The basic business of overseas warehouses is being upgraded, and customers are increasingly demanding value-added services. If customized operations cannot be standardized, then logistics companies will sacrifice efficiency, space or other resources if they want to make logistics value-added services the core. When there is a problem with the package, active communication between the seller and the buyer can reduce the probability of return and exchange and the cost of return. Unnegotiated returns are uncontrollable. In order to improve customer experience, sellers sometimes choose “returns paid on delivery”, that is, let the overseas warehouse advance the freight.
Overseas warehouses often receive unknown return packages, that is, there is no identifiable information on the package and the contents. The general way to deal with it is to register for temporary storage or announce it for collection. If the seller does not inform the warehouse address in advance, or the buyer returns the goods on his own, the parcel returned to the warehouse can easily become “unclaimed goods” or “unaddressable mail”. Therefore, the seller must negotiate with the buyer and report in advance any kind of return, and fill in the waybill number, quantity, contents, etc. to be returned. In order to attract sellers and cooperate with sellers, many overseas warehouses began to waive warehouse rent and provide cheap return and exchange services, which made many sellers send unsalable products or returns. Soon these inefficient inventories turned overseas warehouses into large warehouses of groceries. Therefore, overseas warehouses should be cautious when accepting returns outside of their own warehouses. Some overseas warehouses only accept returns from FBA and do not accept returns from buyers themselves.
Replacing packaging and labeling are another widespread demand of overseas warehouses. FBA goods are the focus of inspection by European and American customs. In order to avoid additional inspections due to the FBA delivery address, FBA labels can be affixed after transiting abroad. Usually, goods without FBA labels are not affixed. BA label, a third-party overseas warehouse will cooperate with the receipt of goods, select FBA orders when leaving the warehouse, change SKU and label as required, and then pack and send to FBA warehouse to meet the labeling requirements of small batches transferred to different accounts. In addition, some FBA first-leg goods are rejected by FBA due to non-compliant labels, damaged outer boxes and other problems. At this time, they can be re-labeled and repacked in the overseas warehouse and sent to the warehouse for the second time. The biggest demand is FBA warehouse withdrawal and store transfer. When products are removed from the shelves, accounts are closed or products are unsalable due to review, there will be a large amount of “zombie” inventory. These inventories cannot be sold and high warehouse rent fees must be paid. In order to stop the loss as soon as possible, the backlog of goods must be cleared immediately.
Note: According to the EU’s remote sales regulations, consumers have the right to unconditionally return the goods within 14 days after purchasing goods online, and return the goods to the designated location. Usually, the buyer should bear the shipping costs incurred by the return, and the seller can return the goods in the platform’s “Return Policy (Returm The third-party overseas warehouse provides free storage for returned goods for a period of several weeks. If no one claims the goods, the warehouse will keep the goods for up to 30 days. If the goods are overdue and there is no forecast, the goods will be destroyed directly.
Valuable and heavy goods can be returned to the third-party warehouse for centralized inspection. Sellers apply to remove orders in the Amazon backend. Since the forecast data for overseas warehouses comes from the platform, sellers usually do not intentionally make false reports, but the goods may be withdrawn in batches, and the number of returned goods on the platform may not be consistent with the actual goods in the FBA warehouse. The warehouse will collect all the returned goods before making subsequent operations. The incoming goods will be accompanied by a packing list, but the warehouse can only take the actual number received as the standard. If the actual number of goods received is different from the seller’s forecast, the seller can find the platform customer service to open an exception (Case) claim.