I have written before about how I have dabbled a bit in product reselling. While some people do it for the miles and points, most resellers I know treat this as a profit generating business, albeit one that has a pleasant side effect of generating a lot of airline miles and points!
I do most of my product reselling through FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon). I am a very small fry in reselling; I’ll estimate that I have sold about 50 units total – a mixture of OA (Online Arbitrage) and RA (Retail Arbitrage). Returns are a big part of this business, but up until now, I had avoided it. But finally, the other day, I got my first notice that an Amazon customer had returned my product
This was for an Apple Watch that I had bought several months ago. I probably should have had this sold several months ago, but I have not put the appropriate effort into keeping on top of my in-stock items and adjusting prices as needed. Apple Watches are notoriously prone to returns. If I had to make a guess, it was that the consumer didn’t realize that this was a version 1 Apple Watch (even though it obviously says that it is in the description). They probably thought they were getting a screaming deal on the newer version of the Apple Watch and then realized their mistake when they got the product
So what happens next?
Actually… I’m not 100% sure :-). I believe Amazon will ship the product back to me (though I may have to log in and request that). Once I have the product back here, then I can inspect it to see if it’s still in salable condition. If it’s damaged, there are some things that you can do with Amazon to get your (my) money back, though Amazon is typically pretty pro-consumer, so it’s an uphill road.
Otherwise, it’s pretty much up to me to sell the product again, and I can no longer sell it as new on Amazon. So it will probably be Craigslist or eBay or writing it off.
In any case, I thought I’d share my experiences with this reselling return. As for reselling in general, I am actually taking some steps right now to try and “step up my game” with reselling and get more serious about it.
Have you ever resold products? How did you deal with returns?
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
FBA is not very good for small sellers like us as buyer can return the item for almost any reason and Amazon will blindly refund 100% no matter what.
For an item like apple watch, FBA does not save you much in shipping so I would rather do FBM. Good luck.
@yy FBA doesn’t save you much in shipping, but it often nets a nice premium in price over self-fulfillment — and the return requirements are the same. If you sell on Amazon, you have to take returns for 30 days. Amazon isn’t going to let you not accept it or not refund the customer – so in reality, it makes no difference.
@Dan — as for the return, it depends whether they return it unopened or opened. If they return it unopened/undamaged, Amazon will usually just put it back in your fulfillable inventory. If it has been opened or damaged, they will mark it as unfulfillable. I sort my inventory by unfilfillable every few weeks or so to see what is stuck. You have to manually request that the unfilfillable items are returned to you. You should monitor this — if an item is damaged in Amazon’s warehouse, they also mark it unfulfillable. The terms of FBA say that they will automatically refund you for this. I find that it’s about 50-50 — they do automatically refund those things sometimes. But I’ve also had to manually request the refund at least 50% of the time. If your stuff sits unfulfillable for too long, they will eventually just throw it out (without refunding you). So you want to stay on top of that.
After you get it back, you may be able to ship it right back in to sell Like New or you Ebay/Craigslist it. Thems are the breaks. If you do any kind of volume that’s worthwhile, and you walk before you run as far as buying inventory (that is to say — learn what is prone to higher returns), your returns will be a negligible part of doing business. Best of luck.
@yy and Points,
True Amazon will refund for any reason, but that means more Prime sales for FBA sellers because of the perception to buyers that should something go wrong returns are simple and quick, not so with FBM. If you are selling good product in the properly stated condition, 95% of your sales or more will not be returned. Let’s say you have 50 returns and you’ve sold 1,000 items in total. I say give me those numbers. You must have returns to be successful, yet many people can’t handle them and take it personally. I did FBM for 8 years, now FBA for 5 months and the amount of sales and variety of sized product I can sell has quadrupled my profits with much less invested time. More returns but much more profit. I do this part-time only.
Also Amazon may refund buyers but that doesn’t mean you don’t get that money back in the form of reimbursements from Amazon due to damage the buyer or shipper does in the return to Amazon. I get reimbursed all the time for returns, the buyer gets his $ back and I get mine + a profit. A lot of returns are deemed resellable by Amazon and go back up live and I still get my profit. Some are returned to me and then I resell them used and still make $. Even better if the buyer fails to actually return the item, you get reimbursed, even if Amazon refunded the buyer prematurely. You’d be surprised how much Amazon has the seller’s back as well, not just the buyers. There is a misconception.
Know your seller settings when it comes to returns and how you want Amazon to handle them. That’s most important.
Best to your business.
That is a bummer that you can’t sell it as new anymore. I have not sold anything on Amazon, mostly because of the long list of rules and regulations in the registration process, but I have sold a few things on eBay and almost always list items as “no returns.” So far I have had good luck with it.
I sold an Apple iPad new sealed from the store and and the buyer claimed I sent an empty box and Amazon gave him a full refund and charged me back the sales price. I had it insured with the Post Office, but when I tried to deal with them they said the buyer would have to submit the claim. Of course the scammer had no interest in doing that so I was out about $500.
I would suggest you make sure you get back the exact same watch and check the serial number as electronics are sometimes switched out by cons when they make returns. I have see this done locally on Facebook yard sale pages.