Amazon is a highly competitive marketplace that tends to favor sellers who meet certain preset requirements. To get to the top of the list, sellers compete to get into the Amazon Buy Box, a coveted piece of Amazon digital real estate that puts your listing directly in front of interested buyers. Getting into the Buy Box can be a massive boost for sales, but getting there – and staying there – is no easy feat. You’ll need to stay on top of your Amazon account, and adhere to all best practices, to qualify for Amazon Buy Box inclusion. Read on to learn all about the Amazon Buy Box and how you can increase your chances of being featured in it.
What is the Amazon Buy Box?
The Amazon Buy Box is the small box that appears on a product’s detail page. It includes the yellow “Add to Cart” button that makes it even more convenient for customers to figure out which seller to choose (customers want to click as few times as possible, so putting the purchase option front and center increases the chances that someone follows through). The Amazon Buy Box can be especially helpful if a shopper has no initial preference among the many sellers available — which is often how the shopper feels — as customers care first and foremost about the product itself.
What does the Amazon Buy Box mean to sellers?
The Amazon Buy Box is a shortcut of sorts that gets your listing in front of customers that don’t want to scroll through lists of similar products. Sellers pay no additional fees to become Buy Box eligible, but obtaining this status requires you to keep your performance levels appropriately high. Until you’re Buy Box eligible, you should work on improving your seller performance metrics such as your overall seller feedback ratings, cancellation rate, late shipment rate, or order defect rate to improve your status. These factors determine your overall account health and can be viewed from the Performance Metrics tab on Seller Central.
What is repricing software, and how does it help with the Amazon Buy Box?
Your position within the Buy Box is largely determined by item price, a huge factor that successful ecommerce sellers consider using repricing strategies and automated software. However, managing prices on Amazon can be a 24-hour job, and not everyone has the time to devote to the research and careful calculations needed to stay competitively priced while still turning a profit. That’s where repricing software comes into play.
Repricing software gives Amazon sellers the power to compare their product prices to those of their competitors and automatically adjusts your pricing based on the data. Because repricing software automatically makes these changes, you can vastly reduce the amount of time you spend researching prices. The automatic adjustments involved in repricing software can help your ecommerce company rank highly and visibly, even during off-hours. If you’re looking to invest in your Amazon business, repricing software is one of the best investments you can make.
Repricing software streamlines the processes involved in keeping your prices competitive. It makes repricing as simple as checking your software daily for updates. Depending on your ecommerce company’s size, processing and pricing all your products on a regular basis could require the attention and time involved in a full-time job, partially explaining the prominence of repricing software.
The effect of your prices on your sales cannot be understated. Not only is revenue affected by pricing, but so too are your Buy Box status chances and online product visibility. You should use your repricing software regularly to check and adjust your prices to guarantee competitive landed prices.
What are some examples of Amazon repricing software?
All repricing software platforms are automatic and algorithm-based for product-level pricing, and they use detailed retail analytics to help companies make real-time updates and changes. You can compare each of these software options online, and whichever one you buy includes an online support team (and, in many cases, an additional phone-based team) for retailer assistance. For the latest options, check out this list from Repricer Express.
All sellers need to do to use repricing software is to set their price parameters. You must input a minimum and maximum for each of your products to ensure that basic margins are met. You also then have the option to set your prices outside that range depending on your comfort level. With these rules set, your software can manage your prices and adjust them continuously.
Who is eligible for the Amazon Buy Box?
Any Amazon Professional Sellers that meet and maintain certain performance-based metrics can be eligible for the Amazon Buy Box. These metrics are:
- Order defect rate. Amazon calculates this metric based on chargebacks, A-to-Z guarantee claims, and customer feedback.
- Amazon expertise. This metric reflects the length of time and amount of experience you have as a seller.
- Overall customer shopping experience. This metric is a combination of other factors such as price, shipping time, customer service, and fulfillment method.
Additionally, new sellers will not qualify for the Buy Box, nor will sellers on an Individual instead of a Professional plan. You will also struggle to win the Buy Box without using a reliable fulfillment method, such as Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), in place.
Just because you qualify for the Amazon Buy Box in one product category doesn’t mean you will in another. Similarly, if you have no stock of a given product, you aren’t eligible to win the Buy Box, so you should always keep close track of your inventory, especially for your most popular items.
Keep in mind that just because your store currently meets the metrics required to make the Amazon Buy Box doesn’t mean it always will. If anything, you should make sure to keep the required metrics well above the threshold so that Amazon does not remove your ecommerce business from the Buy Box.
What is Amazon Buy Box suppression?
