How to Avoid Amazon Lost Buy Box With Analytics
If you’re looking to increase your sales on Amazon, the first thing sellers and vendors should be asking themselves is, “how often am I winning the buy box?”
To say winning the buy box is important is an understatement. For ecommerce companies who sell through Amazon, the buy box is the difference between good and bad sales figures for a product. So here’s what you need to know about losing the buy box, and what you can do about it.
What Is the Amazon Buy Box?
The buy box includes the Add to Cart and Buy Now buttons at right, and are highly visible to customers.
The "buy box" is the section at the top right of the product page on Amazon where you can "Add to Cart" or "Buy Now." While there may be multiple companies selling this product, only one is featured in the buy box. All of the other sellers get grouped together further down. As a result, winning the buy box is key for vendors and sellers: an estimated 85% of all sales on Amazon are made through the buy box.
Vendors vs. Sellers
The battle for the Buy Box begins with recognizing the difference between Amazon vendors and sellers. Vendors sell directly to Amazon, operating under a wholesale model, while sellers list their products on Amazon’s marketplace, choosing either Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) or merchant fulfillment. Each route has its own challenges and benefits in securing the Buy Box.
Vendors (Amazon Vendor Central users) operate on an invitation-only basis, selling their inventory to Amazon wholesale. This relationship positions them as direct suppliers to Amazon, which then sells the products to consumers.
Vendor tactics include optimizing pricing strategies in alignment with Amazon's retail requirements, ensuring consistent product availability, and maintaining high-quality standards. They should leverage Amazon's analytics to understand demand and adjust supply accordingly.
On the other hand, sellers (Amazon Seller Central users) maintain more control over their operations, including pricing and inventory management, selling directly to Amazon's customers. Each group faces unique challenges in securing the Buy Box, with vendors typically concerned with wholesale pricing and volume, while sellers focus on direct competition, customer service, and fulfillment strategies. Understanding these dynamics is key to tailoring your approach to winning and keeping the Buy Box on Amazon's platform.
Sellers can focus on optimizing their seller metrics, such as improving delivery times, maintaining high feedback scores, and offering competitive prices. Utilizing Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) can also significantly boost their Buy Box win rate due to the preference for prime shipping options.
The primary difference lies in their operational models; vendors act as wholesalers to Amazon, focusing on bulk supply efficiency, while sellers operate more like retail entities, focusing on direct sales performance and customer satisfaction.
What Is 'Lost Buy Box?’
The other sellers are featured farther down the page, and therefore aren’t usually selected by customers.
Lost buy box is a metric that tells you often you are failing to get the buy box (and therefore likely to not get the sale as a result).
For both Vendor and Seller Central, you can access this data through the Sales Dashboard. You can find information there on lost buy box by product as well as your buy box win rate.
Why Am I Losing the Buy Box?
If you're a vendor, there are three main reasons why you may be losing the buy box, and if you're a seller there are two.
Out of Stock
A big reason for losing the buy box comes down to how well you keep a product stocked. If you're constantly running out of stock for a product, Amazon will be reluctant to feature you. They want to be confident that when the customer chooses the buy box, that product will be available.
Pricing
The second big reason is pricing. Amazon wants to show the lowest price possible in the buy box, so if you aren't winning the buy box as often as you would like, it may be because competitors are offering a better price.
Profitability
There is a third reason, and this generally applies only to vendors. If the product you're selling isn't profitable enough for Amazon, Amazon may award the buy box to a competitor even if they are selling at about the same price. This may be a little bit harder to influence, so it may take some creativity on your part. For example, if you put a small item in relatively large packaging, raising your shipping costs for that item, the product may not be as profitable to Amazon as it would be if you were more conservative with the packaging.
This isn't an issue for sellers because it's a different relationship. Amazon collects a fee of about 10% to 15%, so their profits are always the same with sellers regardless.
How to Win the Buy Box
If you want to win the buy box more often, take the following steps:
Competitive Pricing: Keep your prices competitive without sacrificing profit margins. Utilize automated repricing tools to stay ahead.
Stock Availability: Ensure your inventory levels are consistently high to meet demand and avoid stockouts.
Optimize Seller Metrics: Focus on improving your seller feedback, shipping times, and customer service.
Leverage FBA: Using Amazon’s FBA program can increase your chances of winning the Buy Box, thanks to the prime shipping options.
Product Quality: Sell new, high-quality products to maintain a positive reputation and customer satisfaction.
Read more: Amazon Unveils New Feature to Help Sellers Trying to Win the Buy Box
Controversy
Amazon's opaqueness on how it chooses which products to feature in the buy box is a source of frustration for sellers and vendors alike. Sometimes, even the best efforts of ecommerce companies don't yield the results they want, despite keeping the product in stock or competitively pricing the product. But since Amazon doesn't reveal their exact criteria, ecommerce store owners are often left to go on internet forums to ask others for help.
Concerns over the buy box also have attracted attention from both the courts and Congress, who have investigated alleged antitrust violations. In 2019, Amazon (along with other tech giants) testified before the House Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee.
When asked if Amazon was rigging its buy box algorithm to support sales of Amazon branded products Amazon's associate general counsel, Nate Sutton, reportedly said: "Our algorithm such as the buy box is aimed to predict what customers want to buy, and we apply the same criteria whether you’re a third-party seller or Amazon to that because we want customers to make the right purchase regardless of whether it's a seller or Amazon."
However, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said that he feared that large, dominant companies like Amazon had the ability to control access to markets.
How to Use Data to Fix Buy Box Issues
If you aren't getting the buy box often enough, the answer lies in your data. Specifically, you need to be tracking metrics like Net PPM, inventory, and pricing. This information can be found in your sales reports in Seller Central and Vendor Central.
However, these are daily reports that must be manually downloaded by ASIN and then combined in order to get actionable insights. This is a very time-consuming process, so most companies turn to third-party services to provide them with this critical data. We've put together a free whitepaper to help you determine the best method for your business -- it's available for download below.
READ MORE:
Turn Amazon Data Into a Strategic Asset
The breadth of Amazon sales, marketing, and supply chain data lets brands find patterns and insights to optimize their Amazon business and other e-commerce channels. But only if you have a plan for extracting the data from Amazon systems, storing it, and preparing it for analysis.
This guide will help you take ownership of your Amazon data—by preparing your business for a data-driven future, and analyzing the most common methods for extraction, automation, storage, and management.
