At AMZ Insight product tracking is one of the major tools to track and keep the historical data of the product. It also includes the buy box tracking feature of the products that are set on tracking. Before we get in to the details of how Amazon buy box tracker works lets understand, what is buy box and how it works.
What is Amazon Buy Box?
According to Amazon, “the Buy Box is the box on a product detail page where customers can begin the purchasing process by adding items to their shopping carts.”
Most of the products on Amazon have multiple sellers and thus offer many buying options. All the sellers have to compete to win the Buy Box for the same product. At the time, a buyer clicks on “Add to cart”, the seller in the Buy Box at that time makes the sale. Here’s one important thing to note is that you have to be buy box eligible seller in order to win it. As a seller, your Amazon buy box eligibility depends totally on your performance, this helps Amazon to enhance shopping experience for its customers.
There are number of factors that Amazon’s algorithm consider before allocating buy box to a specific seller. Amazon buy box algorithm analyze each offer and evaluates on the basis of seller performance, prices, shipment method and few others. Important point to note here is Amazon also rotates the offers in the buy box in order to determine which seller is providing the best product and service to the customers then that seller win the buy box most often.
Amazon Buy Box Eligibility
To win the buy box you have to become the buy box eligible. All FBA sellers are automatically buy box eligible so can win the buy box. Other sellers need to meet certain conditions to become buy box sellers as below:
- To be eligible you need to have a professional account on Amazon, if not then better upgrade.
- There are few factors required for Amazon buy box eligibility which we have further discussed in detail below. You should also check your Account Health to see how’s you are performing on Amazon as a seller.
- Last but not least buy box eligibility condition is how much order volume a seller is getting. This helps Amazon to assess your performance and the order volume varies among categories.
Is Your Item Buy Box Eligible?
To be able to land in buy box, you need to check if your product listing is eligible for buy box:
First step is to check your seller eligibility (as mentioned above). Then log in to Seller Central and click “Preferences” on Manage Inventory page. Now you can select “Buy Box Eligible” option and click save. You will be able to see the Amazon buy box eligibility status of your products.
Factors to Win Amazon Buy Box
If you are wandering, how to get buy box on Amazon then take a look at the below factors for winning the buy box and also make sure that your listing is buy box eligible.
Product Listing
Your product listing should be accurate and optimized in all areas specially the category and ASIN. Minor mistakes such as poor listing, lack of Amazon product photos, etc. will make it difficult for buy box algorithm to recognize your listing suitable for the customer.
Competitive Pricing
Main reason that customers come on Amazon to shop is low prices that means your pricing has to be competitive. You should continuously track prices of your competitors to match their prices. Track prices with Amazon price tracker and set your price according to that to increase your chances of landing in the buy box.
Mind you that lowest price doesn’t mean you will always win the buy box, but when your seller rating is best and combined with the low price then buy box algorithm will definitely give you favor over others.
Shipping Method
When you offer a quick delivery to customer and also ship on time, Amazon does track it and give your credit for it in terms of more chances of making sales. Your late shipment rate is very important for the Amazon, it should not be more than 4%.
FBA shipment method is very important as it assures the on-time delivery of the items that’s why it has weightage for the algorithm when it comes to allocate buy box to a seller.
Order Defect Rate
Order Defect Rate also known as ODR is one of those factors that Amazon has stated itself that it evaluates. That being said ODR along with other thing is checked by Amazon so try to keep it as low as 1%.
Customer Service
Customer service is one of the things that made Amazon popular among the online buyers. Quickly responding to their complaints, critical reviews, refunds, returns and exchanges make you a better seller than others. If your customer support is not that much active then using FBA program can help you with returns and other customer support.
Inventory
Inventory is also seen as important factor by the industry experts. If you are a serious seller you always want to maintain a minimum threshold of inventory. Amazon always keep watch on the sellers who oversell their items so you must have the items physically available that you are selling or you can risk your subscription too.
How long have you been selling?
Selling experience and the time since you’re selling on the Amazon are one of the ambiguous factors stated by Amazon. But, it is quite possible that a seller with longer experience and better performance will definitely get more chances of winning the buy box than the relatively new ones.
Seller Performance
Seller performance is important because many of the above factors counted towards your overall performance that is shows as seller rating. You can always improve it by working on your ODR, feedback, returns and refunds. Keeping your seller rating above 75% will make your listing buy box eligible.
Amazon Buy Box Tracker
As a seller you may want to track the buy box in order to stay updated with the current price. AMZ Insight’s Amazon buy box tracker lets you keep a track of the Amazon price history of products so you can adjust your price accordingly. Amazon price trends graph shows you how the price is going up and down at different times of the days, weeks and month. Our buy box module also list all the offers, their rank and price. This will help you to formulate your price strategy according to the top sellers of the same item.
Our tracker continuously tracks the buy box of required products several times a day to collect multiple data points. A full set of data puts several things in front of your eyes such as the seller detected in the buy box, your seller rank, current price, minimum and maximum price, etc. Take a look at the below image to understand the important data that you would collect.
When you select any product from the list there’s more detailed data displayed related to that product. You get to see the total sellers of the item being tracked and which one was detected in the buy box. We also show you the prices of all sellers. Below image will show you how this information is displayed to the users.
Amazon buy box tracker get all these important stats to assist you to keep up with the competition when you really need to know how to price products. Soon, you will be able to know how many times you won the buy box or the frequency of winning the buy box for all your listings. Not only this, you will also get this information about the other sellers of same products. And, you may also track competitor’s items and their frequency of winning the buy box.
Well, this is pretty much it. This may not be possible for you to be a perfect seller but you can still manage to work on few areas mainly including price, shipment speed and seller performance to improve your chances of winning the buy box. If it is difficult to manage then you can also consider outsourcing Amazon selling tasks to the virtual assistance for better management.
Related: Advantage and Disadvantages of Outsourcing Amazon Selling Tasks
Check out other features of AMZ Insight Amazon product tracking tool and sign up for the Free Trial in order to test it for yourself.