In some cases, certain products will lack the defining feature of the Amazon Buy Box: an “Add to Cart” button that allows customers to make a purchase with just one click. This phenomenon is known as Amazon Buy Box suppression.
Amazon may suppress an item in the Buy Box to lower sales until prices fall, as without an easy, instantaneous “Add to Cart” option, sales may decrease. It may also suppress a Buy Box item to ensure that customers pay less than the MSRP price on their purchases. In some cases, suppression may also result in the item no longer appearing in Amazon searches, meaning that it can only be found directly through your ecommerce business’s individual Amazon page or via the Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN). When Buy Box suppression takes this form, Amazon will notify you via email within 48 hours.
Repricing technologies can help you stay ahead of Amazon Buy Box suppression. For example, if your Buy Box is suppressed because an item you are selling can be found at a lower price on Amazon Marketplace, using repricing technologies can help your prices to automatically stay lower than on competitors. This minimizes the chances that you will experience Buy Box suppression. In turn, you can preserve your sales volume.
What factors are taken into account for the Amazon Buy Box?
There are five key factors for winning the Amazon Buy Box:
- Your fulfillment method. Whether you use FBA, Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM), or Seller-Fulfilled Prime (SFP), Amazon will score your fulfillment based on your courier and shipping method, your rate of on-time delivery, and the depth of your inventory. If you use FBA, you will automatically receive a perfect fulfillment score, in turn increasing your chances of winning the Amazon Buy Box.
- Your fulfillment quality. To win the Amazon Buy Box, you’ll need to maximize your fulfillment speed while keeping your late shipping rate below four percent. You should also keep your Delivered On Time rate at 97 percent or more and provide valid tracking information for at least 95 percent of your sales.
- Your total product price. Having the lowest item price doesn’t always mean having the best total product price for the Amazon Buy Box. If your pricing is competitive and your landed product cost, which includes shipping and local tax costs, comes out to less than that of your competitors, you can win the Amazon Buy Box even if a store with lower account metrics is selling the item for a cheaper pre-shipping, pre-tax price. Generally, your price needs to be 3 percent from the lowest listing for the same product on the platform.
- Your order quality. To win the Amazon Buy Box, you must keep your order defect rate below 1 percent. Similarly, if your pre-fulfillment cancellation and refund rate is over 2.5 percent, your chances of winning the Buy Box decrease significantly. If you keep your negative feedback score low while increasing the number of positive reviews you have, your Buy Box winning odds may increase too.
- Your customer service. In addition to high order quality, you should strive for a high customer response rate. If you respond to at least 90 percent of your messages within 12 hours, your chances of winning the Buy Box will be significantly higher.
It’s important to keep in mind, too, that winning the Amazon Buy Box doesn’t mean you’ll keep it forever. The Amazon Buy Box is constantly rotating between sellers, but when you’re on top, take advantage and reap the benefits!
The importance of competitive pricing
Amazon isn’t likely to reveal its exact algorithm for winning the Buy Box, but many forum communities and Amazon gurus have determined that competitive pricing is one of the two biggest factors. Even though excellent customer service and buyer experience may have the most impact on your success, Amazon’s notoriously low prices tend to attract customers before your individual store does. To that end, you should always keep an eye on your ecommerce competitors and the prices at which they sell similar products. Doing so may help you gain a spot in the Buy Box. Additionally, since Amazon treats all sellers as equal, the site lists products by Price + Shipping instead of just price, and this ranking carries over to the Buy Box unless another metric is below what it should be.
In many cases, sellers will lose money because they aren’t aware of how low their price threshold actually is until it’s too late and they’ve already lost profits by selling below cost. In this scenario, you may fare better by letting products sell out instead of focusing on competition that could prove to be even more harmful than your initial loss. Don’t lose time repeating the same mistakes you’ve already made just for the sake of competition.
The importance of shipping performance
Speedy, efficient shipping is a cornerstone of the Amazon experience. You may find yourself unable to easily handle shipping and fulfillment in the large quantities that your ecommerce business may demand, so in many cases, you may want to pivot to Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) to ensure that your customers still get a high-quality shipping experience that they know they can trust. Under FBA rules, Amazon takes full responsibility for any logistical and fulfillment issues that your ecommerce business might encounter. Additionally, under FBA, none of your seller metrics such as Order Defect Rate or Perfect Order Percentage are affected, and your customers still get the products and shipping experience they expect.
The importance of stock availability
Proper inventory management is fundamental to winning the Buy Box. If you have no stock of a given product, you aren’t eligible to win the Buy Box, so always stay on top of your inventory, especially for your most popular items.
