A customer opens a return on your $30 garment. You already know the sale is gone. What you may not know is that the platform keeps part of the fee, and the unit comes back used — so a single return charges you twice: once on the way out, once on the way back.
That is why serious sellers amortize returns: instead of ignoring them until the refunds report stings, divide expected return cost across every unit sold. Per the FBA Calcs 2026 engine, an 8% category return rate removes about $1.35 per unit on a $30 product.
| Category | Typical return rate | Margin impact |
|---|---|---|
| Home, tools, hard goods | 5–8% | Minor — modeled as a small per-unit line |
| Electronics accessories | ~8–10% | Moderate; misdescription drives most of it |
| Apparel & footwear | 20–30% | Every fifth to third unit refunds referral + fulfillment + processing |
On apparel, the 17% top referral tier and the 20–30% return rate stack: a $25 garment pays $4.25 referral, and roughly one in four sales comes back for it. The margin that looks fine at the front door disappears quietly through the returns window.
Second, the fixable kind. Size charts, honest imagery and clear dimensions cut apparel returns measurably; they are cheaper than repricing your whole catalog after the damage shows up. When you model, leave the return-rate field empty to auto-fill the category average — then sanity-check it against your own refunds report after the first month.
The calculator amortizes category return rates into per-unit profit automatically — leave the field blank for the auto-filled average:
A return means the referral and fulfillment fees on that sale are largely lost, plus a returns processing fee, plus the value of a unit that comes back used or unsellable. Amortized across sales: an 8% category return rate removes about $1.35 per unit on a $30 product — which is why the calculator spreads returns into every sale instead of ignoring them.