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How to Win the Amazon Buy Box in 2022?

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How to Win the Amazon Buy Box in 2022?

 

Selling on Amazon has opened many doors for sellers. Not only it is a profitable marketplace but also growing unwaveringly. Statistics suggest that over the past ten years Amazon’s net revenue sales have increased to $469 billion in 2021 with over $389 billion worth of sales. 

 

Have you ever wondered what entails success on Amazon? It has come down to winning the Buy Box Amazon

 

This guide will help you understand how the Amazon Buy Box works, and what factors you need to win the Amazon Buy Box in 2022.

 

What is the Amazon Buy Box?

 

While searching for a product on Amazon, you might have come across the ‘Buy Now’ and ‘add to cart’ button on the right side of a product listing. That is what Amazon Buy Box is.

 

Amazon Buy Box enables customers to make a quick purchase without considering who they are buying from (Amazon or a third-party seller).

 

Amazon Buy Box is an integral part for selling on Amazon as a seller. However, there are two sorts of sellers on Amazon: Amazon itself, and third-party sellers.

 

For the bulk of items, there’ll be several buying options for the buyer. When a buyer selects, “Add to Cart”, the vendor who has the Buy Box Amazon at that moment in time (the Buy Box winner rotates but more about that later), gets that all-important sale.

 

The Amazon Buy Box algorithm is very important for ranking high on Amazon for those who don’t have unique products. Having an extremely low price does not guarantee the Buy Box Amazon. The Buy Box price isn’t always the lowest price on Amazon.

 

The Buy Box considers location.

 

The Buy Box is merely for items in new condition.

 

Amazon shares the Buy Box with third-party sellers.

 

How Does the Buy Box Work ?

 

The Buy Box algorithm starts by analysing each offered by all the sellers of the merchandise. It then evaluates each offer on the idea of seller history, price and lots of other variables.

 

After completing the analysis, Amazon rewards the Buy Box with what it deems the best buying options for its customers.

 

Who is eligible for the Buy Box?

 

If there are multiple sellers for a particular product, then the system rotates through the list, giving each company a proportionate number of opportunities to make sales.

 

Sellers have to meet three minimum eligibility requirements just to be considered for the Buy Box which are given below:

 

1. A professional seller account plan

 

2. Sufficient inventory. Out of stock items lose eligibility immediately

 

3. New items. 

 

4. Used product have a separate buy box for used products

 

How to check eligibility for the Buy Box?

 

To check products eligibility for the Buy Box in your ​​Seller Central account follow the below mentioned steps:

 

1. Go to “Manage Inventory” 

2. Click on the Preference Tab

3. Look for the Buy Box Eligible field

4. Choose “Show When Available” from the drop-down menu 

 

Amazon Buy Box Factors

 

Whilst, Amazon doesn’t disclose the precise performance metrics for the Buy Box, we will divulge a list of the most likely factors, which vary in importance, which Amazon considers before awarding sellers the much-coveted Buy Box.

 

How Do I Buy the Buy Box on Amazon?

 

Excelling altogether of these factors thus delivering an outstanding customer experience is the best way to win a share of the Buy Box.

 

1. Fulfilment method 

 

Fulfilment is perhaps the most important variable considered by Amazon.

 

Fulfilment can now be wiped out three ways, through FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon), FBM (Fulfilment by Merchant) or Seller-Fulfilled Prime (SFP).

 

Amazon gives FBA an ideal score for multiple variables including shipping method, on-time delivery and inventory depth.  

 

However, in 2015 Amazon introduced Seller-Fulfilled Prime which allows FBM sellers to succeed as Amazon Prime members without housing the goods in Amazon’s fulfillment centre. This is often of particular interest to sellers of heavy goods as they can make savings on Amazon buy shipping.

 

Seller-Fulfilled Prime have a higher chance of winning the Buy Box than FBA sellers. Sellers who wish to enrol within the Seller-Fulfilled Prime program must have strong performance metrics and a proven record of meeting customers’ expectations.

 

2. Landed price 

 

There are two prices on Amazon, the worth you list an item and the landed price which includes shipping and VAT (UK and EU only). It’s important to require these things into consideration when pricing your products. One of the common mistakes is that sellers with the lowest price will win the Buy Box.

 

Whilst having a lower cost will increase your chances of winning a share of the Buy Box, it’s only one of the criteria for it, albeit, a crucial one.

 

If your seller performance is above your competition for a product, you’ll be able to raise your price and still get your share of the Buy Box.

