If you are currently using Amazon to sell your products you know how busy this platform is in terms of the amount of sellers and how competitive that makes the channel. You may not be selling your products at the price you want so in need of increasing the amount of sales going through the channel.
The Amazon buy box feature is what is going to help your product stand out and increase your sales!
There are many resellers on Amazon that can be selling the same product and using the Amazon product catalogue to create new listings. This means multiple companies can be using the same product template (image, description, content) and just adding their pricing, SKU and company name to it.
Let’s have a look at an example of this.
If a user was to buy a product you can see under the buy now button the company that the product is been sold and dispatched from.
Further down the page you can see “new (6) from” this means six other resellers on Amazon are selling the same product for the same price. See screenshot above.
If you click on this new box you can see all the companies selling this product. All of these companies are selling the same product and using the same product template. The company that is listed under the buy now box is the company that will stand out and get the most sales and this is what we are aiming for.
So how do you qualify to be listed under the Amazon buy box?
First of all it depends on the account you have, you will need a business account not an individual account. The product needs to be new and in stock.
Once you meet this criteria the Amazon algorithm steps in to match the best product for the customer to increase the level of service, a strong focus for Amazon. This is similar to Google giving the user the best search experience finding relevant content and the best possible search, so they continue to return to the site.
Here are some of the factors that make up that excellent customer service level:
Review your products looking at the price and check how competitive you are against other resellers. Amazon looks at the total price plus shipping. You can use the automate pricing feature in Amazon to help save you time manage prices, I will cover this in another blog post.
Look at the customer reviews for this product – are people satisfied? What could be improved?
Look at your shipping time could you get the product to the customer faster? The best way to win buy box is to ship your items in two days or less.
Your customer response rate is important, this is how quickly you reply to customers who send messages. Aim to respond to a customer in under 12 hours.
Your orders need to be shipped and delivered on time with tracking information.
Review your order defect rate. This is the number of claims made against you and negative feedback received. Ensure you have a plan within the business to review these and ensure actions are taken to improve.
There are a lot of people saying you should have fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) in order to get the buy box feature. Yes, I am sure this helps however it is not practical for every business, I don’t personally use it (we ship all our orders from our own warehouse) and I have still managed to win the buy box.
How do I check what the buy box price is?
You can check pricing criteria for the buy box feature in the manage inventory screen of your Amazon account. You will need the buy box price as a comun header. If you don’t see this straight away click on preferences and you can add the option to your view.
Summary
So that’s an overview on what the buy box feature is on Amazon and how it works. In a nutshell the reseller with the lowest prices and a high level of customer service is the one that will win the buy box and the most amount of sales for that product!
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