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What are retailer chargebacks and deductions?
A retailer chargeback (often called a deduction) is money a retailer subtracts from a vendor's invoice, usually for an alleged compliance or delivery issue. For fashion wholesale brands they add up to 1–5% of wholesale revenue every year — and most are small enough that they're never disputed.
The six deduction categories
- Compliance — routing-guide violations: wrong label, late ASN, wrong carton.
- Shortage — the retailer claims fewer units arrived than invoiced.
- Pricing — the invoiced price doesn't match the PO or contract.
- Damages — goods reported damaged on arrival.
- Post-audit — retrospective claw-backs 12–24 months later.
- Quality — goods rejected after receipt.
Typical retail chargeback penalties
Compliance chargebacks are usually a fixed fee (roughly €25–500) applied per violation, so they pile up on high-volume shipments. Shortage and post-audit claims are lumpier and can be large. Across a €30M-wholesale brand, 3% leakage is around €900,000 a year.
Why they're worth fighting
Industry data shows only about 20–30% of deductions are ever disputed, yet a large share are invalid or reversible with the right evidence. The money is genuinely recoverable — the blocker is the manual work, not the merits. See our guide on how to dispute retailer chargebacks.
Klaimback disputes every retailer deduction automatically — you pay a small monthly fee plus a share of what we recover.
Get a free deduction check