How to get the Amazon Buy Box back on your listings

As an Amazon seller, you may already know how 83% of all sales actually happen through the Buy Box, in fact, even more so on mobile purchases. Case in point: if you’re not in the Buy Box, your chances of scoring a sale are rather bleak.

This article discusses a few quick and simple strategies to get back the Amazon Buy Box.

Make sure there’s enough inventory

As long as you’ve got enough inventory to fulfil orders, your chancing of getting back the Buy Box remain high. Therefore, keep a regular check on how much inventory you have and while you’re at it, keep an eye on inventory reports too. In short, just make sure you’re never “short” on inventory!

Fast shipping rates

Thanks to Amazon Prime, customer expectations around eCommerce deliveries have drastically changed. So, you need to keep up with this trend too because if you do, Amazon will ensure that you have greater visibility if you offer fast shipping turnaround times. No wonder SFP and FBA sellers have a marked advantage over regular sellers, when it comes to winning the Buy Box. Just keep the following shipping brackets in mind:

• 0-2 days
• 3-7 days
• 8-13 days
• 14 days and above

Customer response time

Amazon will regularly check your customer response rate for the last week, month and 90 days – and then compare it to other sellers. All things considered, if you’re responding to customer queries within 12 hours, you have a much higher chance of getting the Amazon Buy Box back.

Also, keep in mind if over 10% of your messages are replied to after 24 hours or not replied to at all, it’s going to have an adverse effect on your ratings. In some cases, no response may be needed, so make sure you mark those queries as “no response needed” otherwise it will get you negative points.

Seller rating

For every seller, there’s a 0-100 rating – the higher this rating is, naturally, the more your chances are of getting back the Amazon Buy Box. Multiple factors influence this rating, including order cancellations, customer feedback, customer response time (explained above), A-to-Z claims, and more. When it comes to order cancellations, for example, you want to have an order defect rate of under 1% – if it’s higher, you’re going to get penalised, and essentially, miss out on winning the Buy Box.

Low pricing

Shoppers love low pricing, but guess what? So does Amazon because it loves what shoppers love! Amazon’s key goal since the very beginning has been to provide exceptional quality goods not typically available elsewhere, and at the best prices too. This is why the way you price your products plays a pivotal role in winning back the Amazon Buy Box. Even your Amazon featured offers need to be priced very competitively.

Fulfilment method

Fulfilment is a very important variable when it comes to winning the Amazon Buy Box. With three ways of fulfilment available, FBM, SFP and FBA – Amazon tends to give the latter (FBA) a perfect score for multiple reasons: on-time delivery, inventory depth and shipping method, for example.

Amazon introduced something called Seller-Fulfilled Prime to FBM sellers in 2015, allowing goods to be collected by Amazon Prime members without the need to have them stored in Amazon’s fulfilment centre first.

If you’re enrolled in Seller-Fulfilled Prime, you have a much better chance of getting back the Buy Box than those who are only FBA sellers. Therefore, it’s imperative that you enrol in the programme today, but to do so, you need to demonstrate a proven track record of satisfying customers’ expectations and having strong selling performance metrics as well. An experienced Amazon ad marketing agency can guide you further in this regard.

Become an Amazon FBA seller

FBA sellers will always have an advantage over regular Amazon sellers, when it comes to winning the Amazon Buy Box.

Amazon takes care of the packaging shipping and after-shipment customer service on behalf of FBA sellers, with the added advantage of FBA sellers also qualifying for Prime, which ensures super-quick deliveries. However, this is not to say that FBM cannot win the Buy Box, although it does become easier when you’re an FBA seller.

Valid tracking rate

Valid tracking rate is the percentage of all your packages shipped with valid tracking and Amazon takes it into account for the last 7 days and 30 days. To have better Amazon Buy Box eligibility, valid tracking numbers need to be provided on at least 95% of the orders shipped. If it’s not up to this percentage, then your chances of getting back the Buy Box are reduced.

Conclusion

While the Amazon Buy Box isn’t the only factor contributing to seller success, it is certainly a key feature to watch out for and be completely familiar with. Product pricing, for instance, is one of the most important factors affecting your chances of getting the Buy Box, but at the same time, you must ensure that you’re not trying to win it by cutting too deeply into your profit margins.

On the one hand, automation has definitely made it easier for sellers to steadily and consistently update prices while still challenging the Buy Box. However, the increased competition has also (inevitably) led to fiercer price wars.

So, based on re-pricing alone, if you’re still unable to win the Buy Box, even after strategically pricing your Amazon featured offers, then you definitely need to improve on some of the other metrics we’ve discussed in the article. For instance, seller rating, improving customer experience, having super-quick shipment turnaround times, great seller feedback – all these collectively increase your chances of winning back the Buy Box.  

While this article does serve as a basic guide on ways through which you can get back the Buy Box, it is certainly not a comprehensive one. To learn everything there is about getting back the Amazon Buy Box, consult Chris and his team of expert Amazon marketing specialists today.