A Wonderful Idea For Amazon

Today is my wife’s birthday, and being a fan of super heroes like myself (have I mentioned she’s my perfect match?) I went with an all Wonder Woman gift theme this year. One of the gifts was this very cool Wonder Woman Knapsack whose picture you’ll see accompanying this post.

One problem: the rivet on the snap closure for the primary flap was broken.

I tried to use Amazon’s online system to have a replacement shipped out, but because the item was originally purchased through Amazon but actually fulfilled through a third-party Amazon Seller, the most they could do was refund the amount back to my credit card and give me a return shipping label. They couldn’t guarantee the original Seller had another backpack in stock, so they pointed me to another Seller offering the same item in order to create a new transaction. Buying from the new Seller they recommended saved a penny or two over my original purchase price.

I don’t think their current process is very efficient.
Here’s my idea to improve it…

Certainly offer me the refund in case I don’t want to buy from a different Seller or I decide to buy it from another website entirely — but also give me the option to have the purchase amount credited to my Amazon account. This way if I opt to buy from a different Amazon Seller, the amount is already banked within Amazon. I don’t have to re-balance my checkbook my adding the refund back into the account and then subtract it back out again, creating another bank transaction in the process. For those of you who might be saying “it’s a wash — don’t make any adjustment” — keep in mind that the price of the item from the second Seller is a little lower than the first, so the numbers don’t match.

When you come down to it, my option is in the favor of Amazon, but in service of the client. I just made it easier to keep the amount of the refunded transaction on their books rather than totally refunding it and hoping I decide to spend the money (again) on their website.

Think about it, Amazon — I’d love to hear your thoughts on my concept.