Amazon Explained: Winning The Buy Box

4 years ago in Amazon 101, Amazon Explained, Retail, Selling amazon, amazon advertising, amazon explained, buy box 0 150

The labyrinth that is the Amazon Marketplace is a highly competitive place where Amazon and thousands of other third-party retailers compete to sell their products to its massive customer base. As a seller, one of the most surefire ways to get the upper hand on your competitors is to win the Buy Box.

Usually, Amazon products take priority when it comes to searches and ultimately landing in the Buy Box. Still, for most of Amazon’s third-party retailers, the road to success is through the Buy Box itself.

Amazon does not limit the number of products that can be sold, nor does it limit the number of sellers who can list the product. This means that the very same product is often sold by dozens of sellers on Amazon – that fact, coupled with the fact that nearly 90% of sales on Amazon are completed through the Buy Box means that the victor of the Buy Box for a specific product is in pole position of the race, leaving everyone else who sells that product to find ways to catch up.

If you want to be a competitive seller on Amazon, and you don’t have a completely unique product, landing your item in the Amazon Buy Box should be your top priority.

What is the Buy Box?

The buy box is the section on the right side of an Amazon product detail page where there is the option to “buy now” or “add to cart.” Like SEO is to google, Amazon’s Buy Box results are not an exact science. Going hand in hand with Amazon’s customer obsession mantra, the Buy Box serves the site’s customers by making it an easy choice as to which seller to buy from. Amazon weighs the pros and cons of each seller based on reviews, price, fulfillment, customer experience, and some other small factors, like customer service ratings and the time that the seller has been operating on Amazon.

The Buy Box winner will undoubtedly make more sales than those who do not land themselves in the Buy Box, often there are multiple high-ranked sellers with the same listings, and Amazon will alternate who appears in the Buy Box in order to allow each seller to achieve their share of product sales.

Essentially, Amazon does its best to balance, giving the customer the best value for their money.

Meaning if you have excellent seller metrics, you can probably afford to have slightly higher prices and remain in the Buy Box, but if you only have average metrics, low prices will usually be required to hold the coveted Buy Box for your product.

How to Get Your Product in the Buy Box

First, you must determine whether or not your product is, in fact, Buy Box eligible. In your Seller Account settings, select “Manage Inventory,” then click “preferences,” then select “Buy Box Eligible.” Now you will see a simple “yes” or “no” in reference to the Buy Box eligibility next to each of your product listings.

There are five crucial steps that contribute towards landing your product in the Buy Box. These steps should be visited regularly as you care for the health of your product listings.

1. Understand the factors that will help you achieve Buy Box eligibility.

Aside from many of the major factors that contribute towards a successful product listing, there are dozens of less important yet valuable aspects of a product listing that you should work on – this includes things such as the use of high-quality images, accurate color descriptions, and optimized product descriptions. Amazon wants happy customers that will come back to buy more, so take great care to solve any complaints and make the consumer happy.

2. Set your products landed price at an affordable and competitive mark

Set your prices low enough to compete with other merchants selling the same or similar products. Many sellers change their prices regularly, so make sure to keep an eye on your competitor’s prices. Keep in mind, though, that setting the lowest price isn’t always the best decision for you. You want to carefully calculate your costs, profits, and losses to ensure that the price you set will serve your strategic path towards earnings.

3. Ensure your product has a fast shipping time (or consider FBA)

Customers have come to expect incredibly fast shipping from everything they buy on Amazon, live up to these expectations, and Amazon may reward you with more “points” towards landing in the Buy Box. If shipping (fast) isn’t easily doable for you, consider using Fulfilled by Amazon, where Amazon itself will store and ship your products for you.

4. Work to achieve a great customer feedback score

Customer feedback score is a huge factor in Amazon’s determining your Buy Box worthiness. Try to do everything reasonably within your power to first serve the consumer well, and second, collect great feedback and reviews.

5. Always keep your product in stock

Inventory management is often like walking a tightrope – you must make sure that products are not overstocked so that you aren’t stuck with excess storing costs as well as assuring that you won’t run out of inventory, causing a delay in delivery. Running out of inventory will significantly hurt your metrics and profit margin, for that matter. Carefully keep an eye on your inventory and proactively order more product before you run low.

Summary

Winning the Buy Box can mean a lot for an Amazon seller; it can be the difference between making massive amounts of sales or sitting idly by while someone else does so.

The goal for any product you list on Amazon should be to land in the Buy Box, make a plan, and begin your climb towards getting there. But remember, achieving Buy Box status for a product is never a permanent achievement — Amazon is constantly weighing the metrics to decide who belongs there. Once you achieve the Buy Box, if you stay on your toes and are always improving, you will have a good shot at maintaining it.