Take over the Buy Box, the battleground for sellers, in five minutes

There are two types of sellers on Amazon:

• One is Amazon’s own operation;

• The second is Amazon’s third-party sellers.

Since the platform does not limit the number of sellers, there will be multiple sellers selling the same product. When these sellers sell the same product at the same time, they need to compete for the Buy Box.

The Buy Box is the box that appears in the upper right corner of an Amazon product detail page with an “Add to Cart” button.

Not all sellers are eligible for the Buy Box, only top-performing sellers can have it.

There are data that can illustrate the importance of the Buy Box:

82% of Amazon’s sales come from the Buy Box, and this proportion is even higher on mobile devices.

To win the Buy Box, sellers must fully understand its operating mechanism and improve corresponding indicators to beat competitors.

According to Inc.com, if Amazon finds that a product is priced lower outside of the platform, it will cancel the Buy Box eligibility of the product and will no longer display an "Add to Cart" button, but will instead display a "see all buying options" button.

An Amazon spokesperson said that if the seller’s price is not competitive, the platform has the right not to list the product.

• Perfect Order Rate, which used to have a great impact on winning the Buy Box, has been deleted from the backend.

• Now delivery time has become a new important factor.

• Amazon also launched the Buy Box for books.

• Over the past year, price wars have intensified, and winning the Buy Box requires more competitive prices.

• However, there are also studies showing that high prices can also win the Buy Box

The Buy Box of some products is occupied by multiple sellers in turn, but the seller with greater advantage will occupy the Buy Box longer.

Amazon achieves the goal of providing high-value services to consumers by balancing product prices and seller indicators.

In other words, if your metrics are close to perfect, you can raise your price and still win the Buy Box.

Some sellers may ask, what if the competitor is Amazon's own business, and its indicators are also perfect. But if your indicators are perfect and your prices are low, you can still compete with Amazon, at least you can share the Buy Box with it.

To be eligible to compete for the Buy Box, sellers need to meet the following four minimum criteria:

1. Professional Seller Account

Only professional seller accounts can participate in the Buy Box competition, personal accounts cannot participate.

2. Buy Box Eligible Status

In the backend, you can check whether the account can participate in the Buy Box

3. The product must be brand new

Second-hand products cannot compete for the Buy Box, but can participate in the Buy Used Box

4. Adequate inventory

Product inventory needs to be well prepared.

In addition to the Buy Box, there are other ways to gain exposure, including:

1. Other sellers’ products listed below the Buy Box

These listings must also meet the above requirements. Although the conversion rate is not as good as the Buy Box, they can still get considerable exposure.

2. OLP page (Offer Listing Page)

This page displays the quotes from various sellers for a certain product, and users can filter the results by price, comments, etc.

The number of Amazon shoppers on mobile devices continues to grow, with 72% of Amazon customers worldwide shopping via mobile devices during the 2016 peak season.

Due to the different interface sizes, the Buy Box on the mobile terminal directly occupies the entire screen, and consumers will directly click the Buy Now button. The Amazon mobile terminal does not display "other sellers' products". Therefore, the Buy Box on the mobile terminal has a greater advantage.

Many factors affect the seller’s chances of getting the Buy Box. According to Amazon’s algorithm, the following four factors have the greatest impact:

1. FBA

The delivery method has the greatest impact on the Buy Box. Using Amazon FBA is the best way to increase your chances of getting the Buy Box.

It doesn’t mean that FBM has no chance, it’s just that the difficulty will be greater.

2. SFP

SFP allows sellers to fulfill orders while their products carry the Prime logo. SFP allows sellers to control their own inventory while having the opportunity to win the Buy Box.

3. Price

The lower the price, the higher the probability of getting the Buy Box. If your other indicators are higher than your competitors, you can increase the price appropriately to ensure that you get the Buy Box.

If your competitor is better than you in other metrics, you can lower your price to increase your probability.

4. Delivery time

For some products that have strict requirements on delivery time, such as perishable products, birthday cards, etc., the impact of this indicator is even higher.

The pricing strategy of many sellers is to lower the price than competitors to increase the probability of obtaining the Buy Box. Amazon sellers mainly use the following three pricing methods:

1. Manual Pricing

The seller manually updates the price of each ASIN. This method is usually not suitable for products with fierce competition.

2. Rules-based automatic pricing

This is a repricing based on the pricing rules set by the seller, such as setting the price to always be lower than competitors, or the price to always be the lowest.

This can easily cause prices to rise, ultimately leading to a drop in sellers’ profits.

3. Algorithm-based pricing

It takes into account all factors that affect obtaining the Buy Box. Studies have found that algorithm-based pricing can increase the probability and profit of obtaining the Buy Box.