Winning the Buy Box is super important for Amazon Sellers. With 90% of sales going to sellers that hold the buy box, it’s no wonder winning the buy box is a big priority. There are a number of factors that Amazon’s alogorithm looks at when deciding who to award the coveted buy box to. And if you aren’t winning the buy box, you might be wondering why. Here is a quick list of common reasons that may be impacting your ability to win the buy box.
#1 You Aren’t Buy Box Eligible
This is pretty obvious: if you aren’t eligible to be in the buy box, you aren’t going to win it.
If you want to check on the Buy Box Eligibility for your products, follow these steps:
In Seller Central, click on the Inventory Tab and select Manage Inventory.
Click on the Preferences tab.
Find the Column Display section and select the field for Buy Box Eligible.
Select Show When Available from the drop-down menu.
Look at the Buy Box Eligible column for a SKU. If it says ‘Yes’ then it is eligible.
Check out our blog post on becoming buy box eligible for more information.
#2 You Are Providing a Poor Customer Experience
Because Amazon is highly customer-centric, a big emphasis is placed on how well third-party sellers are taking care of customers. This means that you should be paying a lot of attention to metrics like Order Defect Rate, Pre-Fulfillment Cancel Rate and Late Shipment Rate, Valid Tracking Rate, and Items Delivered on Time. These are just a few other many rates you should be monitoring. You also need to keep your Negative Feedback Rate to a minimum and get negative reviews removed whenever possible. These seller ratings play a big factor in your ability to win the buy box, as well as be successful overall on Amazon.
The good news is if you can have your products fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) it takes a lot of the responsbility off your plate since Amazon handles the shipping and customer service.
#3 You’re a New Seller Not Using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)
If you are a newer seller, using FBA is highly recommended if you want to win the buy box faster. Amazon wants to ensure that new sellers will be able to process and ship orders in a timely manner to maintain customer satisfaction. Using FBA as a new seller not only helps you be able to win the buy box faster, as mentioned earlier, it shifts some of the customer experience responsibilty to Amazon since they’ll be handling the fulfillment process.
#4 Your Pricing and Fulfillment Method are Working Against You
The two most important factors for winning the buy box are price and fulfillment method. Customers want the best price possible and Amazon’s algorithm is setup to offer them that and the best fulfillment method. Using FBA can play a big role helping you remain competitive in winning the buy box. While price is not the most important factor, it can play into whether you are able to beat your competitors or not. If all other factors are equal, product price becomes the determining factor in who wins the buy box. Even though this is usually not the case, it goes to show that pricing can be instrumental in how successful you are at winning the buy box.
#5 You’re Inventory is Running Low
Inventory levels are important when it comes to winning the buy box. If you have a competitor who has a much high stock level of the same product as you, they will have a tremendous advantage over you. As such, you should be monitoring your inventory levels closely so you don’t run the risk of losing the buy box. Make sure you’re taking into account the shipping and processing time it takes for your new inventory to reach your fulfillment center and get processed by Amazon. If you neglect to factor in this extra time, it could lead to your stock levels running low or being depleted before the new inventory is ready to be purchased.
Buy Box Tracking
Sellozo has just launched a new tool: Buy Box Tracking! This tool is perfect for Amazon Sellers who want to fully understand how there individual products are performing within the buy box (aka how often they are winning the buy box). Usually, sellers are only able to see how often they are winning the buy box at the account level, which is given as an average. With Sellozo’s Buy Box Tracking, sellers can now see not only how often each SKU/ASIN is winning the buy box individually, they can also see the price that is winning that product the buy box as well!
Sellers can also view a historical chart that shows when they have won and lost the buy box, and what the price was that the buy box winner listed the product for.
While tracking how often you’re winning the buy box is important for all sellers, those sellers partaking in arbitrage will likely find this new tool extremely helpful. Since traditionally arbitrage sellers sell products that can be highly competitive, knowing how often they are winning the buy box is especially important!
Try Sellozo!
Sellozo offers a simple, powerful platform that makes it easy to manage and optimize your Amazon Sponsored Product Ads and – thanks to machine-learning – programmatically alters bids to help your ads beat out the competition.
Check out our latest blog post here.