When selling on Amazon Canada, return requests are inevitable. The most worrying cases are when customers choose “defective” as the reason to get free return shipping. In many cases the product is perfectly fine and the customer simply changed their mind, or worse, swapped in a used item. If you let Amazon automatically destroy these items or keep them in FBA storage at high fees, you lose both your capital and your profit.
To protect your store and limit losses, smart sellers remove returns from FBA to an outside warehouse in Canada for reassessment. Here is the practical process at Soleil Transportation’s Mississauga warehouse that you can use right away.
Why remove Amazon returns to an outside warehouse?
When a customer returns a product as defective, Amazon classes it as “Unfulfillable”. In Seller Central, you only have two options: let Amazon dispose of it, or create a removal order to an address in Canada.
If you choose disposal, you lose the product completely. If you remove it to an outside warehouse such as Soleil Transportation in Mississauga, you get the chance to:
- Check whether the product is really defective.
- Take real photos as evidence for a claim with Amazon if the customer swapped the item or returned an empty box.
- Repack and relabel the item to sell again if it is intact and works properly.
How visual inspection and photography work at the Mississauga warehouse
When you create a removal order from Amazon to the Soleil Transportation warehouse (2446 Cawthra Road, B1U8, Mississauga, Ontario, L5A 3K6), we carry out the following strict checks.
Step 1: Receive the parcel and match its details
As soon as a returned parcel from Amazon arrives at the Mississauga warehouse, staff will:
- Record the tracking number from Amazon.
- Match it against the booking or order number you entered in Soleil Transportation’s online system.
- Weigh and measure the box received.
Step 2: Inspect the outer packaging
Before opening the box, staff check and record its outer condition:
- Whether the Amazon carton or product box is dented, torn or wet, or shows signs of having been opened before.
- Photograph all sides of the box, especially Amazon’s shipping label, as evidence for matching the LPN (License Plate Number), Amazon’s identifier for returned items.
Step 3: Open the box and inspect the product in detail
Staff carefully open the box under a surveillance camera and check it against these criteria:
- Completeness: Is the main product still in the box? Are any accessories, manuals or charging cables missing?
- Physical condition: Does the product show signs of use, scratches, cracks or dirt?
- Visual check for technical faults: For electronics or small household appliances, the warehouse checks whether buttons stick and whether charging ports are broken or loose.
Step 4: Take photos and video as evidence
This is the most important step for sellers working with Amazon on a reimbursement if the buyer has committed fraud. The warehouse provides a standard set of photos including:
- A close-up of Amazon’s LPN sticker on the product.
- Photos of everything inside the box after opening.
- Close-ups of the product’s edges and corners, focusing on any suspected faults or scratches.
- On request, a short 15–30 second 360-degree video of the product.
Step 5: Sort the items and report back to the seller
After inspection, each product is placed in one of these groups:
- Like new: Still sealed, not faulty, just a slightly torn outer box. These can be relabelled and sent back to FBA.
- Slightly damaged or missing accessories: Can be sold off or consolidated and sent back to Vietnam.
- Badly damaged or swapped items: Photos are sent to the seller to file a claim with Amazon, and the items are then disposed of on request.
Next steps once you have the inspection results
Depending on the results from the Mississauga warehouse, you can choose the most cost-effective option:
- Repack and send back to FBA (fulfillment): With fulfillment in Canada from just $5 CAD per order, Soleil Transportation applies new barcode/FNSKU labels, packs the items in compliant cartons and sends them back to Amazon FBA so you can keep selling.
- Send them back to Vietnam: If high-value products need to go home for repair or parts, you can use our two-way Vietnam–Canada air service, which takes 10–21 days in this direction, from $16/kg.
- Store them until you have enough: You can store returned items temporarily at Soleil Transportation’s Mississauga warehouse until you have enough to process them all at once, avoiding lots of small charges.
To start removing Amazon returns to the Mississauga warehouse or for detailed advice on our fulfillment service, review your returns list in Seller Central, then contact Soleil Transportation on +1 888-998-5199 or email the list of products to remove to info@soleiltransportation.com. Our team in Mississauga is ready to photograph and inspect your goods within 1–2 business days of receiving them.
