What is the Buy Box on Amazon
The Buy Box on Amazon is the white rectangle that you can find on the right side of the product page, where customers can add items to their cart or even buy that product right away.
82% of Amazon sales go through the Buy Box, which means that the seller that appears under the Buy Box is the one generating most of the sales for that product.
Since the Buy Box can be assigned to only one seller at a given moment, if you’re not in the Buy Box it is very unlikely that you’re going to sell that product. You are going to compete against other sellers in order to win the Buy Box and get the opportunity to sell your product on Amazon.
That’s why it is extremely important for you as a seller to set strategies in place to control the Buy Box for each one of your products.
Amazon Buy Box Eligilibity
If there is more than one seller offering the same product, the Buy Box rotates between all the sellers that are currently eligible for it.
Your offer can be eligible to win the Buy Box only if it meets certain criteria:
- You must have a professional seller account on Amazon.
Product listed by individual accounts are not Buy Box eligible - Only products offered in new condition are eligible for the Buy Box.
If you sell a used product for example, you won’t be able to win the Buy Box for that product. - You are eligible to win the Buy Box only if that product is currently available in your inventory.
If you are out-of-stock, then you won’t be able to get the buybox assigned to you.
Suppressed Amazon Buy Box
There are certain products on Amazon that have no Buy Box at all. This can happen if there are currently no sellers offering that product.
Many times Amazon suppresses the Buy Box when they believe the current price is too high for that product.
As you can imagine, if there is no Buy Box it’s going to be more difficult for Amazon customers to buy your product. This doesn’t mean that you are not going to make any sales, but you are going to see a reduction in the number of sales.
What can you do if the Buy Box for one of your listings gets suppressed by Amazon? Just bring your price down. You can do it little by little until the Buy Box is visible again.
Amazon Buy Box Winning Strategies
And now I’m going to explain how you can increase your chances of winning the Buy Box on Amazon when there are many sellers offering the same product.
There are several elements that influence the assignment of the Buy Box to a specific seller. You can be sure that if you meet all the following conditions, you are very likely to get the Buy Box assigned to you most of the time.
- Competitive Price
If you want to win the Buy Box more often, you have to offer the best price. - Fulfillment Type
If you offer your products using Amazon FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon), your chances of winning the Buy Box are way higher than if you use FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant). Amazon always prefers sellers that are selling products using their FBA program. - Is Amazon in the Listing
If Amazon itself is directly selling that product, you will definitively see your Buy Box win rate decrease.
Does that means that you should stay away from products that are sold directly by amazon?
ABSOLUTELY NOT!
Sharing the buybox with Amazon just means that you won’t be able to get every single sale, but if the product is selling a lot of units, you are still going to make a very good profit. - Inventory Size
If you have just a few units left, while other sellers have hundreds of them available in-stock, Amazon is more likely to give the Buy Box to one of your competitors. - Seller Feedbacks
Older seller accounts with hundreds of positive feedback are going to win the Buy Box more often that new accounts with just a bunch of feeedback or no feedback at all. That’s why it is important to keep your account health in order and collect positive seller feedback from your customers.
There are also other aspects that have little impact on the probability of winning the Buy Box, but in my opinion, they are not as relevant as the ones I’ve mentioned before and you can easily ignore them.
Amazon Buy Box Analysis using Actorio
In order to help you out in the selection of the best products, Actorio provides relevant information about the current status of the Buy Box such as the current lowest price and the number of sellers in the listing as well a the number of FBA sellers that you are going to compete with.
Moreover, if you want to make a more in-depth analysis, you can quickly access Keepa Graphs and check the historical data of both price and seller count.
