The Amazon Buy Box and how to win it in 2021: A Complete guide

​Every kid on the block knows what amazon is and what it does. It is a leading e-commerce website that has a major share in the growth of the sector all across the globe. The tech giant is responsible for molding the e-commerce market into what it is today.

Amazon is definitely a boon for users with its competitive prices and quality delivery aspects but it is also a goldmine for sellers who have found the rabbit’s foot by putting up their stocks on amazon. 
The Amazon buy box was one of the most desirable features amazon offered for the upliftment of its sellers. Its aggressive impact on conversions led to a frenzy that is still peaking in the online marketplace.
You may be new to this whole concept and may be wondering what the buy box actually is. So let us explain everything regarding a buy box so that you can be on top of your game as a seller.

What is the Amazon Buy Box?

Amazon is an online marketplace for millions of products that are sold by countless vendors on the website. So there’s a high chance that when you go to buy a product you will see that the certain product is being sold by multiple vendors. These vendors are competing for the maximum number of sales and that is where the buy box comes in. It helps distinguish the vendors that have the highest sales rankings. 

The buy box section on the right-hand side of the page is where most customers buy items. The seller which has the most number of sales on the particular product simply shows up there. According to the brand rocket, this is how Amazon helps its customers as well as its sellers; by ensuring complete transparency and giving adequate recognition to the most trusted vendor out of the lot for each product. Consequently, through the Buy Box, Amazon makes sure that the buyer gets a clear picture of a product that promises the best balance of high seller performance and low prices.

It should come as no surprise that Buy Box accounts for almost 80% of all Amazon sales. Thus it is important for you as a seller to understand the Buy Box and the sheer profit in winning it. But before you aim towards winning it you also need to understand the metric that makes it all tick! -

The Metrics behind the Buy Box 

Pricing: The pricing of a product is by far the most important metric of the Buy Box. The pricing is basically the product cost plus the shipping amount. A lot of vendors list their product cost a lot less but with the additional shipping amount it fares a lot higher. 
The buy box is programmed to show the total amount of the product i.e the product cost + the shipping amount.

Shipping: Shipping is a huge factor for a company that is based on product delivery. Thus amazon puts a lot of importance on the time taken by a vendor to ship a product to the end-user.

Availability: Items that can be immediately made available are favored by Amazon’s algorithm. The back ordered items can be considered too but they should not be considered a priority when the aim is to move higher up in the buy box.

Order Defect Rate (ODR): Order defect rate is a negative rating in the sense that it is the percentage of orders that are canceled, shipped back, damaged, not packed properly and so on. Even the orders that receive negative feedback contribute to the order defect rate or ODR.

Perfect Order Percentage (POP): This one is quite self-explanatory. This accounts for the percentage of orders that go without any hiccups. 

Valid Tracking Rate: Every order is supposed to have a tracking code attached to it so that the customer can keep a track of their order. The valid tracking rate is basically the number of deliveries that were sent with the complete tracking data.

Feedback Score: Customer feedback is taken as a high priority in such metrics. The whole point of such services is to make sure that the customers are satisfied and that the company is being able to deliver what they promised. The customer feedback is rated and the latest feedback is taken into consideration and plays a role in the metric.

Response Time: You as a vendor will not be a favorite if you are not responsive to your clients. The amount of time you take to respond to your customers and clear their queries really matters. If you take too long to reply to a customer then it will reflect negatively on your profile and the metric will change accordingly too.

Inventory: Amazon also keeps a count on the number of times you run out of stock. You need to make sure that you manage your inventory as any kind of fluctuations are picked up by the metric.

Cancellation and Refund Rate: Cancellations and refunds are a part and parcel of delivery service. Though one has to keep in mind that too many cancellations and refunds are seen as a negative trait. All the refunds and cancellations are recorded by Amazon and are logged into your profile.

Winning the Buy Box

There are certain criteria that need to be fulfilled if you want to even think of winning the Buy Box. If you also want to have an amazon success story then you need to be a buy box winner and enjoy the success.

1. You need to have a Professional Seller account on Amazon to start with. You can not simply list a product and expect to be able to compete in this competition.

2. A mistake that a lot of sellers make is that they expect the second-hand items to be content in the contest but it is not so. There is a separate buy box for second-hand items. Thus you have to make sure that you are only listing new items in the catalog in competition.

3. You need to have a ‘Buy Box-Eligible’ status. That is a status that is given to sellers who have been selling on Amazon for a while and are recognized as trustworthy sellers on the online marketplace. This status was first called ‘Featured Merchant’ and was later changed to ‘Buy Box-Eligible’. Another difference is that customers could see this status of a seller but now the status can only be seen by the seller in question.

4. We have already discussed the issue regarding backorders. You need to have enough stock of the item you are competing with. Backordered items can also be taken into consideration but the algorithm favors sellers who have enough available stock.

The Buy Box is not a very tough thing to understand but to win it will require some serious dedication and deep understanding of the metrics. By following the requirements of the metric and working on it with consistency one can easily reach the top to win the Buy Box.