What is Amazon’s Buy Box?

As a shopper, you click on the product you want to buy and to the right of the listing is a box that has the price, quantity, “Add to Cart” button and additional information (such as ‘Ships From,’ ‘Sold By’ and delivery date.) This is the Amazon Buy Box. To a shopper, this feature may not be relevant to know but as a seller the Buy Box is extremely important. Why is that?

The main importance of the Buy Box is determining who gets the sale. Amazon has no limit on the number of sellers or amount of products that they can offer on their marketplace. Many listings will have third-party sellers who offer the same product, possibly at a different price. The Buy Box will typically be a rotation between sellers. Amazon rotates based on price, performance metrics and other key factors. Obviously, the main goal will be to obtain the Buy Box at all times.
Two Reasons Why You Want The Buy Box
There are two reasons why a seller would want to win Amazon’s Buy Box.
  1. Getting the sale – Amazon is a competitive space. As mentioned before, often listings have third-party sellers offering the same product at the same price or a little lower to undercut the main seller. You want to be the one to get the sale.
  2. Creating and running PPC (pay-per-click) ads – if you are not winning the Buy Box, you cannot run ads to that listing (which will ultimately hurt your conversions.)
Now that you understand the importance, how do you know you are eligible for the Buy Box?
Eligibility for the Buy Box
Believe it or not, not all products are eligible for the Buy Box. Here are the criteria:
  1. You must have a Professional Seller Account (individual sellers are not eligible). Account Health must be in good standing. This would include having a good listing, positive seller ratings and shipping performance (to check your Account Health, log into your Seller account, click Performance > Account Health).
  2. You can also check Buy Box eligibility for each SKU using Amazon’s Buy Box eligibility tool. The easiest way to check is log onto your Seller account, go to the search bar on the top right of the screen, and search “Buy Box Eligibility.” The tool will pop up and you can search for the ASIN you are inquiring about:

If you are not eligible and you believe you have met all the criteria, contact Amazon seller support.

How to Win the Buy Box

Now that you are aware what the Buy Box is and why it is so important as a seller, how do you obtain it? There are many factors that will help a seller achieve winning status. Even though Amazon does not explicitly share their algorithm for winning the Buy Box, these factors have historically shown to positively impact sellers Buy Box percentages:

  1. Fulfillment method – having inventory in FBA (fulfilled by Amazon) gives sellers a greater chance of winning the Buy Box. Since sellers who use FBA automatically qualify for Prime, Amazon chooses Prime over a seller who is FBM (fulfilled by merchant). Prime guarantees fast shipping, great customer service and consecutive inventory availability.
  2. Offering competitive pricing – typically, the winner of the Buy Box has the lowest price of all the additional sellers on that listing. Pricing competitively gives you, the seller, an advantage because Amazon wants to offer the most optimal prices to their shoppers.
  3. Having strong inventory at all times – having products consistently in stock will be a strong factor in winning the Buy Box. This guarantees that you can handle high sales velocity with no issue.
  4. Maintaining positive seller feedback – although it is not 100% clear if positive seller feedback is a part of Amazon’s Buy Box algorithm, it is assumed that sellers with negative feedback have a lesser chance of winning. Having positive seller feedback is always great for your account and should always be valued highly.
  5. Selling products in ‘New’ condition – very rarely does Amazon give the Buy Box to a seller with inventory in ‘Used’ condition.

In conclusion…

There is no guaranteed technique to winning the Buy Box, but rather a complex set of metrics that need to be monitored and improved. Concentrating on the more important variables, like becoming an FBA seller, having Prime eligible products, perfecting your seller feedback, and understanding the way pricing works will all help you to obtain that sought after Buy Box spot.

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