Amazon just handed brands a say in one of the most frustrating parts of FBA: deciding whether a returned unit is still good enough to sell as new. On October 19, Amazon announced customized grading in Seller Central News. You can now give Amazon your own criteria for how your FBA customer returns get evaluated for resale.
That matters more right now than it would in March. Holiday orders are about to ship, and the returns come right behind them. Every return Amazon gets wrong either lands back in your sellable stock when it should not, or gets pulled out when it could have sold.
What Amazon confirmed
Here is what the announcement actually says:
- You can tell Amazon what "sellable as new" means for your products, including when an item can be restored to new and when it should be sold as used.
- Criteria can be submitted by category: seal and packaging, included accessories, product authenticity indicators, device capabilities, and other requirements.
- Rules can apply to specific ASINs, your entire catalog, or a CSV upload.
- You can set instructions for restoring items to new or reselling them as used, including used-price percentages by condition.
- Amazon uses your input as guidance during grading, alongside its standard process and programs like Grade and Resell.
- ASINs that are not covered by one of your rules keep using Amazon's default grading process.
- You set it up under Customized grading settings in Seller Central.
Note the word guidance. Amazon is not promising that every return gets graded exactly the way you wrote it. The announcement also does not give an effective date or a rollout schedule, so check your own account before you plan around it.
Why it matters
Default grading is built for millions of products, not yours. A missing manual means nothing on one product and makes another one unsellable. A broken shrink wrap is cosmetic on a phone case and a safety problem on a supplement. When Amazon guesses wrong in the strict direction, you lose units that could have sold. When it guesses wrong in the loose direction, an opened or incomplete item ships to the next customer as new, and you eat the bad review, the "used item sold as new" complaint, and the account health hit.
Customized grading is Amazon admitting that brands know their products better than a generic checklist does. It also fits what Amazon said in its 2026 fee announcement, that it would add new returns features this year. This is one of them, and it is one you can actually use.
Who it affects most
- Electronics and devices, where "works" and "complete" are not the same thing and missing accessories are the most common problem.
- Sealed products like beauty, personal care, and consumables, where any opened seal should never go back out as new.
- Brands with higher-ticket items, where selling a return as used at the right price beats liquidating it.
- Any brand that has been fighting "used item sold as new" reviews or authenticity complaints.
What I would do now
- Pull your return reports and find your top returned ASINs by units and by dollars. Start there, not with the whole catalog.
- Write criteria someone in a warehouse can actually check. "Factory seal intact" and "charging cable and adapter present" work. "Like new condition" does not.
- Be careful with catalog-wide rules. A rule that fits one product family can be wrong for the next. Scope by ASIN or CSV until you trust it.
- Set used-price percentages based on your real margins, and decide where you would rather have a unit come back to you or be removed than sold as used cheaply.
- Get it set before the holiday return wave hits, then compare grading outcomes and customer feedback on returned units for those ASINs in January before you expand.
The bottom line
Confirmed: FBA sellers can now give Amazon their own rules for grading returns, scoped to ASINs, the catalog, or a CSV, including when to restore and when to sell as used. My take: this is a cheap win for most brands, but only if you write specific rules for the products that actually come back. Treat it as guidance you test, not a guarantee.
Returns quietly eating your Q4 margin, or not sure which ASINs need their own grading rules? Talk to a strategist and we will dig into your return data and build grading rules and a returns plan that protect both your margin and your reviews.