The Amazon Buy Box – What It Is and How to Win It
The orange “Add to Cart” field – also known as the Amazon Buy Box – is the most sought-after button on the platform for sellers. And for good reason. Not only do Buy Box winners gain higher visibility for their products, but they also make significantly more sales than their competition. In this article, you’ll find everything you need to know about it – especially how to win the Buy Box on Amazon and maintain it.
What Is the Amazon Buy Box?
In the Amazon universe, the section located on the right-hand side of the Amazon product detail page is used by customers to purchase items for their cart. Let’s take a look at an example and also use this opportunity to examine how the e-commerce giant structures a page to influence buyers’ decisions:
As you can see above, the “Add to Cart” field is prominently placed next to the item and visually emphasized in a striking orange color. In contrast, competing sellers – those who have not been awarded the Buy Box – are positioned inconspicuously below. In our example, the other sellers have their own smaller “Add to Cart” field, highlighting their alternative offers. This is very beneficial for them, but it is not usually the case.
Does the placement of these elements have any effect on how buyers react? Very much so. About 90 percent of all purchases occur when buyers click “Add to Cart.” In other words, the seller who is able to win the Amazon Buy Box also wins most of the sales.
So in short: sales go to the seller with the most Buy Box wins on Amazon, meaning that any enterprising seller on Amazon would do well to continuously find ways to win the Amazon Buy Box and maintain it.
Let’s take a look at the possibilities.
How to Become Buy Box Eligible?
Being eligible for the Buy Box means that you have met certain criteria that allow you to be placed in the “Add to Cart” field due to your high performance as a seller. What do you gain from the status of being an eligible seller? For one, increased visibility. Even if you are not in the Buy Box itself, you are still eligible for placement in the “More Buying Choices” section, which also makes you more appealing to buyers. While there isn’t a set formula for getting into the Buy Box or winning it, there are certain requirements that you must fulfill to be considered:
1. Professional seller account
In order to be eligible, you must have a professional seller account for at least 3 months. An individual seller account (referred to as ‘Basic Account’ in Europe) will not be considered.
2. High performance metrics
In alignment with Amazon’s customer-first mantra, only sellers that provide their customers with an exceptional experience can become Buy Box eligible. We have listed all the factors that you need to excel at below.
3. Novelty
The newer the items you sell, the higher your chances of winning the Amazon Buy Box with them. Only if no new items are available will eligible sellers offering used items be considered.
4. Accessibility
Your listed item needs to be in stock.
If you run out of stock, the Buy Box will immediately go to the next seller. This is why it is crucial to always maintain a sufficient inventory level (the “sufficient amount” varies by category).
5. Dynamic Pricing
While Amazon does not explicitly communicate this, it is a well-known secret that it is primarily sellers with the most competitive prices who hold the Buy Box. While pricing your items very cheaply is a surefire way to win the Buy Box, it can also lead to price wars with your competitors. Find out here how to circumvent this.
How to Win the Amazon Buy Box
Are you wondering how to get the Buy Box? Unfortunately, there is no easy way to do this on Amazon. Winning is never easy, and Amazon is no exception in that regard. There is no clever workaround or Amazon Buy Box hack that will allow you to win the orange button without being an exceptional seller. There may be one or two tricks that can increase your chances, but the best way to win it is the old-fashioned way: by outperforming the competition. Here’s the Amazon Buy Box explained:
The better you rank, the more you sell.
With the number of sellers and customers constantly rising, only those with the highest customer satisfaction ratings are shortlisted. Criteria that guarantee customer satisfaction are reflected in the Amazon Buy Box KPIs (key performance indicators) that the online giant collects from sellers’ business activities on the platform. These include, among others, shipping time, order defect rates, and return satisfaction.
Those looking to win the “Add to Cart” field should be familiar with every important metric and manage them accordingly. The bar is set quite high here – for example, the defect rate should be as close to zero percent as possible if you want to win the Amazon Buy Box.
Pricing is also extremely relevant, but is there such a thing as the correct Amazon Buy Box price? There is no definitive answer here because Amazon adjusts the price range for every product. Any seller that exceeds this price range will not be able to win the Buy Box.
It is unlikely that you will win the “Add to Cart” field if your products are priced too high. On the other hand, a higher price can be offset by excellent seller performance, as long as you remain within the aforementioned price range. In other words, sellers with a higher price can still be awarded the Buy Box if they have better overall KPIs than the competition.
Key Parameters Considered by Amazon’s Buy Box Algorithm
Here is a quick takeaway for you: a Buy Box cheat sheet that lists all the aspects important for getting your brand into the Buy Box.
1. Order Defect Rate
Amazon monitors your short- and long-term ODR (Order Defect Rate), which spans the previous four months. Maintaining an ODR of less than 1% is crucial if you want to win the Buy Box. Anything that exceeds this threshold will make it difficult for you to place your products in the Buy Box.
