New Amazon Vendor Chargebacks: Overages, Pallet Receive Accuracy and Direct Imports

Written in collaboration with Sajan, Senior Product Manager, Vendor Experience at Amazon.

Amazon is extending its Vendor compliance programme with three new chargeback types: Overages, Pallet Receive Accuracy and Direct Imports.

Together with the recently separated Not on Time chargeback, they share one central theme: Amazon is charging vendors for the gap between what they say is coming and what actually arrives at the fulfilment centre.

That is important because these chargebacks are not simply transport or paperwork problems. They are information accuracy problems, and they are solved upstream within your own operations, long before a truck reaches an Amazon dock.

Vendors with disciplined internal processes and integrated systems may barely notice these changes. Vendors that rekey data between systems, or ship according to a plan rather than what was actually packed, are far more likely to start seeing deductions.

Here is what is coming, why Amazon is introducing each chargeback and what you should put in place now.

1. Overages: Shipping More Than Amazon Ordered

An Overage chargeback applies when you send more units than the quantity confirmed on the purchase order.

It can initially appear harmless. After all, surely Amazon wants more stock? From Amazon’s perspective, however, unexpected units create a genuine operational cost.

Fulfilment centres plan labour, dock appointments and storage capacity around confirmed quantities. Additional units create unplanned receiving work, reconciliation queries and stock that Amazon never agreed to buy.

Overages can usually be traced back to a disconnect within the vendor’s own operation:

• The purchase order was confirmed at one quantity, but the warehouse picked against the original order instead of the confirmed quantity.
• A quantity was amended by either the vendor or Amazon, but the change never reached the pick sheet.
• Quantities were rounded up to full cartons, layers or pallets in an attempt to be helpful.

How to Prevent Overage Chargebacks

The quantity you confirm must be the quantity your warehouse picks and the quantity declared on your ASN.

This is fundamentally a single-source-of-truth problem.

When purchase order confirmations, picking instructions and ASNs are all generated from the same system record, an overage becomes structurally difficult to create. There is no second version of the quantity that can become outdated or drift away from the confirmed order.

2. Pallet Receive Accuracy: When the Pallet Does Not Match the Paperwork

The Pallet Receive Accuracy chargeback relates to the carton-to-pallet mapping contained within your shipment data.

Your ASN tells Amazon which cartons are located on each pallet through the SSCC hierarchy. If Amazon breaks down a pallet and discovers cartons that the ASN said were located elsewhere, the shipment has failed the Pallet Receive Accuracy check.

Why Does Amazon Care About Pallet Accuracy?

Accurate pallet data allows Amazon to receive inventory more quickly.

When a pallet label reliably describes everything contained on that pallet, Amazon can potentially book the stock in at pallet level rather than opening the pallet and scanning every individual carton.

Every mismatch forces additional checks or a manual audit. This increases Amazon’s receiving costs and can also delay your stock becoming available for sale.

The most common cause is straightforward: the ASN is created from the original packing plan rather than the physical pack-out.

For example, the plan may state that carton 14 will be placed on pallet two. During packing, the carton is moved to pallet three to balance the weight, but nobody updates the shipment data.

How to Prevent Pallet Receive Accuracy Chargebacks

• Build ASNs from what was actually packed, ideally using scan confirmation as each carton is placed on a pallet.
• Print pallet and SSCC labels at the point of palletisation rather than preparing them in the office beforehand.
• Regenerate the shipment data whenever a pallet is rebuilt or re-stacked after labelling.
• Never assume an existing label is “close enough”.
• Treat last-minute changes on the warehouse floor as data events, not only physical changes.

Vendors that manage carton and pallet packing through an integrated system gain this accuracy as part of the process. The ASN becomes a direct output of the physical packing activity, meaning the shipment data cannot easily disagree with the shipment itself.

3. Direct Imports: Accuracy Across the International Supply Chain

The third new chargeback relates to Direct Import shipments where Amazon acts as the importer of record.

Full details are still to be confirmed in Amazon’s announcement, but the direction is consistent with the other chargebacks: Amazon is placing greater importance on the accuracy of the information submitted with Direct Import shipments.

Direct Import orders require more data than domestic shipments. This may include:

• Commercial documentation
• Container information
• Shipping details
• Cartonisation data
• Coordination with Amazon’s freight partners

Every additional data field creates another opportunity for a mismatch.

