Latest news with #Olsavsky
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
'Wild!': Amazon is refunding some customers for purchases made as far back as 2018
Some Amazon shoppers will soon be getting long-awaited refunds. The online retailer is issuing refunds to a small collection of U.S. customers who had issues with returns in the past. At least one customer's return apparently dated back to 2018. 'Following a recent internal review, we identified a very small subset of returns where we issued a refund without the payment completing, or where we could not verify that the correct item had been sent back to us so no refund was issued," Amazon spokesperson Maxine Tagay said in a statement sent to USA TODAY. "There is no action required from customers to receive the refunds, and we have fixed the payment issue and made process changes to more promptly contact customers about unresolved returns going forward.' Big Lots: More than 70 stores to reopen on June 5: Is your store on the list? Amazon hasn't detailed how many customers are getting refunds or the total amount of the refunds. However, during its first quarter earnings call on May 1, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky told investment analysts that the company took a one-time charge of about $1.1 billion, Bloomberg reported. The charge included 'some historical customer returns' that were unresolved, as well as the cost of stockpiling inventory in anticipation of tariffs, Olsavsky said, according to Bloomberg. One consumer, Steven Pope, posted on LinkedIn that he got a refund of nearly $1,800 on May 20 for a TV set he had purchased in 2018, The Verge reported. "WILD - Amazon just refunded me finally for a return in 2018!" he posted on the networking site. "$1,798.81 is being credited to me today in 2025 after 7 years." Amazon's note to Pope read, according to his LinkedIn post: "We are contacting you about an unresolved product return that you initiated on Amazon." Pope, founder of My Amazon Guy, a company to help sellers on Amazon, was among consumers whose return hadn't been resolved, Amazon's note said. "Given the time elapsed, we've decided to err on the side of customers and just complete refunds for these returns." Amazon returns are also the focus of a potential class-action lawsuit in which several consumers say they were recharged for an item after they had returned it. Amazon has argued that it may re-charge a customer and reverse their refund if they did not send back the item, sent it back in bad condition or sent back an incorrect item. A federal judge in Seattle on April 29 denied Amazon's request to dismiss the case, which is currently in the discovery process. Mike Snider is a reporter on USA TODAY's Trending team. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider & @ & @mikesnider & msnider@ What's everyone talking about? Sign up for our trending newsletter to get the latest news of the day This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Amazon refunds: Some customers are now getting money years later. Why? Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Business Insider
02-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Amazon took a mysterious $1 billion hit from customer returns and tariff maneuvering
Amazon recorded one-time charges of roughly $1 billion on Thursday due to customer returns and tariff -related maneuvering. During the company's earnings call, CFO Brian Olsavsky addressed the issue and analysts discussed it. "During the quarter, we've recorded one-time charges related to some historical customer returns that have not yet been resolved and some costs to receive inventory that was pulled forward into Q1 ahead of anticipated tariffs," Olsavsky said. Without those charges, the operating profit margin of Amazon's North America retail business would have been almost one percentage point higher, the CFO said. That equates to a roughly $800 million hit. For the international retail business, it would have had an operating margin that was roughly 0.7% higher, Olsavsky added. That equates to about $200 million in one-time charges, for a grand total of roughly $1 billion. What's notable here is that the losses stem from two persistent concerns — tariffs and customer returns. Tariffs have created a climate of unpredictability, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said during Thursday's analyst call. Amazon did some forward buying for its wholesale business, while some third-party sellers shipped inventory ahead of schedule to avoid tariff hikes, he explained. Still, Amazon hasn't seen the average selling price on Amazon "appreciably go up yet," Jassy noted. "None of us knows exactly where tariffs will settle or when," he said. Customer returns have also become a growing problem for Amazon in recent years. The company is trying to incentivize customers to use less costly return methods, and preempt returns entirely by letting shoppers on its website know when a product is frequently returned. Amazon's first-quarter results on Thursday exceeded Wall Street estimates, but future guidance came in lower than expected. Amazon's stock dropped about 2% in after-hours trading. When an analyst asked if Amazon expects another one-time charge for the current quarter, Olsavsky stopped short of directly addressing the question. Instead, he said Amazon typically sees higher stock-based compensation in the second-quarter and noted additional expenses related to the Kuiper satellite project. Tariff-induced uncertainty also makes it difficult to give accurate future guidance, he added. An Amazon spokepserson declined to comment.
