Amazon implements a protection policy for all buyers who purchase goods on its platform. If a buyer is not satisfied with the goods or services sold by a third-party seller, he or she can initiate an Amazon A-to-Z Guarantee Claim (AZ claim for short). Once an AZ claim is established, the order will be counted in the order defect rate, thus affecting the overall status of the account. Although AZ claims are difficult to avoid completely, it does not mean that sellers have no way out after encountering AZ claims. Some sellers are not familiar with Amazon’s rules and will choose to refund the buyer as soon as possible. In fact, once the refund is completed, Amazon will automatically determine that the AZ claim responsibility lies with the seller, and the order will still be counted in the order defect rate.
In general, as long as the return process goes smoothly and the seller refunds the buyer in a timely manner, the buyer can no longer initiate an AZ claim. Because AZ claims are more difficult than general return and exchange issues, it is recommended that sellers solve other problems such as returns in a timely manner to avoid further deterioration of the situation. If the store does not have many orders, then as long as there are one or two AZ claims, the account will face the risk of being reviewed, frozen, and banned from selling. For AZ claims that have already occurred, sellers need to follow up and reply within 7 days. At this time, you can refer to the following process for processing.
(1) Check the reasons for the complaint provided by the buyer, proactively contact the buyer to resolve the issue (such as agreeing to a return request, etc.), request the other party to cancel the complaint, and provide the buyer with two or more solutions.
(2) Wait for 1 day, promptly check whether your listing has any problems such as description discrepancies and image discrepancies, and follow up to check the delivery time, logistics delivery information, receipt time and location, etc., and also be aware of your own product quality and return rate to reduce the risk of receiving AZ claims in the future.
(3) If the seller receives a reply from the buyer after 1 day, you can persuade the other party to cancel the complaint by sending coupons, etc., and then refund the money. If you do not receive a reply from the buyer or no agreement is reached, the seller needs to reply to Amazon in a timely manner. Here, we introduce a reply template provided by Amazon for sellers for readers’ reference.
At 19:21 on May 10, 2019, Store A received an email from buyer Mike. In the email, Mike claimed that he was dissatisfied with the product and requested a return. The customer service staff of store A responded at 7:09 on May 11, apologizing for the inconvenience caused by this order and agreeing to Mike’s return application. Store A also proposed to provide a partial refund to avoid the inconvenience caused by the return, but did not receive a reply from the buyer. On June 1, 2019, Mike initiated an AZ claim, claiming that the seller did not provide a prepaid label. The customer service staff of store A contacted the buyer again at 17:51 on June 1, deeply apologizing for the inconvenience caused by the return, and said that they could provide a freight subsidy after the goods were returned, and asked the other party to send the goods back, but did not receive a reply from the buyer. At 6:51 on June 2, the customer service staff of store A confirmed the information with Mike again, but still did not receive a reply from the buyer until store A stated it to Amazon. Store A will comply with Amazon’s return policy and will still refund the buyer after receiving the goods. For details, please refer to the correspondence emails. Thank you for your attention.
If the AZ claim is indeed caused by reasons such as the inability to provide a prepaid label and the failure to refund in time, the probability of a successful appeal is still small. The best case scenario is that Amazon will make compensation in good faith and not count this order towards the order defect rate. Therefore, the best way is to fundamentally avoid AZ claims by improving customer service and products.