Return Merchandise Authorization

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Return Merchandise Authorization or Return Material Authorization (RMA) is a transaction whereby the recipient of a product arranges to return defective goods to the supplier to have the product repaired or replaced or in order to receive a refund or credit for another product from the same retailer or corporation. In many of the cases a RMA is generally given after a series of testing for Eg: for a Hardware product, if there exists a defect in the product, the engineer on the call will have to analyse whether the hardware suffered a CID (Customer Induced Damage). This is done to generally not accept the losses on behalf of the supplier due to negligence from the retailer. The product then goes to the scanning vendor who will try to repair the defect in case it is a minor defect and replace it in another order that he gets. If both these tests fail, then the good is sent to the principal vendor for replacement and the principal vendor will again check whether there were any defects in the product or whether the product has been tampered with and finally if all the tests fail and there is a general production defect, the supplier replaces the material with the same material which is not defective or he issues a credit note to the customer or the retailer that can be reimbursed at a later point in time.Also good for exchanges.

Generally, this is done with goods that are new and have been received DOA ("defect on arrival") or when they have become defective while still under warranty. The customer generally calls a customer service phone number and gets an "RMA number" or designation which is written on the bill of lading or other packaging. This is so that the supplier's own shipping and receiving department knows how to route the returned goods and is assured that the customer has talked to someone in customer service.

The specifics vary from one retailer to another and between industries. In some cases the retailer sends RMA forms and packing labels, sometimes even shipping packaging for the return shipment. The labels may provide for the retailer to pay the shipping charges, e.g., by freepost.

Regardless of the details, the process is referred to as an RMA. Sometimes the term is informally used as a verb: "I'll have to RMA that new system because it was DOA."