The Ultimate Guide to Selling on Amazon - Chapter 7 - Winning The 'Add To Cart' Buy Box

One of the most important aspects of selling on Amazon after you have become an established seller and have sufficiently grown your business is ‘winning the Buy Box’. When customers want to buy from Amazon, they have three options available to them. They can either click the ‘Buy’ box next to the product description and add that product to their basket; they can click on the ‘More Buying Choices’ link and browse a selection of sellers and buy from the one they prefer, or they can click on the ‘used & new’ link and look through all the vendors selling that item.
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The key to seller success on Amazon is to have your product linked to the first option – the fabled ‘Buy Box’. If your product is linked to the Buy Box, it stands the best chance of being bought by the customer as it is pooled in with a small group of other sellers’ products.

So, how exactly do you win the Buy Box? Well, Amazon offers some useful words of advice:

Keep your prices competitive – Price is not the only factor Amazon looks at when selecting which sellers link to the Buy Box, but it certainly helps.
Make sure your stock is always available – Always keep your most popular products in stock. If your stock is listed as temporarily out of stock, you will not be considered for the Buy Box.
Keep your inventory updated – Make sure customers have the right information. If your products are accidentally listed as in stock when they are in fact out of stock, this can lead to negative customer feedback and less likelihood that Amazon will pick you for the Buy Box.
Offer multiple fulfilment options – Having multiple options for shipping makes your products more attractive to the customer. Shipping options can be set in the ‘Shipping Settings’ section of Amazon’s Seller Central control panel.
Good customer service and feedback – Such things as order defect rate, performance selling metrics, the delivery experience and the time and experience you’ve spent on Amazon will all be factors in the decision to list you in the Buy Box. To keep track of your seller performance, go to the ‘Customer Metrics’ section in Seller Central.

On top of all this, make sure to keep your prices at a similar level to your competitors. This means you’ll want to keep an eye on their prices, as well as taking the time to track their delivery prices as well. If a new player enters the game with a lower landed price, you might want to react if it doesn’t damage your product’s profitability unduly. Price is not the be all and end-all of winning the Buy Box, but it is certainly one of the main factors alongside good seller feedback, making sure you always have plenty of stock available and, of course, how your orders are fulfilled.