The 6 post-holiday e-commerce disputes that hit suppliers hardest

1) Split-shipment confusion

Holiday fulfillment is messy. Partial shipments are common. The dispute comes when the customer (or retailer’s system) treats “partial” as “missing.”

What to save: shipment IDs, carton tracking, carrier scans by package, and timestamps showing each leg of fulfillment.

2) “Porch claims” and delivery disputes

Package says “delivered.” Customer says “never received.” Retailers increasingly push for faster resolutions to protect customer experience—then reconcile later.

What to save: proof of delivery (POD), geolocation delivery data when available, signature rules, and carrier investigation outcomes.

3) Refund-return mismatches

Refunds issued before the item is received. Items returned to the wrong facility. Returns that arrive damaged and get coded as defectives.

Returns volume is already huge—and fraud is nontrivial.

What to save: return merchandise authorization (RMA) records, scan events, disposition notes, and photos that meet the retailer’s standards.

4) Marketplace fee math that doesn’t reconcile

Marketplaces often involve layered fees: fulfillment, storage, referral, advertising, penalties, and adjustments. When a deduction hits, you may not even know which ledger to check first.

What to save: fee schedules/rate cards, the exact transaction ID mapping, and a monthly “fee waterfall” reconciliation.

5) Policy window traps (timelines that quietly changed)

Post-holiday policy changes are common—shorter windows, different evidence requirements, new “auto” rules.

If you’re building evidence after the fact, you’re already late.

6) Duplicate disputes (the quiet killer)

Same transaction disputed twice. Or disputed as both “not received” and “not as described.” Or a return plus a payment dispute.

This is where teams lose money simply because they can’t see the duplication fast enough.

What wins disputes: boring, clean evidence

There’s no magic email. There’s no “one weird trick.”

Disputes are won with structured proof and tight linkage.

Visa’s dispute management guidance emphasizes the importance of compelling evidence—documentation that demonstrates what happened and supports your position.

For retail suppliers, that translates into a repeatable dispute package that answers three questions quickly:

1. What was ordered?

2. What was shipped/delivered/returned?

3. What was charged/refunded/deducted—and why?

The post-holiday dispute package (copy/paste checklist)

• Order ID / purchase order (PO) number (purchase order) and invoice link

• Shipment detail (cartons, tracking per carton, ship dates, carrier)

• Proof of delivery (POD) and scan history

• Return trail (RMA, scans, receiving location, disposition)

• Photos (if damage/condition is claimed)

• A one-page narrative: what happened, what you’re disputing, what you’re requesting

• Duplicate check: search the same IDs across claims to avoid double paying

Boring wins. Fast wins.

Your 30-day Q1 playbook: reduce chaos, increase recoveries

Week 1: Set triage rules

Not every dispute deserves the same effort.

Create three buckets:

• Auto-win (missing documentation today, but easy to retrieve)

• Worth fighting (high dollars or repeat pattern)

• Watchlist (low dollars, but trend-relevant)

Week 2: Build a single source of truth

If fulfillment data lives in operations, refunds live in finance, and claims live in a portal… you will always feel behind.

Bring the essentials into one weekly reconciliation view:

• orders shipped

• refunds issued

• returns scanned

• claims filed

• deductions taken

Week 3: Measure what matters

Pick three metrics:

• Win rate by dispute type

• Days to submit a complete package

• Repeat-offender rate (same reason code, same root cause)

Week 4: Fix one root cause that keeps repeating

Pick one. Just one.

Maybe it’s carton labeling. Maybe it’s split-shipment communication. Maybe it’s refund timing. Maybe it’s how return photos are captured.

Make a small process change, then watch the trend line.

What’s at stake if you ignore this

It’s tempting to treat post-holiday disputes as administrative friction.

But they quietly affect:

• gross margin (obvious)

• forecast accuracy (less obvious)

• retailer relationships (because disputes become “conversations”)

• team capacity (because the work is reactive, not planned)

And once your organization normalizes “we’ll just write it off,” the leakage becomes

permanent.

That’s why HRG’s point of view is straightforward: deduction recovery and dispute management aren’t cleanup—they’re a margin discipline. The companies that treat it that way protect cash, protect focus, and protect growth.

HRG exists in this space because e-commerce disputes require more than dashboards.

You need people who can interpret messy evidence, package claims the way retailers accept them, and translate patterns into root-cause fixes—so next January is easier than this one.

Soft suggestion, if you’re feeling buried: don’t wait until Q2 to get control. Q1 is when the patterns are loudest—and the recoveries are most actionable.