What is the Amazon Buy Box?
The Amazon Buy Box is located on every product detail page; here you’ll find the button “In the shopping cart”. The Buy Box is always in the upper right-hand corner, shown in blue. Buy Box is an English expression; in German it is shown as the “Einkaufswagen” (shopping cart) field.
The Amazon Buy Box is important for every seller.
Sellers can qualify with Amazon. Several qualified sellers can use the same product site to sell the same product. And so it could happen that several sellers have this product as “new” in the program. All sellers who list the product as new are competitors in the Buy Box. One of these sellers has the chance to become the primary seller of the product. One seller qualifies as the primary seller and all other sellers then move lower in the Buy Box. They are then shown as further options.
How does a seller make the jump to the Buy Box?
There are requirements which must be met to be able to achieve the first spot in the Buy Box (shopping cart field). The criteria involve buyer performance. Sellers should always put forth only their best performance. For this, customers should have satisfactory buying experiences, being able to their complete their purchases without any problems. Important factors are order problems, customer ratings, returns, warranty claims, the seller’s status as a power seller, and their general performance on Amazon as shown by ratings.
Which sellers are placed in the Buy Box?
If a seller achieves the top place in an an Amazon Buy Box (shopping cart field), they can be sure that their sales will increase. Of course not every seller can be in the top Buy Box spot for all their product offerings. Then each seller will be shown in the field “other sellers” as high up as possible amongst their competitors if they are not in the top Buy Box spot. Obviously it is constantly monitored as to whether the correct seller is still in the top spot.
Problems on the way to the Buy Box
Of course, Amazon does not reveal the exact calculations used for Buy Box placement – this is closely guarded. Naturally, all sellers want to appear in the Buy Box, but unfortunately there is a lot of false information in circulation. And so we’ll try to clear up the four mistakes that most frequently happen.
With the Amazon platform, the product detail site is normally used by multiple sellers to sell the same product. If several sellers use the same EAN/GTIN of the ASIN for their product, they will be competing against one another in the Buy Box. Products without EAN, GTIN, or UPC numbers cannot be sold on Amazonm, though there are exceptions for products that can be sold in the Amazon marketplace without such a number. This involves items that were produced by the seller, private label products, or other articles which have been granted an exception by Amazon.
Every seller has a seller account with Amazon. All reports can be viewed here, and sellers can see how many of their products have reached the Buy Box. So it makes a lot of sense to watch your competition and regularly match their prices.
Neither on Amazon nor Ebay can favorable placement be easily achieved quickly or early on. This requires patience, tenacity, and accurate, reliable work. You can find further information in the article “Amazon SEO”. Not every item can be #1, but as an alternative there is the opportunity to be listed in the “sponsored products” category. But this must be paid for, so it is a good alternative to the Amazon Buy Box for only some of your items.
Appear in the shopping cart field – increase your chances
To increase your presence in the shopping cart field, Amazon recommends that you keep the following points in mind:
- Pricing
- Availability
- Be sure that you keep enough inventory in stock
- Update your inventory data
- Vacation planning
- Building trust
- Timely shipping
- No packing errors
- Good customer communication
