Removal Order Detail Report: How to Use It to Track Missing Units

The Removal Order Detail report is a flat-file export available in Amazon Seller Central that records every removal order you have ever created, along with every shipment and item within those orders. It is the authoritative record of what Amazon says they shipped back to you, and it is the starting point for every reconciliation and reimbursement claim.

Each row in the report represents one item within one shipment within one removal order. A single removal order for 30 units of three different ASINs might produce nine rows if Amazon splits the fulfilment across three warehouses. The order ID ties all those rows together, while the shipment ID groups them by physical box.

This report does not tell you what arrived at your door. That is your job. The report tells you what Amazon claims to have dispatched, and it gives you the tracking numbers to verify delivery. The gap between what the report says and what your goods-in records show is where claims live. Without pulling this report regularly, you have no way to know whether Amazon shipped everything they were supposed to.

For UK sellers, the report covers both RETURN orders (stock shipped back to you) and DESTROY orders (stock Amazon disposed of on your behalf). Both types appear in the same report, distinguished by the order type column. Understanding the difference matters: sellable stock that was destroyed is a potential claim, while unsellable stock destroyed at your request is generally not.

The most common confusion sellers have with this report is understanding the relationship between orders, shipments, and tracking numbers. A removal order is your request. A shipment is Amazon’s response. One order can produce multiple shipments, and each shipment has its own tracking number because it originates from a different fulfilment centre.

To trace the chain: filter the report by a single removal order ID. You will see all the rows belonging to that order. Group those rows by shipment ID and you now have a box-by-box breakdown. Each shipment ID has an associated tracking number. Use that tracking number to verify delivery with the carrier.

This is where the reconciliation happens at its most granular level. Shipment ABC-001 had a tracking number and shows 12 units shipped. You received that box and counted 12 units. That shipment is clean. Shipment ABC-002 had a different tracking number and shows 9 units shipped, but you only counted 7. That is a 2-unit discrepancy on a specific shipment, and you now have the shipment ID and tracking number to reference in your claim.

For orders with multiple ASINs in the same shipment, you will see multiple rows sharing the same shipment ID but with different FNSKUs. Each row tells you how many units of that specific product were in that specific box. Sum the shipped quantities per shipment ID and compare against your physical goods-in count at the ASIN level.

Pulling the report once is useful. Building a habit of pulling it weekly and storing dated copies is what separates sellers who recover money from those who leave it behind. Amazon does not notify you when units go missing from a removal order. If you are not actively checking, nobody is.

Download the report as a CSV file every week. Name it with a date stamp so you can compare snapshots over time. Store it in a dedicated folder — Google Drive, Dropbox, or a local directory — alongside your goods-in records. When you need to file a claim six weeks later, you want to pull up the original report from the week the order completed, not rely on whatever Seller Central shows you today.

For sellers processing more than a handful of removals per month, manually downloading and cross-referencing CSV files becomes unsustainable. The report format is not designed for easy comparison: the same ASIN appears on multiple rows across multiple shipments, quantities need to be summed per shipment, and tracking numbers need to be checked against carrier websites individually.

This is where tooling pays for itself. Whether you use a structured spreadsheet or a dedicated tool like ReclaimHQ, the goal is the same: turn the flat-file report into an actionable view where discrepancies surface automatically and deadlines are visible before they expire.