If goods “disappear” on the way to the warehouse, are “overlooked” in the goods receipt, or if the goods were not sent, Amazon promptly asserts invoice reductions through shortage claims and puts the burden on Vendors to prove otherwise.

Even if the goods are actually received by Amazon, in our experience vendors can lose up to 10 percent of their sales through the shortage claim process.

The subsequent research into causes and objection management are usually complex and opaque – and often fall by the wayside as a result.

Amazon Vendor Central experiences:

Traditionally, the company’s sales managers take care of monitoring shortage claims in Vendor Central and submit objections as soon as unjustified reductions have been received.

As a rule, this is done by requesting a so-called “POD” (proof of delivery) from the forwarding agent, which is attached to Amazon as proof.

Typically, this first step is done manually by the company and can take some time depending on the forwarding agent. Given the sheer volume of shortage claims that a company is hit with, keeping track of all of the back and forth, the deadlines for filing, and needing to file shortage claim after shortage claim can be burdensome.

Our software #beAmFi helps Amazon vendors to get a transparent overview of the current status of every shortage claim through integrated shortage claim monitoring along with an interface to freight forwarders that will automatically retrieve and attach POD (proof of delivery) details to shortage claim disputes.

This is achieved by the following convenient functions in the software:

• Clear display of all shortage claims with invoice details
• Assisted contradictions
• Automated retrieval of PODs (e.g. UPS/DHL/FedEx interface)
• Objection management with objection status monitoring
• Assisted case opening for rejected appeals

Feel free to contact us to learn more about how we can help with this and much more as it pertains to administering, accounting and recovering profit for your vendor central.