Q&A: How generous should I be in correcting my shipping mistakes?

QUESTION: This past weekend I received an e-mail from a customer on the opposite coast inquiring why they hadn't received their book yet. The buyer paid for expedited shipping, but I accidentally sent it Media Mail. I've been selling books on Amazon for two years now, and this is the first time I've made this mistake.

Since the customer paid $60 for the book, I've offered to refund them half the cost of the book. Do you think my offer to refund half the purchase price is appropriate? Is there anything else I should do?

ANSWER: I've made the same mistake several times. Usually I apologize profusely and refunded the shipping fee, $5.98. But several other times I have done exactly what you did and refunded 50 percent of the total (but never for an expensive book like this).

Sometimes I've based my decision on how much longer the person had to wait -- for example if the person was in Alaska and Hawaii and it took over a month, I've refunded 100 percent -- but those happened to be cheap books.

On an expensive book like your transaction, a 50 percent refund really hurts. It's exceedingly generous, so I defintely wouldn't offer anything more.

Through experience, though, I've noticed one great result out of admitting your mistakes and offering to make good on it. For example, many times when I've offered a partial refund (for this and other types of problems) the customer has responded, "No refund is necessary, thanks for the offer." They were totally satisfied that someone acknowledged the problem and made a gesture of offering something for their inconvenience. This puts us in a favorable light compared to most retailers -- so often when people make a complaint about service, it's not even acknowledged.

Q&A: Will cancelled orders from students hurt my Amazon performance summary?

QUESTION: My store sells textbooks on Amazon. I'm worried that our performance summary rating on Amazon is going to suffer because we're getting quite a few order cancellations from students buying textbooks for the Spring semester.

I believe Amazon's threshold for refunds is 5 percent. Today we've had 100 Amazon Marketplace orders but five cancellations before the books shipped. We're not getting any reasons for the cancellations, just e-mails asking to cancel.

I think this is a double-edged sword -- we're apt to get negative feedback for some unknown reason, and we're worried about our account being suspended by Amazon Alliance for an excessive refund rate.

Do you think I should call Amazon¹s customer service number to try to explain the situation so they don't kick us off? If so, what number should we call?

ANSWER: Your performance summary provides statistics on your sales, refunds, customer feedback, and A-to-Z Guarantee claims.

I remember when Amazon began compiling this data in 2003, there was a big hubbub because they e-mailed the first few monthly tallies to the sellers, even sellers with good records. Many sellers felt compelled to contest each and every ding on their records. Amazon quit mailing the monthly statistics, and I assume nowadays you only hear about them when you're in hot water.

Honestly, I wouldn't be too concerned about one day of excessive refunds. I doubt your refund rate is out of line compared to other sellers who do heavy volume in textbook selling. I'm sure Amazon sees a spike in refunds across the board this time of the year thanks to the back-to-school rush.

I always get a lot of cancellations without explanations from students this time of year too. As we know, most students are notorious tightwads and don't select "Expedited" shipping. So my hunch is that when they receive the e-mail confirmation from Amazon and notice that delivery may take weeks, they freak out because they're desperate to receive the book quickly. Of course these were the same folks who ignored the opportunity minutes earlier of upgrading their shipping to ensure delivery within a few days.

And I'm sure a good number of the cancellations are from students who realize they've bought the wrong edition. It's frustrating, but it's better to get an immediate cancellation than a returned textbook several weeks after the big bookselling season.

My understanding is sellers get a warning if the refund average gets to be unacceptable. Personally I wouldn't waste the energy explaining the refunds until it got to that point, if it does. Then I'm fairly sure a human at Amazon would take into account the situation with textbooks.

If you want to contact someone at Amazon, my best advice would be to call the seller support line and ask to speak with a supervisor: 1-877-251-0696

Here's Amazon's tip sheet for improving your performance summary, but it's all common sense for anyone who's been selling for longer than one afternoon:

• Carefully describe and categorize your items to avoid buyer confusion.
  

• Provide helpful and timely customer service.
  

• Carefully pack items to avoid damage that might occur during shipping.
  

• Ship orders within 1-2 business days and provide post-order support (refunds, returns, and exchanges) to help ensure buyer satisfaction.

• If an A-to-z Guarantee claim is filed against your account, respond quickly to the claimant to attempt to resolve the dispute.

It would be nice if Amazon Pro-Merchants had account representatives so that we could talk to a human occasionally about issues like this. I'm curious if other sellers have gotten into hot water about refunds or other things related to the performance summary, and how they resolved it. Comments, anyone?

Q&A: How can I refund my Amazon Marketplace buyer?

QUESTION: I recently sold a book on Amazon. Now the buyer wants to return the book, saying he ordered the wrong one by mistake. I want to help him out but am not sure how to refund his money. Do I refund him through Amazon or do I send him a check?

ANSWER: Tell the buyer he's welcome to return the book for a refund to his account. Since the buyer is at fault in this case, I'd definitely wait until the book is returned before refunding. You can also keep the shipping fee, but I usually refund in full even when the customer is at fault.

When you refund the buyer through your seller account, Amazon will credit the buyer's account and debit your seller account. You and the buyer receive an e-mail confirmation from Amazon a few minutes after you submit the refund. Here's Amazon's help screen for refunds:

Though Amazon.com processes all Amazon Payments from your buyers, it is a seller's responsibility to initiate refunds. We provide online tools for this purpose. If you would like to make an Auctions refund, please follow the links for more information. General guidelines on Amazon Marketplace returns and refunds are also provided on our Handling Returns and Refunds page