Overview

Amazon sellers sometimes need to compensate buyers for order-related issues beyond a standard refund. Concessions provide a mechanism to offer buyers monetary goodwill gestures or cover costs like return shipping, without issuing a full or partial refund of the original order price. Understanding how concessions work is essential for managing customer satisfaction while keeping your finances and performance metrics in check.

Key Points / What Sellers Need to Know

• Two types of concessions exist — Sellers can issue return shipping concessions (to cover the buyer's cost of shipping an item back) and goodwill refund concessions (a monetary credit to compensate for issues like receiving the wrong color or a minor defect).
• Concessions are not refunds — Unlike standard refunds, concessions are treated as separate debits from your seller account and are not subject to the same fee adjustments that apply when refunding original order costs.
• Sufficient account balance required — You must have enough funds in your seller account before you can issue any concession. Amazon will debit the full concession amount directly from your available balance.
• No impact on refund metrics — Concessions do not count toward your refund percentage in seller performance metrics, which is a significant advantage over issuing traditional refunds.
• Maximum amounts are displayed — When you access the Manage Orders screen, each concession field will show a specific maximum amount you are permitted to issue for that order.

How Concessions Work

Concessions are issued through the Manage Orders page in Seller Central. When you select an order and choose to issue a concession, you will see line items for return shipping and goodwill refunds, each with a maximum allowable amount displayed next to the input field. You enter the desired concession amount in the appropriate "Amount to refund/charge" box and submit. After clicking the submit button, allow up to 15 minutes for the data to update in your account. You can also create a memo to yourself when issuing concessions, which is useful for tracking the actions you have taken on return requests. The memo field accepts up to 255 characters and can be edited as needed.