Errors involving international shipments can also be significantly more expensive and time-consuming to resolve. They may result in customs delays, missed vessel bookings or inventory arriving that cannot be reconciled against the information originally declared.

How to Prepare for Direct Import Chargebacks

The same operational disciplines apply, but they need to begin earlier in the supply chain.

Confirm Direct Import purchase orders promptly and accurately. Generate shipment data from the actual cartonisation and ensure the documents travelling with the shipment are produced from the same system record as the ASN and invoice.

Critical information should not be manually retyped into a separate spreadsheet or disconnected system.

We will update this guidance when Amazon publishes the full details of the Direct Import chargeback.

Every shipment reaches Amazon as a set of signals: the order confirmation, the ASN, the pallet labels, the invoice, and the physical goods themselves. When those signals corroborate each other, receiving is fast and friction-free. Chargebacks happen when a vendor’s own signals disagree: the ASN says one thing, the pallet says another. These charges reflect the real cost Amazon bears to reconcile those mismatches, but the deeper point is that they’re a course-correction mechanism, not a penalty. Vendors who send one consistent story across every touchpoint will simply never see them.

— Sajan, Senior Product Manager, Vendor Experience at Amazon

Don't Forget: Not on Time Is Now a Standalone Chargeback

Alongside these new chargebacks, vendors should remember that Not on Time now operates as a standalone chargeback.

It is typically applied when a vendor’s trailing four-week on-time delivery performance falls below Amazon’s required threshold.

We covered this in more detail in our guide to In Full Delivery chargebacks.

On-time performance can appear to be a carrier problem, but it is often caused by operational delays earlier in the process. Common issues include:

• Late purchase order confirmations
• Slow picking and packing
• ASNs being sent at the last minute
• Carrier or delivery appointments being booked too late

Vendors that shorten their internal order-to-ship cycle create additional transport buffer without increasing their carrier costs.

The Common Thread Between the New Chargebacks

Although each chargeback measures a different part of the Vendor process, they all compare the information supplied to Amazon with what actually happens operationally.

Chargeback	What Amazon Is Checking	Common Cause
Overages	Shipped quantity compared with the confirmed purchase order quantity	The warehouse works from the original or an outdated order quantity
Pallet Receive Accuracy	Physical carton-to-pallet contents compared with the ASN and SSCC hierarchy	The ASN is created from the packing plan rather than the actual pack-out
Direct Imports	Shipment and import documentation compared with the physical international shipment	Information is manually retyped across disconnected systems
Not on Time	Actual delivery performance compared with Amazon’s required delivery window	Internal processing delays leave insufficient time for transport and appointment booking

Every one of these chargebacks is ultimately a consistency check between your data and your dock.

The solution is not simply to build a better chargeback dispute process, although deductions should still be reviewed and challenged where appropriate. The more effective approach is to prevent the mismatch from existing in the first place.

In practice, this comes down to two things.

1. Strong Internal Processes

Your operation needs one confirmed version of every order quantity.

Warehouse teams should work from live information rather than printed documents that quickly become outdated. Packing and palletisation should be scan-verified, and any changes made on the warehouse floor must also be recorded within the relevant systems.

Vendors should also conduct a regular review of any chargebacks received, tracing each deduction back to its underlying operational cause rather than treating it as an isolated financial issue.

2. Connected Systems That Prevent Data Drift

When Amazon orders, confirmations, warehouse operations, ASNs and invoices flow through one connected system, accuracy no longer depends on people remembering to update several different records.

The ASN accurately describes the shipment because it was generated directly from the shipment.

The invoice matches the purchase order because both are connected to the same record.

Manual rekeying, which is the root cause of many Vendor chargebacks, is greatly reduced or removed altogether.

How KhooCommerce Helps Vendors Prevent Chargebacks

KhooCommerce connects Amazon Vendor EDI directly with your operational processes.

The platform supports:

• Purchase order confirmations
• Warehouse picking and packing
• Carton-level scanning
• Pallet-level scanning
• ASNs generated from the actual pack-out
• Invoices that reconcile automatically against the purchase order

Our customers avoid these chargebacks not by becoming better at disputing them, but by preventing the conditions that trigger them.

To understand how the new chargebacks could affect your operation, or calculate how much your current deductions are costing your business, please get in touch with the KhooCommerce team.