2. Stock Availability
The Amazon Buy Box will instantly shift to another seller if you don’t have the item in stock. This is why it is essential for retailers to maintain healthy stock levels of their best-selling items.
The following rule does not apply when a product is marked as “back-ordered” and has a note on the product page. When a consumer places a backorder, they do so with the understanding that the item won’t be delivered immediately and won’t be available right away.
3. Landed Price
Including the shipping fees, this term refers to a product’s final cost on Amazon.
The Buy Box share increases as the landed price decreases. You can also charge more and maintain your portion of the Buy Box if your performance metrics are better than those of your immediate competitors. However, if your rivals have better overall metrics, you’ll need to lower your pricing to retain the same Buy Box share.
4. Delivery Period
The time that the merchant commits to dispatch the item to the buyer is the most basic metric that the Buy Box considers.
The influence of this parameter on the Buy Box will be even greater for some time-sensitive products and categories, such as perishable goods and birthday cards, where buyers often expect quick shipping.
5. Amazon Fulfillment (FBA)
The product’s fulfillment strategy is the factor that has the biggest influence on the Amazon Buy Box.
The simplest approach to improve your chances of being in the Buy Box is to use Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA), as Amazon naturally rates its own fulfillment services very highly – which, in all fairness, they are.
That’s not to say Fulfillment By Merchant (FBM) sellers can’t ever outperform FBA sellers; it’s just more difficult and requires exceptionally high scores across all variables as well as very competitive pricing. Click here to find out more about Amazon FBM, such as how it works and for whom it works best.
6. Customer Feedback
Amazon will review feedback from the previous 30 days, 90 days, and 365 days. Your chances of winning the Buy Box are highest if your customer feedback score is at least 90%.
How Do Shipping Methods Affect the Amazon Buy Box Percentage?
Amazon did not become so successful by not listening to their customers, and what customers want is fast shipping. In recent years, the online giant has significantly expanded its own logistics service while also establishing strong partnerships with external service providers such as DHL and Hermes. But how can this improve your Amazon Buy Box eligibility?
Amazon not only offers its services to buyers but also to their sellers. Fulfillment by Amazon, or Amazon FBA, is a program that – for a certain fee – allows sellers to delegate storage, shipment, and customer service to Amazon, leaving the sellers with the most important part of their business: the actual selling.
What are the benefits of this? For one, you have more time to expand your business and also – and this is the reason why we mention this here – it will increase your chances of winning the Amazon Buy Box. As an FBA seller, you already fulfill two vital factors that the online giant considers when awarding the popular orange button: excellent customer service and very reliable shipping. Click here if you want to find out more about Amazon FBA.
Here is a list of minimum requirements you need to fulfill:
Can You Lose the Amazon Buy Box?
Yes, absolutely. As mentioned above, only the merchant who brings their A-game every day of the week gets to keep the Buy Box benefits. If you are caught slacking, you will indirectly pay by giving away around 90 percent of sales to the new owner. The question is: how do we get it back?
There are situations where the Buy Box is simply rotated without any particular reason. Sometimes the algorithm even awards the Buy Box to sellers who apparently have worse metrics than you. In fact, sometimes the loss of the Buy Box may even be the fault of another competitor with whom you share the listing.
Here is how it could happen: You sell gaming headphones and share the popular listing with three other sellers. Due to careful monitoring of all relevant metrics, you have won the Buy Box and are working hard to keep it. Seller XYZ, on the other hand – one of the three other sellers on your listing – is highly unreliable in terms of shipping and customer service. Because of this, he has received several complaints from multiple buyers in the past weeks. Amazon therefore decides to suspend the Buy Box for the gaming mouse, which leads to you losing it even though you did everything right.
Your best bet is to get back on your feet and keep working hard. If your Buy Box share drops over a longer period, you should investigate the cause and re-check the metrics we mentioned above.
Amazon Buy Box Eligibility
If you’re a new seller, another common question is how to become Buy Box eligible on Amazon and whether a brand new seller can win the Buy Box even though they just started selling. As a general rule, you need to have a 90-day sales history as a professional seller to be eligible for the Buy Box – unless you are using FBA.
This makes sense in that the requirements needed by an Amazon seller who wants to increase their Buy Box share take time to establish, making it highly unlikely – but not impossible – for someone who has just begun selling to take the Buy Box away from other experienced and well-established sellers on the same listing.
Do Private Label Sellers Have to Fight for the Buy Box?
Unlike resellers, those who sell through Private Label on Amazon do not have to spend most of their time vying for the Buy Box through price optimization, as they are the only ones selling that item. If there is no one else selling the same product as you, there is also no competition to fend off. However, this does not mean that there is no competition from sellers offering similar products online.
