Your cost for cheap CDs on Amazon is about to jump $1 across the board--min shipped cost = $4.00

Well, one could. As a sometimes seller, however, I have to say I'd be hesitant. I don't think there's any way through Amazon's system to issue such a refund, so you'd have to use some other means to do so. And if you send a buyer some form of refund as soon as the transaction was effected and he later files an A to Z claim, you might have ended up sending that person the merchandise, spent money on shipping, and then be out not only the money for actual shipping costs but also what you refunded.

I agree that $4 per single cd or dvd from a single seller is a lot of cash if you are interested in multiple discs. A box set, however, will cost more to ship. A single dvd box set containing four or five discs currently costs $3 via media mail, and I doubt you could put a second, similar sized box set in the same shipping container for the same postage rate.

Perhaps a better solution would be to request an upgrade to Priority Mail or the use of some other trackable delivery service if multiple box sets are ordered at the same time.

 

It's absolutely possible to issue a partial refund on a transaction through Amazon. If you lose an A-Z claim, you're going to lose the money you've already refunded anyway. The amount of the partial refund would be taken into consideration, and you'd only have to refund the balance, so that shouldn't be a concern.

 

I agree, if Amazon raises the prices, then the prices go up. Pretty simple. I do not see it as forcing a seller to keep their penny CDs at a penny.

I do resent that they take a chunk of the shipping cash that the buyer has paid for, and it goes into their pocket just because they want to. The buyer in general knows nothing about that. It just seems cruel that they take their fee, then take another dollar, and then take a chunk of the shipping fee charged.

But, big companies that are too big to fail, too powerful to compete with do see their sky fall eventually. Yahoo never dreamed Google could come along, Internet Explorer never saw Google in the rear view mirror either, Myspace never saw Facebook until it was too late. Things change so fast now that I would not be shocked to see a new venue arrive that is better than Amazon.

 

I feel compelled to agree. This goes all the way back to settling the West. As soon as the " fastest gun " was established, here comes another young man riding quietly into town...

 

I just got Michael Jacksons Dangerous and Invincible
off half.com total $6.38 Amazon is going loose out by next quarter
not much, but enough it dents there stock.

 

Agreed...their main profit isn't from handling sales from 3rd party sellers so even if that goes down a bit it's nothing compared to the profit they make selling their regular stock.

 

I wonder if amazon has got enough bad feed back from unhappy customers

 

I'm sure they don't care. CD sales are not a priority.

 

for Amazon or anyone else

 

Yep.

 

As an Amazon seller, sometimes I would like to be able to refund unused postage to buyers in the case where they buy several items. But any refund, including partial ones, go against the seller's metrics and hurt the seller's record, so it just isn't the right thing to do as far as Amazon is concerned. The only thing I can do is when the buyer orders two or more items at standard (media) rates, is to ship them Priority to get them more for their money.

 

No, refunds don't count against your metrics. If you look at your metrics under Account Health, you'll notice there is no target percentage for refunds. The target for cancellations is < 2.5%, for late shipments is < 4%, and so on, but there is no such target for refunds. Your refund percentage is documented there for your reference, but it fortunately doesn't hurt you in any way.

 

True but Amazon doesn't call them refunds. Please look up "Service Chargeback Rate" on your Metrics Page and see if you change your mind about this. A refund is a Chargeback.

 

That doesn't match how they define it:

Chargebacks
A chargeback occurs when a cardholder contacts their bank to dispute the charge for an order placed on Amazon.com. Chargebacks are also known as "charge disputes" and they can be filed for a variety of reasons, ranging from non-receipt of the item ordered to unauthorized use of the credit card

 

What is the refund rate?

The refund rate is the number of orders refunded by a seller divided by the number of orders in the time period of interest. This metric is order-correlated and is represented as a percentage. When computing this metric, we consider all refunds initiated by the seller for any reason.

 

I think this is the key part. Thank you.

 

Again, this doesn't count as a knock against your metrics, whereas things like late shipments and cancellations do. As deadcoldfish noted, a chargeback is completely different from a refund. Please feel free to contact Amazon seller support if you need confirmation of this.

 

Greetings from Amazon Seller Support,

Thank you for writing in with your concern. Web understand that you would like to know if issuing a refund of any kind affects your seller's metrics.

Please know that if you will issue a refund, that will affect your seller's metrics.

Also, please be informed that the refund rate is the number of orders refunded by a seller divided by the number of orders in the time period of interest.

This metric is order-correlated and is represented as a percentage.
When computing this metric, we consider all refunds initiated by the seller for any reason.

We hope that this information answered your queries. Thank you for patronizing Amazon Seller Community continuously.
We appreciate your business and we are looking forward to a lasting partnership with you.

 

Did you ask what the target percentage is? Try asking at what percentage of orders refunded your account will be adversely affected.

 

Yes, this has been my understanding, as well. It sucks, because you can offer refunds for a variety of reasons, including as an incentive for those who purchase multiple CDs from you in a single buy...