A product item page where customers can purchase by adding items to their shopping carts and seller gains an important leverage
In details, Amazon Buy Box is when there are many sellers listing the same item on Amazon, but amazon provides a convenient checkout option for customers when looking at a product. A prominent corner on the right side of the product listing, the Buy Box allows buyers to add the product to their online shopping cart with just one click.
The Buy Box is simply the box that appears at the right-hand side of the product page.
The Buy Box selects the ideal seller from the ‘New’ category (where applicable), selecting the winner based on a number of elements. The two most important factors, though are pricing and accessibility. Amazon will always endeavor to make the cheapest seller in stock into the Buy Box to enhance customer experience all-round.
Why Buy Box Matters!
The Buy Box matters because it’s a crucial direction in which you bear away from competing vendors. The huge bulk of buyers will click the “add to basket” link in the Buy Box when looking at an item because — let’s face it — why would you want to squander precious time scouring the depths of the ‘New & Used’ section at the rear of the product page if Amazon automatically pulls out the best product for you? Thus, ‘winning’ the Buy Box is a major boon to your shop because it’ll immensely increase the bulk of your sales.
Factors That Help You Win the Buy Box:
1. Buy Box Eligibility
‘Featured Merchant Status’ no longer exists. This used to be visible to customers as a ‘certificate’ for recognized and consistent sellers. Instead, Amazon has decided to drop this for Buy Box eligibility. Only you can see if you’re eligible to win the Buy Box (the customer cannot see this). If you want to be Buy Box eligible you must have a Professional seller account and will need to have been trading for at least 2-6 months or you can win it straight away if you use the FBA service. You will also need to have shown consistently high-performance levels. Some performance factors will be:
A history of successful selling – fulfilling a large number of orders successfully will show Amazon that you are a consistent and trustworthy seller who’s able to deliver a high-quality positive experience for customers.
Excellent customer service – a few things that will affect customer service are:
- Responsiveness to customers
- Speed of dispatch
- The number of ‘perfect orders’
- The condition of the products you ship
- The number of orders you have canceled
Having good customer metrics – if you have good customer metrics you show Amazon that you are a reliable and trustworthy seller. These are the sellers Amazon want to give the Buy Box to. If you want to improve your chances of winning the Buy Box you must have good customer metrics!
To check your Buy Box eligibility, follow these steps
There are a few metrics you’ll want to keep your eye on to ensure that you’re maintaining a good seller status. You can find these in your Seller Central dashboard by going to Your Account > Your Seller Account > Performance.
On the right of this Seller Central page, you’ll see your customer feedback statistics. This shows you how many positive, neutral, and negative reviews you’ve had.
These are divided into different time spans, from 30 days to lifetime. That way, you can measure the impact of changes to your approach to customer satisfaction, and use that data to optimize your rate of positive feedback over time.
2. A Competitive ‘Landed’ Price
Pricing Strategy and having a low price is an important factor in the Buy Box formula. Keep in mind that, it is the “landed price” (i.e. the total price, plus shipping), which determines the chances of you getting the buy box. This means you have to keep on your toes, as pricing for competitors may change often. That is why it is important to use an automated repricing tool to keep your prices competitive in real-time.
Sellers can freely customize pricing strategies with basic and advanced rules, set min and max prices to protect margins, bulk import and export filtered searches or templates to apply changes to pricing in a snap.
3. Quick and Efficient Shipment
Quick and efficient shipping is thought to play a role in the Buy Box. How fast it needs to really depend on your product
some products may be just fine taking a week or two to ship. However, if you’re competing against two-day shipping from other sellers,
you’ll need to step up your game. When it comes to shipping, speed is great, but meeting your customer’s expectations is also necessary.
No one likes it when things take longer than expected, and the Buy Box agrees. Of course, using Fulfillment by Amazon eliminates your need to think about
offering speedy shipping because Amazon handles it for you.
4. Good Seller Feedback
We keep repeating it, but Amazon always put the customer first. So they take what customers have to say about you very seriously. If the vast majority of your customers have given you positive seller feedback then Amazon will be far happier giving you the Buy Box.
Remember to keep your customers happy, by being quick to respond to issues (Amazon state responses should be less than 24 hours), and taking steps to avoid potential problems (particularly setting customer expectations through the product listing).
5. Having Enough Stock
If you win the Buy Box Amazon want to ensure you can handle the demand for the product. Amazon wants to avoid customers adding out of stock items to their basket. So in order to be the top choice for customers to purchase an item, you will need to make sure you have plenty of stock. This doesn’t mean you need thousands of units but if you only have a couple of units of an extremely popular, fast-selling product you probably won’t win the Buy Box.
For any item, it is possible for more than one customer to add an item to their basket at the same time. Amazon wants to avoid customers being disappointed when they are complete a checkout and find the item has sold out.
Also, remember it’s essential you keep your inventory up to date to avoid customers buying products you don’t actually have. If this happens, your Amazon seller metrics will suffer and your chance of winning the Buy Box will drop.
6. Fulfillment
Arguably the biggest influencer in winning the Buy Box is using FBA. By letting Amazon handle the dispatch of your items and the customer service, you’re offering your customers the world-class customer service of Amazon. FBA doesn’t guarantee you the Buy Box but it has hugely positive benefits that contribute to being a more competitive seller.
If you are not using FBA then you need to ensure your own fulfillment service is of fantastic quality, this means offering a range of shipping methods with a fast dispatch time. If you only offer one standard delivery rate then you should consider adding an expedited rate at the very least for customers who need to receive items quickly.
At the end
Winning the Buy Box takes competitive pricing, a lasting inventory, and plenty of shipping options — but most importantly of all, it requires a reputation for great customer experience. If you want to reap the rewards of reaching the Buy Box, therefore, everything you do should be in the interest of the customer. Simple!