For example, if you manufacture and sell high-quality tennis socks on Amazon, you may not have anyone challenging your Buy Box directly, but you will still compete with other sellers offering durable socks they made themselves. Additionally, you will have to contend with established brands like Nike, Adidas, and Puma. The good news is that there is a way to automate your pricing in this regard as well with a “Cross-Product-Repricing” strategy.
What to Do When Amazon Enters the Ring
It makes sense to be realistic at this point. If Amazon is competing against you for their own Buy Box, on their own platform, with their own product (you see where this is going, right?), your chances of winning are not zero, but they are indeed quite slim. However, if you have a strong seller performance record and are willing to undercut Amazon on price, you might just stand a chance. After all, Amazon is customer-centric to the core. If you can provide the customer with a better shopping experience than Amazon, then they may leave the Buy Box to you.
The Importance of Buy Box Mobile
Mobile shopping is more popular than ever among Amazon customers. The Buy Box is located directly under the product image on the mobile site, which differs from its appearance on a desktop or laptop. Customers place their orders by clicking “Buy now” without looking at the Offer Listing page.
Notably, the “Other Sellers on Amazon” box is not displayed on the Amazon mobile website. Only the name of the Buy Box winner is shown. This is another reason to prioritize winning the Buy Box if you want to reach mobile shoppers.
Software Solutions That Will Help You Win the Amazon Buy Box
In today’s highly competitive e-commerce landscape, optimizing your pricing on Amazon is crucial for staying ahead. The competitive pressure on the platform is high, even when Amazon itself is not vying for the Buy Box. To establish a solid presence, your business must demand a high level of optimization. What value do your Buy Box benefits have if you can only take advantage of them infrequently? A software solution for pricing optimization helps you automatically adjust your prices based on various factors like competitor pricing, demand fluctuations, and inventory levels. This ensures that you are always competitively priced, improving your chances of winning the Buy Box, increasing your sales volume, and ultimately maximizing your profitability. Investing in such a solution saves you time and provides data-driven insights, enabling you to make smarter pricing decisions and stay ahead of market trends. This is why certain automation solutions have become essential for achieving success.
The SELLERLOGIC Repricer is one of these tools. Repricers automatically adjust the price of your product based on the current market situation, a task that requires constant monitoring. A good repricing solution operates dynamically and intelligently. Instead of setting rigid rules (“always two cents cheaper than the competition”), a dynamic repricer reacts to the current market conditions and adjusts the sales price accordingly for both your B2B and B2C sales.
Once the product is in the “Add to Cart” field, the repricer sets the highest possible price that still allows you to keep the Buy Box. This way, you can win and maintain the “Add to Cart” field while generating maximum profit. Click here if you want to find out more.
Another seller essential is a solution that detects and reports FBA errors. Why do you need to detect these? Mainly because they entitle you to a refund. Amazon FBA sellers have to pay a fee to benefit from the program and are therefore entitled to a refund if Amazon does not uphold their end of the deal and your product goes missing or is damaged due to a mistake that occurred in an Amazon warehouse. Our Lost & Found solution detects these errors and enables our customers to get their money back from Amazon. Click here to find out more.
Final Thoughts
If Amazon had a Holy Grail, it would be very much like the Buy Box:
At the end of the day, the algorithm decides how the Amazon Buy Box works and which products are displayed – but sellers can actively influence their chances. For example, the right shipping method is extremely important to stay competitive.
For Private Label sellers, on the other hand, the Buy Box does not hold as much significance. Typically, Private Label sellers own the “Add to Cart” field with their product anyway. However, never forget that Amazon can always withdraw Buy Box privileges from a Private Label seller if they perform poorly.
It is also important for sellers to monitor the market situation in order to win and stay in the “Add to Cart” field. Without constant price adjustment, it is hardly possible to remain competitive, which is why using a dynamic repricer is not only commonplace but a necessity among Amazon sellers.
The Buy Box is a term that has evolved and established itself for the orange “Add to Cart” field on Amazon. The seller who is “in the Buy Box” typically makes the majority of sales, leaving a modest 10% of sales for other sellers of the product on the same listing.
That differs on a case-by-case basis. Amazon’s diplomatic answer is that, on average, every seller on the same listing should have a similar Buy Box percentage. This means that if you share your listing with two other sellers, any Buy Box percentage over 33% would be considered “doing well”.
– Low order defect Rate.
– Status as a professional seller.
– Good pricing.
– Excellent customer service.
– Fast and reliable shipping.
Since using Amazon FBA means that your customer service and shipping will be handled by Amazon, two of the above-mentioned criteria will already be fulfilled, allowing you to focus more on the remaining three. However, if your customer support and shipping methods are already excellent, then you will have nothing to gain in that regard from using the Amazon FBA program.
Image credits in order of appearance: © Claudio Divizia – stock.adobe.com / screenshot @ Amazon / screenshot @ Amazon
