This is a most asked question between the sellers “How to increase sales on Amazon?” We would like to inform the seller around 90% of sales on Amazon goes through “Buy Box”.
What is the Amazon Buy Box?
The “Buy Box” is the box on a product detail page where a customer starts the purchase process by adding an item to their shopping basket.
A key feature of the Amazon website is that the same product can be sold by several sellers. If several sellers offer the same product, they may be eligible to compete for the Buy Box for that product.
The Buy Box is an algorithm developed by Amazon to offer the best product to a customer. The Buy Box help the customer identify the best products available on Amazon. Amazon divided the buy box between sellers in term of percentage (%), the high percentage of Buy Box mean higher order. When you increase the buy box percentage it will show in green color and when a seller loses the buy box it will show in red color.
A seller’s eligibility to win the Buy Box is tied to specific seller performance criteria that identify the sellers who have consistently provided customers with a great buying experience on the Amazon site.
Why is the Amazon Buy Box Important?
When a user clicks the “Add to Cart” button, they’re buying from one merchant and one merchant only – the buy box winner.
When you add your products to the Amazon catalog, anyone browsing Amazon can find them and buy them. When customers find what they want, they can put the product into their shopping cart (and ultimately purchase the product) using one of three methods:
- By clicking the Add to Cart button in the Buy Box.
- By browsing seller offerings in the “More Buying Choices” box and then clicking the Add to Cart button next to the seller from whom they want to purchase the product.
- By clicking the “new” link, browsing all offerings for the item, and then clicking the Add to Cart button next to the seller from whom they want to purchase the product.
The Buy Box winner for a product is selected from the pool of eligible sellers offering that product based on, among other things, price and availability. Amazon will present the winning seller’s offering as the first choice for buyers using the “Add to Shopping Cart” box on product detail pages. For many sellers, this placement may lead to increased product sales.
The Buy box is important to grow your business on Amazon.
After the Buy Box winner is selected, up to three further qualifying sellers are displayed in the More Buying Choices box on the product detail page. The remaining seller offers are available to customers who click the “new” link at the bottom of the More Buying Choices box to go to the offer listing page.
How you can increase your chances of winning the Buy Box?
Since seller performance requirements can vary by category and are subject to change, Amazon does not disclose specific targets needed to become an eligible seller; however, becoming an eligible seller requires meeting very high standards, and excelling in the qualifying criteria is the best way to work toward achieving this status.
First, you need to check is the product eligible for buy box or not. You can check the information on products inventory >>manage product option. Just click on the preference option at the right side and select the option Buy Box Eligible and Buy box price. If your products eligible to win buy box it will show yes otherwise No. You can view the winning buy box price for the products.
Becoming eligible to win the Buy Box doesn’t guarantee that you will win it. If you are an eligible seller, you can increase your chances of winning the Buy Box by following these guidelines:
Pricing
- Since Amazon look at the price the customer will pay (price + shipping), make sure you price your products competitively, including the shipping rates. The lowest price doesn’t guarantee to win the Buy Box, as pricing is just one factor that is evaluated. But Lower price helps you get some extra order in compare of your competitor.
- Amazon offers Auto Pricing tool which helps you automatically adjust the product price as per buy box price, you can set a rule to win the “Buy Box”
- On the Manage Inventory page, you can view the price of the offer that is currently winning the Buy Box. In order to view the Buy Box price column, go to the Preferences page and enable display of the column. Buy Box prices are only displayed for “New” listings.
- Visit the Manage Pricing page where the Buy Box Price column shows the winning offer, even if it isn’t yours.
- See the Pricing Dashboard for real-time data about your prices and how they compare to other offers, it helps you automate your pricing to win the Buy Box.
- View your pricing recommendations in the Selling Coach Pricing Report.
Availability
- Keep stock available: If you have no current stock for a product, you cannot win the Buy Box. Use inventory planning best practices to keep your popular products in stock. The Amazon Selling Coach can display low and out-of-stock inventory alerts, letting you know, in real time, when it’s time to restock.
- Update your inventory: Customers who submit orders for products that are not in stock are likely to leave negative feedback. To ensure that buyers cannot place orders for out-of-stock items, keep your inventory updated.
Fulfillment
Offer multiple shipping options on your products, including free shipping. You can manage your available shipping options in Shipping Settings. Amazon offers 3 types of fulfillment option to a seller.
- FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) – FBA is the Amazon fulfillment service which takes care of your complete work and Amazon team pack and ships your products.
- Easy Ship – Easy ship fulfillment option Amazon offers a pickup in your business location and book shipment on your behalf. A courier person comes to your location for pickup.
- Self Ship – Self Ship is another fulfillment method, where you need to book a shipment yourself and need to update the tracking information on the Amazon panel.
Customer Experience
Customer experience is the most important to sell on Amazon. It can help you increase your sales and your Amazon Good customer experience can help you increase order and bad customer experience may be suspending your Amazon account also.
- ODR (Order Defect Rate)— ODR is based on customer feedback, A-to-z claims, and chargeback
- Other seller performance metrics
- The delivery experience offered on an item, including speed of delivery, lead-time-to-ship and your participation in FBA
- Time and experience on the Amazon selling platform
- The Customer Metrics page in your seller account can help you track your performance as a seller. For more information about performance standards.
Sellers eligible to win the Buy Box
Sellers who are eligible to win the Buy Box are sellers who have met performance-based requirements. Sellers must maintain their performance levels in order to remain eligible. Eligible sellers gain placement advantages for their listings on Amazon.in. Their listings are eligible to compete for the Buy Box and listings that do not win the Buy Box are eligible for placement in the More Buying Choices box.
Monitoring Eligible Seller Performance
You can determine if you are eligible to win the Buy Box in one or more categories by monitoring your listings on Amazon.in.
If you are not currently an eligible seller, you can work toward becoming one by improving your Order Defect Rate and your other seller performance metrics. These metrics can be improved by maintaining high-standards over time, which helps develop customer trust. The following best practices can help you develop such customer trust.
- List Accurately: List your products carefully on Amazon. Use best relevant title, describe and categories items and their conditions to avoid customer confusion. Add all features in bullet point which help the buyer to identify the correct product.
- Ship Accurately: Customers might leave negative feedback if they receive the wrong item. Add a QC team or do QC yourself before pack and ship a product which helps you improve ship accuracy. Build reliable fulfillment and shipping procedures to prevent this.
- Ship on time: Customers expect to receive their orders by the estimated delivery dates. Ship order with enough time to meet or beat the estimated delivery date then confirm shipment to avoid unnecessary canceled orders. If you are not going to make the estimated delivery date, notify your customer straight away, even for issues outside of your control (for example, a natural disaster or carrier issue). User Amazon buyer message option to notify the buyer any shipment delay. Check the order delivery date for each product. If you are using self shipment contact the shipping provider to deliver the order on time.
- Communicate with customers: Nothing is more frustrating to a customer than not knowing the status of their order. Notify customers when an order is delayed and respond quickly to customer contacts requesting order updates. The right communication at the right time can help build trust between you and the customer. It can save your account for negative feedback.
- Provide excellent customer service: Provide post-transaction support (refunds, returns, and exchanges) to help ensure customer satisfaction.
Important Tips
Always send a review notification to the buyer to write a review about the product, the genuine review is an important factor the improve your sales on Amazon.
Would you like to increase Amazon sales? Request for your Amazon account analysis by our expert.
