Understanding how to win the Buy Box on Amazon can be a game changer for your Amazon business. But how do you win it? And for those of you who are new to Amazon, what is the buy box anyways?
What Is The Amazon Buy Box?
The Amazon Buy Box allows customers to place a product directly into their cart without sorting through the prices from multiple sellers. It creates a competition for sellers who sell the same product, as the buy box shows the best product for a customer to purchase. This means only one seller will “win” the Buy Box at any one time, and winning the Boy Box can make a huge difference in your product sales. In short, it is the simplest route for purchasing a product.
How Does The Amazon Buy Box Work?
Firstly, the Amazon Buy Box only applies to sellers that are part of the professional sellers plan so if you are interested in the Buy Box you will need to look into joining the professional plan.
Basically, the buy box will show the best suggested product for a customer to purchase. Amazon determines this by having sellers meet performance-based requirements, because if your product goes within the buy box, it will be very likely that it will increase the sales for that product.
Competing For The Buy Box
Not everyone can have their products in the buy boxes, only the best offers, or what Amazon decides is the best product, will be shown. Amazon has not provided an exact road map to winning the Buy Box, but they do suggest that price, seller metrics and order volume all play a role. This however, has caused many sellers to experiment and compete in different ways which has helped us figure out the different factors that could increase your ability to win the Buy Box. Here’s more information on Winning The Buy Box on Amazon and a link to our Buy Box Cheat Sheet for helping sellers win the Buy Box.
What we do know is that seller performance metrics is something that Amazon looks at. That being said, the products that do win the Buy Box usually are of high quality, excel in customer support, and deliver a fair yet reasonable price.
Here’s some things you can adjust or try to increase your chances of winning the buy box:
- Customer Service – Customer service is the number one aspect you should focus on as your customers determine how you are perceived through Amazon. We also know that Amazon measures your customer service as a metric. To look at these metrics access the Account Health page on the Performance link.
- Price – One of the reasons why more shoppers are turning to Amazon is because of their low prices. Shop for an item on another site and compare it to Amazon and most of the time Amazon’s sellers are offering it at a better price. That means you must price competitively. Where is your product selling, who is selling your product, and what are the prices? Do you research and then price accordingly.
- Research – Take some time to research your competition and keep a spreadsheet with their product information including descriptions, prices, and if they have won a buy box or not. What’s working for them and what is not? Their success and failures will help you succeed over time. You can also just look at the winner of the buy box and store that data. On the Manage Inventory page click the Preferences button and select Show for the Buy Box winning price. The “new” condition listings will show the winners and you can save this information in your files as use it to help you win the buy box later on.
- Fulfilment – Did you know you have more than one option to offer your customers when it comes to shipping? Under the Shipping Settings you can check them out but we suggest offering a few including free shipping. On small items, where you can eat the cost, ship the item for free. Your customers will love you for it and leave better reviews.
- Stock Up – If you don’t have products in stock, no one can purchase them! Also, without products in stock you can’t win the Buy Box so it’s a double negative. ALWAYS keep products in stock, especially products that are selling quickly. There are many free tools online that you can use to help you plan your inventory orders ahead of time so that you can avoid ever being out of stock.
- Reorders – Amazon has given customers the option to reorder products quickly, or to use Subscribe & Save to automate reordering for products that they use often. If you have a product that is often reordered you must always be in stock and have an updated inventory. Why? Well, three reasons:
- Without stock people can’t order and you can’t get paid.
- You will not show up on the Buy Box
- Customers will leave negative reviews for that product as they are expecting it to be in stock. With negative reviews your product will not make it into the Buy Box.
- Stay Organized – Organize all your information from your research, to your price records, to your stock. If you stay organized with all the data you are collecting and all the items you have in stock you won’t have to worry about negative reviews or running out of products, or even how to win the buy box. You will be one up on your competition and will be able to evaluate all your data and better serve your customers and win the buy box.
Are You Eligible To Win the Buy Box
All the tips we have mentioned above should be done whether or not you want to win the Buy Box, they are great practices to take in place for your Amazon store. However, if you want to win the Buy Box there are a few other things we need to asses.
If you have a Professional seller account you need to have been selling for at least 2-6 months. If you don’t want to wait that long you can sign up and use the FBA service to win the Buy Box right away. However, in both points you have to show consistently high-performance levels for your store. Here are some of the factors that will be accessed:
- Successful Selling History – You cannot expect to win the Buy Box if you just open a store and have a great low-priced item. You have to prove, to Amazon, that you can sell your products and that not only do customers want your product, but that they like it. You must also need to show that you can fulfill repeat orders, large orders, and a large number of orders. This shows Amazon that you are responsible and can fulfil different types of orders from your clients. It also proves that you are a trustworthy seller who can deliver their products to their clients and create a great buying experience for your customers.
- Excellent Customer Service – We already noted above how important your customer service is but we want to bring it up again because Amazon will be looking at it. Do not expect to win the Buy Box if you have limited or no customer feedback, and the only way to get truly high rated reviews is to increase your customer service level.
- Respond to your customers in a timely manner. Do not leave them waiting for an answer whether it be about a product, shipping costs, or a complaint.
- Deliver your products as quickly as you say you can. Do not promise a two-day delivery if you know it will take longer and during the holiday season, let customers know that it may take longer. Or use the FBA service so you do not have to worry about shipping speed.
- Have a high amount of perfect orders meaning orders that were delivered on time, that were not damaged, and of quality from the description. The more of these that are fulfilled the higher your chances will be to win the buy box.
- Try your best to not cancel any orders and to do that you must have products in stock, have shipping labels ready, and be prepared. Again, see our tip on organization to complete this.
All of this will give you a high customer metric which will again show Amazon that you are responsible, reliable, and trustworthy. The better your customer metrics, the better your chances are at winning the Buy Box because Amazon wants to give their customers the best shopping experience. If you are not already doing that then why would Amazon choose you?
If You Don’t Win It At First, Try Again
Winning the Buy Box is going to take time, it will not happen overnight especially if you have just opened your store within the last few months. Analyze your store and products and see where you can improve to better set yourself up to win the Buy Box. The other positive that will come out of this is while you are trying to win the Buy Box, with these methods, you will also start creating a better buying experience for your customers.
When selling on Amazon, it always good to understand all the available options and how to take advantage. If you don’t have a strategy for Amazon, perhaps it’s time to get some help from the pros. The team at OperationROI can help, as they have been working with Amazon for years and have different strategies to help you sell more. Contact us today at 1-888-277-5429 or by filling out our contact form to learn more.
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