 

3. Shipping time

 

Shipping time is the amount of time a seller takes to ship a product. This features a high impact on winning the Buy Box, particularly for products like birthday cards and perishable items.

 

Shipping time is arranged into the subsequent brackets, which only include working days: 0-2 days, 3-7 days, 8-13 days, 14 or more days.

 

The shipping time is often seen on the product detail page where it states the date the item should arrive between.

 

4. Stock availability, vital 

 

Usually, if you don’t have the item available , you can’t win the Buy Box and it’ll rotate to another seller. This is often why sellers must keep good stock levels of their bestsellers.

 

One exception to the above rule is when a product is often listed as “back-ordered” alongside a note on the product page. With backorders, the customer orders the item with the understanding that it’s not immediately available and will be shipped at a later date.

 

Backordered items are often featured in the Buy Box, however, immediately available products are favoured.

 

5. Order defect rate

 

Order defect rate (ODR) comprises three different metrics: feedback rating, A-Z guarantee claim rate and repair chargeback rate.

 

Amazon calculates these three metrics to seek out the number of defective orders. consistent with Amazon, the ODR should be below 1% and any sellers above this may be penalised.

 

6. Valid tracking rate

 

Valid tracking rate is a new performance metric which is the percentage of total packages shipping with valid tracking.

 

Valid tracking rate is taken into account based on the last seven and 30 days.In order to protect your Buy Box eligibility, valid tracking numbers should be provided for packages shipped. Anything but this could affect their chances of winning the Buy Box and even selling in a certain category.

 

7. Late shipment rate

 

A late shipment rate is the number of orders shipping later than the expected ship date. you’ll set your handling time in Seller Central, sellers who don’t are going to be given the default shipping time of 1-2 business days.

 

A late shipment rate below 4% will aid your chances of winning a share of the Buy Box. This metric is often viewed for the last seven and 30 days in Seller Central.

 

8. Delivered on-time rate

 

The percentage of orders that buyers received by the estimated delivery date.

 

Sellers should aim for a percentage of 97% or greater. This metric is often viewed for the last seven and 30 days in Seller Central.

 

9. Feedback rating

 

Feedback rating is the culmination of all feedback scores the seller has received over the last 30 days, 90 days and three hundred and sixty-five days , with the foremost recent Amazon feedback having the greatest impact. Feedback ratings are often seen in Seller Central.

 

10. Customer reaction time 

 

Amazon checks responses for the last 7, 30 and 90 days. It’s considered that replying to customers within 12 hours increases your chances of winning the Buy Box.

 

If quite 10% of messages were replied to after 24 hours or never replied to, this will hurt the ratings. However, by marking it as no response needed, the vendor can save themselves from negative points.

 

11. Feedback count

 

Feedback count is defined as the number of buyers who have given seller feedback. A better feedback count can lead to winning the Buy Box.

 

12. Inventory depth/sales volume, is somewhat important

 

Amazon prefers sellers who have enough inventory to cater to the demand that the Buy Box can create. As a result, sellers with an outsized inventory, consistent sales, and good stock history are often granted a higher Buy Box share.

 

The chances of winning the Buy Box are slim to none if you are out of stock.

 

13. Cancellation and refund rate, somewhat important

 

The number of orders cancelled before being shipped by the seller and the number of orders refunded after being shipped make up the cancellation and refund rate.

 

A rate above 2.5 you’ll affect your chances of winning the Buy Box.

 

New metrics, no impact currently

 

Amazon introduced two new seller metrics aimed at improving the buying experience, the Return Dissatisfaction Rate and therefore the Customer Service Dissatisfaction Rate.

 

Although Amazon is currently not considering these two new metrics as Buy Box factors, it’s worth keeping them in healthiness as they are likely to be factored in the near future.

 

How to Win the Amazon Buy Box?

 

In order to win a share of the Buy Box, sellers have to improve their metrics without forfeiting performance in other areas. it’s not always easy to find a perfect balance between customer support, price and a number of other other factors.

 

Here are four strategies which will help you increase your Amazon Buy Box ownership

 

1. Know your metrics: Sellers should remember their seller metrics in Amazon Seller Central.

 

2. Focus on the important metrics: Some sellers might choose to focus on those metrics which have the most impact on the Buy Box. Your seller feedback score is a crucial metric. This is often one of the reasons sellers use Amazon feedback software like FeedbackExpress.

 

3. Improving seller performance: Use Amazon Seller Central to spot the key areas of performance you need to improve on.

 

4. Be priced competitively: This doesn’t mean having the lowest price. If you don’t want to reprice manually think about using repricing software to save time and keep your prices competitive.

