Why have I lost the Buy Box on Amazon?

By Glyn Berrington, 26 years in e-commerce

The Buy Box is the "Add to basket" button on a product page. When you do not hold it, a shopper who clicks it is buying from someone else, on your listing.

How to see it

Your Detail Page Sales and Traffic by Child Item report has a column called Featured Offer (Buy Box) percentage. It is the share of the time you held the button. Under 90% is worth looking at. Under 50% means most of the sales on that page are going elsewhere.

What decides it

Amazon awards the Buy Box on the offer, not the listing. The main factors:

• Price including delivery. The total the shopper pays.
• Fulfilment and delivery speed. An offer with Prime, through FBA or Seller Fulfilled Prime, beats a slower one, often even at a higher price.
• Stock. Run out and you lose it immediately.
• Your seller performance, such as late dispatch and cancellations.

A common mistake is to look at keywords. Keywords decide how many people find a listing. They do not decide who wins the button once those people arrive.

Your best sellers, and everything else

Sellers are usually known for something: a product type they do better than anyone. On those, you can often hold the Buy Box on delivery and reputation. Away from that core range, the sale usually goes to the cheapest delivered price, and you are competing with every other seller of the same item.

• Lost on a best seller: check who has it. A rival with Prime or faster delivery is the usual reason. Restoring Prime matters more than cutting price.
• Lost outside your core range: decide whether the product is worth matching on price, or whether it is worth stocking at all.