Keeping your items in stock is directly tied to customer satisfaction. A customer who makes a purchase from your ecommerce store only to find that you don’t have it in stock may leave you a negative review. Even if a customer ultimately receives and enjoys your product, you may still receive a negative or mixed review due to the delay, so to win the Buy Box, make an effort to get the product in your customers’ hands as quickly as possible.
The importance of customer service for the Amazon Buy Box
Just as always having ample stock and selling products of quality high enough to fulfill your customers’ needs is vital, so too is having an excellent customer service team to handle additional needs. If your product is superior but you delegate customer inquiries and complaints to an inferior or poorly trained employee, your customer will still walk away feeling dissatisfied and unheard – the perfect recipe for a bad review – despite the quality of your product. If you instead pass customer inquiries along to a compassionate, well-trained team, your workers can turn a negative experience around and help the customer resolve almost any issue. The customer will then leave feeling better and reassured, and your employee has in turn fostered brand loyalty and grown your ecommerce store’s community trust by reinforcing promises already made.
Ensuring great customer service can be the make-or-break factor separating a negative review from a positive one regardless of the product issue. A well-trained customer service representative can turn a complaint about a defective product into a helpful exchange that ultimately leads to the customer receiving the product they wanted. In that same scenario, you have few options if you don’t have the product stocked in the first place – and, in turn, few legitimate routes for solving the problem. You might find a similar product to appease the customer’s needs, but that still might mean a three- or four-star review instead of a perfect five.
Customers with poor experiences tend to avoid returning to the brand that disappointed them; they are 97 percent more likely to tell friends or family about the negative experience. Even scarier is that it can take up to 12 positive reviews to recoup the damage caused by a single negative comment. No matter where you look, experienced sellers will all agree that having excellent customer service is the key to pushing your brand to the top on Amazon.
The importance of your seller rating to the Amazon Buy Box
If you’re looking to win the Amazon Buy Box, your ideal seller rating goal should be at least 95 percent and, at worst, no lower than 90 percent. While this goal might sound impossible, especially if you’re just starting your Amazon ecommerce business, many successful sellers manage a 100 percent feedback rating by using automated tools such as Feedback Genius, Feedback Five, or AMZFinder.
Negative ratings and three-star ratings, which are considered neutral, will simultaneously alter your Buy Box chances and your seller rating, so resolving the issues that led to these reviews should be your highest priority. It’s also important to consider the timeline of your negative feedback – sellers have the ability to update and remove feedback for up to 60 days after leaving reviews. In many cases, if the buyer has left a review on a seller feedback review, you can even get Amazon to remove it directly. In these situations, a timely response is key to removing negative claims.
How to get into the Amazon Buy Box
Although there is no exact method for winning or getting into the Amazon Buy Box, if you adhere to the below best practices, your chances will be as high as is reasonably possible:
- Be a Professional Seller, not an individual seller. No matter how well you follow advice about optimizing your store for Buy Box success, your efforts will lead to nothing unless you have a professional account. Make the switch from individual right away if you are still operating as an individual.
- Prioritize fulfillment and price. Amazon’s algorithm for winning the Buy Box weighs fulfillment and total price to customer more heavily than any other factors. To improve your fulfillment, switch to FBA or SFP, and to improve your prices, use automatic repricing software and minimize your shipping costs (or guarantee free shipping on all your orders).
- Monitor shipping time, performance, and customer reviews. Of second-most importance to fulfillment and price are shipping time (if you don’t use FBA), performance metrics, and seller feedback. To excel in these categories, you should streamline your fulfillment and delivery methods, monitor your performance metrics and take active steps to improve them, and attend to customer complaints in a timely, helpful manner. You might also want to consider asking customers to leave reviews by placing a card in the package requesting feedback.
- Keep your inventory well stocked. Although Amazon’s algorithm for winning the Buy Box weighs a well-stocked inventory less heavily than other components, you should still take care to consistently have stock available. Using sales forecasting software, predicting how long your suppliers will take to deliver new stock, and keeping a reserve of safety stock can help you excel in this category.
For help winning the Amazon Buy Box on a regular basis, you can also turn to e-commerce experts who bring decades of experience to the table. At OEM Experts, we have spent a quarter-century educating ecommerce businesses on the best practices to win the Buy Box and, beyond that, turn a profit on a regular basis while keeping customer satisfaction consistently high. Our team is well-versed in all things e-commerce, even beyond Amazon. Contact OEM Experts today to learn more about how we can help you earn not just Amazon Buy Box presence, but a healthy profit margin, too.
