What is a buy box and why should you care about winning it?
If we look at the definition then it is the “featured listing” that is available to purchase from a product’s page when visited by a potential buyer. What does it really mean for you and the buyer? If we put it simply then the buy box is the BUY NOW or ADD TO CART BUTTON which appears under or side of your listing. This depends on where your product is being seen by the consumer. The image below shows buy box on a laptop or a PC.
Let’s understand this with the help of the example. If a user is searching for a product on a laptop or on a PC then the BUY BOX will appear on the right side of your product listings. It should be noted that on PC or laptop this BUY BOX is not that prominent. This completely changes when it comes to smartphones. If a user is using amazon via an official app or a browser in the smartphone, then the buy BUY BOX will appear right under the product when it is very easy to reach out with the thumb of the user, making it much easier for the user to take action on BUY BOX.
Why is BUY BOX important?
Well, the answer to that question is simple, because if you have BUY BOX then it will most definitely increase your business. Some sources say that 4 out 5 sales on amazon happen via buy box, or almost 85% of all of the sale on amazon comes from the buy box.
According to statista Amazon reached over $386 billion in 2020 with over $320 billion worth of sales coming through the Buy Box. So if you don’t have a buy box then you are missing out on the $320 sale. So it is much advised that you do whatever it takes to win the buy box because the results of winning are amazing and totally worth the effort. Now that you know how important the buy boxes are in terms of getting more sales it’s about time to understand the eligibility to win the buy box as it doesn’t matter how much you want or how much you work for it you would not get it if you are eligible for it.
Eligible for winning the buy box.
If you are a seller and you want to win a buy box then you have to fulfill the criteria given below.
- Have a professional Seller account.
- Be selling an item in “New” condition.
- Have inventory available to sell.
Being an Amazon seller it’s fair to assume that you are already in the clear. If this is not the case then you would have to make sure that fulfill all of the points which I mentioned above.
There is a small catch, sometimes Amazon will not give you buy box even if you meet all of the above mentioned points and the reason for this could be because of the following.
- You have a new seller account.
- Your account has poor metrics.
If this is the case with you then we would suggest that you first work on improving your account metrics before you start working on getting a buy box. If you are unsure of your account metrics then you check it from amazon seller center. Now that’s all clear, let’s talk about how to win the buy box.
How to win buy box.
Well first think you already know because we have already talked about it.
- You are eligible for the buy box.
- Have a professional Seller account.
- Be selling an item in “New” condition.
- Have inventory available to sell.
- Price your product competitively.
- Use FBA or ship your orders as fast as possible.
- Maintain stellar Seller account metrics.
- Order defect rate.
- Stock availability.
- Valid tracking rate.
- Late shipment rate.
- Delivered on-time rate.
Competitive price.
This is the second component of winning the buy box. The algorithm which decides who wins the buy box looks at the “landed price” This landed price is the price that the consumer will pay when he/she decides to buy your product. This landed price includes the shipping price as well. Now some sellers try to cheat the system by lowering your product price and increasing your shipping fees. This will not get you any buy box and it hurt your account and your sale by extension.
It is recommended that your pricing should be within a few percent of the lowest landed price of the same fulfillment method you are using. As long as you are making a profit it’s fine. Now it’s warning time, do not price your product below the lowest available price, as this will create a price war and this would make both your competition make fewer profits. It is a game of calculation, and you would have to stay very close to your competition.
As I have just mentioned that it is a game of calculation and these calculations can get very complicated very quickly and also time-consuming. To counter this we recommend you to use automatic pricing tools. These tools will save you a lot of time and make your life much easier.
NOTE: None of the points alone will help you get the buy box. There are so many things which the algorithm takes into consideration before deciding who gets the buy box.
One of the reason for this can be that lower-priced products are seller fulfilled. This means that those products are shipped by the seller and not by Amazon. Whereas the seller who got the buy box was using FBA so this can be stated as one of the reasons for the boy box. If you don’t use FBA then there is no need to worry. You just have to ship products ASAP after receiving the order here the key is being speed. The conclusion of this point is that FBA has an advantage seller fulfilled.
Maintain Stellar Seller Account Metrics
This is related to the first point in which I talked about that you would not get buy box even if you check all of the points. Below are some of the things which you should know and always be aware of.
- When listing in new condition, only sell brand new items with no defects (even to packaging).
- Ship your items as fast as possible and supply valid tracking numbers.
- Answer customer questions as quickly as possible.
- Stay away from items with a low customer satisfaction rate.
Order defect rate.
Order defect rate (ODR) is the number of product which were defective according to Amazon. Amazon calculates the ODR based on the following things.
- Negative feedback rating
- A-Z guarantee claim rate
- Service chargeback rate
The ODR should be below 1% and any seller who is not able to achieve the ODR of less than 1% will receive penalties from Amazon.
All of the points are very important not only for the buy box but also for your whole business on amazon. There have been so many cases where people have lost their whole business because of ignoring these points. Again these points are very important and you should always stay in the good.
Stock availability.
This might seems to be a very small and obvious thing but even then so many people made this same mistake over and over again. As soon as your product goes out of stock you will lose your buy box. However, there is one expectation to this point. If you have mentioned your product as “backordered” then you will not lose your buy box. Backordered basically means that the consumer is ordering the product knowing full well that the product is not in stock at the time of the order and it might take some time to get the product.
Valid tracking rate
This is a relatively new matrix that was introduced by Amazon, under this matrix Amazon wants the seller to provide the buyer with a valid tracking ID which he might use to track their package. Amazon uses the data from the last 7 to 30 days for the calculation. If the valid tracking rate drops below 95% the there is a strong probability that you might lose buy box.
Late shipment rate
We have briefly touched on this thing in our point number 3. It is when you ship your product on a later date than what is shown or given on the order page or on the product page. You have the ability to manually set your shipping date from the seller center. However, if you have not manually set your shipping date then you will be automatically given the by default shipping date which is 1 to 2 days.
If your shipment is below 4% then winning a buy box becomes easy for you. Amazon will use the data from the last 30 days in order to calculate your late shipment rate. Again it should be under 4%.
Delivered on-time rate
This is similar to the above point. This is the number of orders which were delivered to the buyer on the date which was mentioned when they were buying the said product. A seller who is looking for winning the buy box should aim to achieve 97% or more delivered on time rate.
Feedback ratings.
Feedback is also important as it is via feedback that the consumer can reflect the quality of the product which they received. It is also one of the most important factors that affect the buying decision of the buyer. This takes a lot of data from the past reviews. The algorithm considers reviews from as far back as one year. Now the latest review has the most impact and the oldest review has the least impact.
To sum it up, amazon will provide a seller with buy box if they are providing the best service, as for Amazon the most important thing is the buyer. So if you satisfying your buyer then there is a strong probability that you will be awarded with the buy box.
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