Sellers Remain Displeased over Amazon Test of Forced UPS Returns

Amazon is forcing UPS returns on sellers as part of a test, and on Thursday it issued a reminder with details on how to get compensation should it result in higher costs.

Amazon currently provides shoppers the option of selecting USPS for returns on seller-fulfilled returns. As part of a test running from September 5 through October 2, 2022, it added the option for buyers to select UPS for returns.

As we reported in August, sellers can claim a refund for the difference between the UPS and USPS shipping costs during the test. As we also noted last month, if Amazon makes it a permanent policy change, it's not clear it would continue to pick up the cost of higher UPS shipping.

Amazon wrote on Thursday: 

"We understand that UPS shipping may incur a higher price than USPS, and we will reimburse the price difference for every label created during the experiment. 

"To seek a reimbursement, go to the How to file a reimbursement (SAFE-T) claim section on Reimbursement policy for Prepaid Return Labels (PRL) in the seller-fulfilled network."

Sellers again asked Amazon why it couldn't reimburse sellers the difference automatically.

A bookseller posting under the ID Kaltenburg commented, "I just want to know why books that are returned are returned via the most expensive option, rather than the media rate I used to ship the books to the customer. Had a fun one last week... book only cost $18 to ship back... for a 1.5 lb book... why so much? who knows... but I lost well over $10 on the whole transaction."

And a record seller posting under the ID Satisfaction_Records commented, "Amazon has (automatically) been providing more expensive UPS return labels for LPs (music record albums) for at least a year. Those return labels-charged to sellers-average over $2. more each than USPS media rates."

You can find the full post along with seller comments on the discussion boards on Amazon Seller Central.

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