Need Advice on What to Do with Defective Inventory—High Return Rates

Hey fellow Amazon sellers,

I’m in a bit of a pickle and could use some advice. Last year, I bought 1,000s of units of name-brand clothing (pants) at 70% off from a third-party company. I sent all the inventory into Amazon FBA, and after a year, I managed to sell through about 80% of it.

But here’s the kicker—about half of those sold units came back as returns because the pants didn’t fit as expected. I tried to update the Amazon listing to reflect this issue, but since I’m not the brand owner, Amazon wouldn’t let me change a thing.

To make matters worse, I’ve been getting charged around $10 per unit in return and fulfillment fees that aren’t reimbursed, which is pretty painful considering I’m selling the item for $19.99.

I recently learned about the returnless refund option, which could potentially help me avoid those fees, but I’m not sure what the best course of action is. I paid to have the last 1,000 pairs removed from FBA because I’d be charged storage fees if they stayed there, and I figured half would get returned anyway.

Given this situation, what would you do?

A) Sell them via FBM under the same listing at a higher price and turn on returnless refunds. My thought is that if 50% get refunded, the higher price could offset the cost of returns.

B) Try to create a new listing and clearly state that these pants run smaller than expected.

C) Sell them on eBay just to make back my cost.

Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!