For a seller on Amazon, the “Buy Box” is the most valuable piece of digital real estate you can get your hands on. The “Buy Box” – referring to the white box on the right side of any Amazon product’s detail page – is what users can click on to purchase an item or add it to their digital shopping cart.
For opportunistic third-party sellers on Amazon, “winning” the Buy Box is always the top priority. For Brands, the priority must be protecting and owning your Buy Box.
What is the Buy Box?
When an Amazon user lands on a particular product’s listing page – such as the listing for Callaway Golf Balls for example – they’ll note the info box on the page containing a one-click “add to cart” or “buy now” button.
When a customer makes a purchase using these buttons, the sale will go to the vendor noted within the box. In the event that a seller is the only vendor offering a particular product, they will automatically win the Buy Box.
When there are multiple sellers, however, the Buy Box sale of an item is awarded to an eligible Amazon seller by an advanced algorithm.
The algorithm takes into account a wide range of factors to decide which seller gets the sale directly from the listing. Competition for the Buy Box is fierce and it’s easy to see why.
The range of factors can be very unfair and in some cases brand new sellers of the item will get precedence of the buybox over the brand. According to webfx.com, the Buy Box accounts for nearly 85% of sales on Amazon.
A Customer-First Approach
The Amazon Buy Box drives users to a specific retailer to purchase an item based on an advanced algorithm that decides the “winner” based on a variety of factors.
For the most part, all of the factors the algorithm considers boil down to answering a key question: which vendor provides the best customer experience? In building out its Buy Box algorithm, Amazon has taken an approach that favours both customers and themselves.
The Buy Box algorithm decides a Buy Box winner based a wide range of variables, all having to do with delivering a stellar customer experience:
Shipping Cost and Speed
If an item is on offer by Amazon Retail, the Buy Box will always be awarded to them. However, the Buy Box may be awarded to a third-party seller if Amazon Retail is out of stock of an item. The Buy Box is built to serve Amazon customers, so, the algorithm favours vendors offering the item at the lowest cost, with shipping included.
When it comes to shipping methods, keeping in line with satisfying customers, the algorithm will favour vendors using Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA) as their shipping method as this is generally the fastest shipping methods the marketplace offers. Seller Fullfilled Prime vendors can also compete against FBA for the Buy Box.
The algorithm also takes into consideration on-time delivery rates, penalising those with a high rate of late shipments. Giving customers the ability to track their shipments with valid tracking numbers is also favoured, which is one reason the algorithm prefers FBA sellers.
Overall Customer Experience
For obvious reasons, the Buy Box does not look too kindly upon sellers with low star ratings and negative reviews. A seller’s average seller rating is of the utmost importance, as is customer response time.
Amazon requires sellers to respond to customer messages quickly and long response times will hurt a seller’s chances of winning the Buy Box.
Other customer service factors that can negatively impact the odds of winning a Buy Box include frequently running out of stock of an item, high cancellation rates, and high refund/return rates.
Tackling “Buy Box Suppression”
Amazon has been suppressing the Buy Box for certain sellers and it has become a major point of contention amongst e-commerce businesses operating in the marketplace. This means that when a customer goes to purchase an item, they will not see the option to buy it from the seller who has been suppressed, but rather from one of Amazon’s own sellers.
While Amazon has not released a statement addressing this issue, it is speculated that they are doing this in order to give their own sellers an advantage.
It also hurts the customers, who are likely to get lower quality products if they are forced to purchase them from Amazon instead of from a reputable seller.
What Causes Amazon Buy Box Suppression?
There are many reasons why Amazon may choose to suppress a Buy Box. One reason could be that the product is not available for sale in the customer’s region. Another reason could be that the product is out of stock, or that the price is not competitive.
Amazon may also choose to suppress a Buy Box if the seller is not meeting Amazon’s performance standards.
The Buy Box & Amazon Advertising
The importance of winning the Amazon Buy Box is apparent when you look at how they impact Amazon Sponsored Product advertising. In short, acquiring a product’s Buy Box has become a prerequisite for running Sponsored Product ads.
The Bottom Line
The road towards winning an Amazon Buy Box starts with building a reputable e-commerce retail business that provides customers with competitive pricing, fast and free shipping via Amazon Prime or FBA, and outstanding customer service.
Amazon provides its vendors with a range of tools to address these areas, including the Selling Coach Price Report, and Account Health dashboard.
That said, using the right monitoring tools will give you an edge over the competition. You need to be able to track your inventory levels, pricing, and competitor activity so that you can make sure that you are always one step ahead and selling products via the highly coveted Buy Box.