 

Amazon’s Buy Box Requirements

 

There are four key criteria sellers must need to compete for the Buy Box:

 

Professional Seller account: Only sellers with knowledgeable Amazon Sellers accounts which costs $39.99 per month are eligible to win the Buy Box. Individual or Basic Seller accounts aren’t eligible.

 

Buy Box eligibility: A seller must be Buy Box Eligible (previously called Featured Merchant) for the merchandise in order to compete for a share of the much-coveted Buy Box for that product’s sales. Sellers are often eligible to win the Buy Box for some products and not for other products. Sellers can fast-track their thanks to Buy Box Eligibility by using Amazon FBA. 

 

To be eligible for Buy Box, following metrics must be good:

 

Order Defect Rate

Cancellation Rate 

 Late Shipment Rate 

 

Item condition: Items that are used cannot win a Buy Box position over a replacement item—instead, there’s now a Used Buy Box which is separate from the main Buy Box.

 

Stock availability: a clear one but if you don’t have an item in stock, you can’t win the Buy Box with the exception of a back-ordered item.

 

You can check your Buy Box eligibility within Seller Central inventory reports.

 

The “Buy Box Eligible” column isn’t shown by default you’ll switch it on by doing the following:

 

Select “Manage Inventory”

Select “Preferences”

Select “Buy Box Eligible”

Save changes

 

Buy Box Eligible

 

The Suppressed Buy Box

A suppressed Buy Box is when Amazon removes the Buy Box from the merchandise page. rather than seeing the “Add to Cart” button (“Add to Basket in the EU$, you’ll see a box that states “See All Buying Options”.

 

Suppressed Buy Box

When a user clicks this button, they’re going to be redirected to another webpage with offers usually sorted by price from lowest to highest.

 

Why is there no Buy Box on Amazon?

 

There is no Buy Box on Amazon because the price offered by sellers is too high.

 

Amazon features a Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy which states:

 

“Amazon regularly monitors the costs of items on our marketplaces, including shipping costs, and compares them with other prices available to our customers. If we see pricing practices on a marketplace offer that harms customer trust, Amazon can remove the Buy Box, remove the offer, suspend the ship option, or, in serious or repeated cases, suspending or terminating selling privileges.”

 

But there are three other occasions when it’s going to suppress the Buy Box such as when:

 

Sales volume is just too low for the high prices offered. The sellers’ seller metrics aren’t ok to be Buy Box eligible.

 

The listing must be improved such as images, product description or bullet points.

 

Using repricing software, it’s very easy to lower the price of your products to make the Buy Box magically appear again. And whether or not it doesn’t you still have a good chance of getting a sale on the “See All Buying Options” page in the meantime.

 

If you attend the “Manage Inventory” view in Seller Central you can select “Buy Box Price” and “Buy Box Eligible” columns under preferences to see what items are Buy Box Eligible.

 

How to Calculate Your Buy Box Percentage?

 

If a product is viewed 100 times and you’re in the Buy Box for 65 of those, then your Buy Box Percentage is 65%

 

If there are five sellers of the identical product and you all have identical pricing and performance metrics and stock availability then theoretically each seller should get a Buy Box percentage or share of 20%.

 

How to Optimise Your Prices on Amazon?

 

As discussed above, one among the biggest myths surrounding Amazon’s Buy Box is that having the lowest price makes you a certainty for winning a Buy Box.

 

However, optimising the worth of your product will almost certainly increase your chances of winning the Buy Box. With price optimization, your prices and subsequent profits will increase when a competitor runs out of stock.

 

As you’ll probably tell by now, the Amazon Buy Box may be a complex and multi-faceted system. Amazon gives plenty of control to Amazon third-party sellers and you should always try to take full advantage of its incredible potential.

 

Delivering a first-class customer experience gives sellers the power to raise their prices and still maintain a healthy Buy Box share.

 

Finding the optimal pricing point for each product is crucial and challenging. catch on almost right and you’ll probably win some sales; get it exactly perfect and you’ll watch your profits soar.

 

We hope this article helps you understand your needs more about buy box. If you have a query, kindly get in touch with our experts to get the maximum benefit of this innovative tool. They are happy to help you eliminate your doubt anytime around the clock.

 

Having an intelligent best amazon fba software tool—Asinwiser—for online sellers will assist you to run your business in the right direction. Asinwiser.com is an excellent solution that will help you to target your potential audience with its all-in-one features such as brand story, product research, competitor research, profitability calculator, and so on.

 

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