What is the Amazon buy box?
The Buy Box on an Amazon listing refers to the ‘Buy Now’ button on the right side of the product detail page, where customers can click to immediately purchase - removing a lot of friction when purchasing from Amazon.
With over 80% of purchases coming through the buy box, it’s easy to see how important it is as a seller to focus on winning that precious buy box real estate!
Gaining a greater understanding of the buy box, how it works in conjunction with Amazon’s A-9 search algorithm, and what metrics give you the strongest chance of winning the buy box can put you in a great position to excel on Amazon.
How does the buy box work?
Unfortunately, not all sellers are eligible to win the Buy Box. Due to increasing levels of competition in the marketplace, only sellers meeting strict eligibility criteria will be given the opportunity to win a ‘share’ of the buy box placement. After proving eligible at a seller/listing level, Amazon’s A-9 search algorithm will then use other factors to determine the best “offer” (which seller of that product) to the customer. This process pins competitors against each other, factoring in all variables and allocating a larger share of buy box placements to sellers determined to be top-ranking for that product.
Winning the buy box is a balancing act between offering the best price and the best customer experience (shipping, customer service, etc.) on Amazon - Having the cheapest price does not guarantee you will win the buy box placement.
There is no hack to winning the buy box, rather, you must regularly monitor and improve on a number of metrics.
If I am the only seller of a product, am I guaranteed to win the buy box?
Amazon will only highlight offers that it is confident will present a great experience for buyers i.e. its customers. This means there may be circumstances in which a third-party offer would be ineligible to be displayed as the Featured Offer (i.e. something sold by a seller other than Amazon themselves) even if it's the only offer for an item.
For example, an offer would be ineligible if the third party has a history of providing a poor customer experience or presents a high risk of fraud or abuse. Similarly, an offer at a price that is uncompetitive, for a product that is not available or cannot ship to a customer’s location, or for a product about which there may be product-quality or customer-experience concerns may be ineligible to be displayed as the Featured Offer.
Note Amazon does not always promote itself as the buy box winner (usually but not always). If an Amazon retail offer is out of stock with no outstanding purchase orders and that same product is available at the same or a lower price from a Prime-eligible seller with a high-performance rating, then the Amazon retail offer would not be the Featured Offer.
How to win the Amazon Buy Box
Seller using FBA has their orders fulfilled by Amazon's high-quality fulfilment services. Quick, reliable shipping is what customers want. FBA provides sellers with items being labelled as Amazon 'Prime' eligible and helps seller performance. The featured offer (buy box) is based on factors affecting customer experience, and FBA generally provides a better and more reliable experience for Amazon’s customers than fulfilment through other means; accordingly, that difference may be reflected in the offer that is featured.
Buy Box Metrics Cheat Sheet
All metrics to focus on, to win the buy box:
Steps to see if you are eligible for the Amazon Buy Box:
- Log in to your Seller Central Account.
- Click on the Inventory tab in your Amazon Seller Central and select Manage Inventory.
- Click on the Preferences tab.
- In the Column Display section, locate the field for Buy Box Eligible.
- Select “Show When Available” from the drop-down menu.
- Then, when looking at a particular SKU, if you are eligible for the Box, it will say “Yes” in the Buy Box Eligible column, and if you are not eligible, it will say “No.”
How many Amazon Prime members are there?
Amazon Prime has over 100 million paid members worldwide.
For further assistance, please reach out to marketplace-connect@shopify.com