Four pallets. Shipped to an Amazon fulfillment center. Confirmed received at the dock. Then gone.
Not gone as in delayed in receiving, which happens and resolves in a few days. Gone as in Amazon's inventory system showed no trace of the units once they moved past the dock confirmation. Four pallets of Realsy snack packs, somewhere in Amazon's FC network, unaccounted for.
This is a problem most brands absorb quietly because the recovery process is genuinely unclear. Here's how the recovery actually worked.
What happened first
The initial shipment was four pallets. After a normal amount of time passed with no inventory appearing in Realsy's FBA account, we opened an Amazon case. The first response was standard: check your shipment ID, verify the carrier confirmation, we're investigating.
The investigation went nowhere productive for a while. Amazon's receiving process at FCs is not designed for transparency. Once pallets enter the dock, they go into a receiving queue, and the status updates that come back to sellers are often delayed, incomplete, or simply wrong.
A subsequent four-pallet shipment went in. Two of those pallets received correctly. Two showed up in an "unknown state." Amazon could see them somewhere in the system but couldn't reconcile them to specific inventory counts.
Then a third issue: a shipment where Realsy had sent 171 units of two SKUs each, and Amazon's received count came back as 95 for one of them. Not a minor discrepancy. Almost half the units were missing in the system.
At this point we weren't dealing with a single incident. We were dealing with a systemic pattern of FBA receiving failures across multiple shipments.
The evidence you need
Amazon will not pay a missing inventory claim without evidence that you actually sent what you say you sent. The minimum documentation for a viable case:
The Bill of Lading from the carrier, showing pallet count and unit count per shipment. The carrier's proof of delivery, showing that Amazon signed for the pallets at the dock. The packing list from the shipment, showing SKU-level unit counts. Any scan records from the carrier showing when the freight moved and when it arrived.
Without the POD specifically, the document showing Amazon physically received the pallets, you don't have a case. Amazon's position is that if it isn't in their system, it wasn't received. The POD proves it was received regardless of what their system shows.
The case structure that worked
The recovery strategy had two components: a consolidation request and a removal order.
First, we requested that Amazon consolidate all fragmented or misallocated inventory across FCs to a single fulfillment center. Realsy's inventory had ended up scattered across multiple FCs, with some units in unknown states at various locations. Consolidating to one FC first creates a physical count that you can reconcile against what was sent.
Second, we submitted a removal order for that consolidated inventory, pulling it back out of FBA to Realsy's warehouse. Once the physical inventory was in the warehouse and could be counted directly, we had an exact number: this is what Amazon returned to us. Compare that to what the shipment records show was sent. The gap is the claim.
The claim itself went through Amazon's Seller Central case system with the full documentation package: shipment records, BOL, POD, packing lists, and the specific unit count discrepancy after the physical audit. Amazon's missing inventory reimbursement process, when properly documented, does work. It's slow. There's escalation involved. But Amazon's FBA policy acknowledges responsibility for inventory discrepancies that occur after dock confirmation.
How long it took
The honest answer is months. From initial shipment to full case resolution, this was not a quick process. Amazon's case management response times are inconsistent. Cases get escalated, re-opened, and escalated again. The first response often asks for documentation you've already provided.
Priyanka took over case management for Realsy on this specific issue. Having one person who owns it, tracks every case ID, and follows up systematically is what makes the difference between recovering the loss and giving up. Most brands that absorb losses like this don't give up because they've decided it's not worth pursuing. They give up because the process is ambiguous enough that it's easy to let it drift.
What most brands get wrong
The common failure is waiting too long to start the case process. The window for certain types of FBA receiving claims narrows over time. Shipment reconciliation cases are easier to win when opened within 60 to 90 days of the shipment date. Six months later, Amazon's system has less data, the carrier records are harder to pull, and the case becomes much harder to substantiate.
Open the case when inventory doesn't appear within the normal receiving window, roughly 5 to 7 business days. Don't assume it's delayed. Start building your evidence file on day 8, because if the inventory is genuinely lost, you're going to need everything you have.
Amazon's FC network processes enormous volume. Things get miscounted, misrouted, and occasionally lost. The brands that recover losses are the ones who know what evidence to build and how to use it.
