What is the Amazon Buy Box? – And How to Get Your Hands on it

What is the Amazon Buy Box?

The Buy Box is the box on a product detail page where customers can begin the purchasing process by adding items to their shopping carts. A key feature of the Amazon website is that multiple sellers can offer the same product. If more than one eligible seller offers a product, they may compete for the Buy Box for that product (as long as it can be shipped to the customer’s address).

To give customers the best possible shopping experience, sellers must meet performance-based requirements to be eligible to compete for Buy Box placement. For many sellers, Buy Box placement can lead to increased sales.

Why Is The Amazon Buy Box important?

The Buy Box winner is selected from the pool of eligible sellers based on, among other things, price and availability. The winning “New” condition offer is presented as the first choice for buyers using the “Add to Cart” button on the product detail page. Buyers can also view the winning “Used” condition offer, if any, by selecting the “Buy Used” button.

In addition to the Buy Box winning offer, up to three additional Buy Box eligible offers will display in the More Buying Choices box on the product detail page. Any remaining seller offers (including offers that are not Buy Box eligible) are available to customers who click the new & used link (or new link) at the bottom of the More Buying Choices box. This takes buyers to the offer listing page.

How to win the Amazon Buy Box

Most importantly, make sure that you are Amazon Buy Box eligible!

Then, master these metrics:

1. Fulfillment method

Three options: Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), which allows marketplace sellers to store and ship goods from Amazon warehouses; Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM); and Seller-Fulfilled Prime (SFP), which allows vendors to ship orders from their own centers while gaining access to highly lucrative Prime customers.

Not surprisingly, FBA sellers have a better shot at winning the Buy Box because Amazon considers its own fulfillment service to be best-in-class in terms of shipping time and on-time delivery rates. An FBM seller would need to be enrolled in SFP or have excellent scores in all other areas, as well as a significantly lower price, to outrank FBA vendors.

To qualify for SFP, you must achieve the following metrics over 30 consecutive days:

• A feedback of +4.5
• A valid tracking ID on 94 percent of PSO (Premium Shopping Options)
• 95 percent on-time delivery rate for PSO orders
• Less than 1 percent cancellation rate on PSO orders
• Less than 1 percent late shipment rate on all orders
• Meet one- and two-date shipping requirements

2. Landed price

There are two prices on Amazon: the amount you list an item for and the landed price, which is the total cost of an order including shipping and tax. It’s worth noting that the lowest price will not guarantee you the Amazon Buy Box, especially if your overall performance metrics are poor, but it will improve your chances. To that end, it’s important to research the competition before—and during—your listing and price your goods accordingly.

3.Shipping time

It’s simple: the faster items are shipped, the better your chances of winning the Amazon Buy Box. How fast depends on what the product is—oversized items are expected to have longer lead-times while perishables need to be moved quickly—but if you’re competing against two-day shipping, you need to pick up the pace.

That being said, don’t make promises you can’t keep. If your actual shipping time is longer than advertised it will impact your performance metrics and, thus, hurt your chance of appearing in the Buy Box.

Keep the following metrics in mind when making delivery estimates:

• On-time delivery rate: above 97 percent

• Late shipment rate: less than 4 percent

• Valid tracking rate: at least 95 percent of all orders

Something that can really help you boost your shipping times is using an online tool that helps you ship much faster and more effectively. A great example of this would be ShippyPro, where you can input all of the customers’ information online and sit back as it analyzes each shipping option to find which would be the most beneficial to you and your customer. 

In Conclusion…

Understanding how the Amazon Buy Box works and all its intricacies is essential to becoming a successful Amazon seller, so if you have any further questions feel free to reach out!