed to prove that the product was incomplete or defective when it was received, or that the ordered product does not match the page, before applying for a non-return refund.

The threshold for exchange is very low, which is quite controversial. First of all, as long as the product meets the above old policy "prepaid return label plan" that can be returned, you can now choose to exchange it.

There are two situations for exchange. One is that there is no problem with the product, and the seller needs to send the product back for exchange. The other is that the product is incomplete, defective, or does not match the description, and you can exchange it for free (no return or exchange)

I won’t discuss the latter situation, which is no different from a direct full refund. The advantage is that a new one will be delivered, and there will be no loss in sales this time.

The former situation is what sellers complain about the most. As long as the customer initiates the application for exchange, Amazon will automatically approve it if it meets the conditions. Then the seller needs to send the intact product to the customer first, and the product needs to be returned only after the customer confirms receipt.

This step is outrageous. Although it is very beneficial to customers, sellers have no way to control customer returns. If the customer is unwilling to send back the product, or sends back a used or damaged product, or even garbage, it is possible.

This situation has increased the seller's return costs several times. There have been hundreds of comments in the seller forum, causing Amazon to close the entrance to the forum posts. If this exchange method is abused, customers can get new products almost without restrictions.

Currently, the plan will be officially implemented from April 15. Now that the opposition voices are so strong, it is not ruled out that Amazon may make some modifications to the policy or restrict buyers from exchanging goods in the future. Those who are able must go to the official seller forum to speak out. We cannot let Amazon blindly please consumers and harm the interests of sellers!

I will continue to track future changes to this policy. If there is any new information, I will inform everyone in our group as soon as possible. During this special period, it is important to get the latest information quickly and accurately.