Why don’t my Amazon items get the Buy Box? It’s a question sellers often ask themselves. Today we’ll tell you all you need to know about one of the greatest Amazon Buy Box secrets: Featured Merchant Status. While we’re on topic, we’ll also share with you a few strategies that work to win the Amazon Buy Box.
Table of Contents
As the countdown to Prime Day 2022 kicks off, now is the time to address that age-old question: “Why don’t my Amazon items get the Buy Box?”
If you’ve already scrolled to the bottom of your list of Amazon Buy Box secrets and checked all your to-dos for Q2, you might think there’s no solution to this conundrum.
But unless you fight for Featured Merchant status, you can’t really claim to have any strategies that work to win the Amazon Buy Box.
Here are a few tips and strategies we recommend based on Amazon UK help pages (often richer and more accessible than US ones) and some valuable in-house research.
What Is the Featured Merchant Status (FMS)?
Featured Merchant status is the term sellers use to describe Buy Box eligibility.
To recap, the Buy Box is what Amazon calls the Featured Offer, that widget on a listing that makes buyers purchase from Amazon’s seller of choice.
Being the default option is, as mentioned in our Buy Box FAQ post, how at least 83% of sales happen on Amazon.
Why is that?
The answer to that lies in the Buy Box percentage.
Officially known as the Buy Box Wins, this is the number of times you own the Buy Box out of all times your product listing page is seen by buyers.
Amazon calculates 2 versions of it and shares it in Seller Central.
There’s a value for the last 2 days and one for the last 30 days.
Here is a positive correlation between Amazon Buy Box percentage and the total number of orders received on Amazon, as seen above.
So, we have definitive proof that the more you own the Buy Box, the more sales you have.
Does Featured Merchant Status Guarantee a Buy Box Win?
Being eligible for and winning the Buy Box are two different things.
The graph below shows that Featured Merchant status doesn’t guarantee winning the Buy Box.
The same US account had near-exclusive Buy Box eligibility for 2 weeks, as most items got the isFeaturedMerchant flag from Amazon. There were no price changes or other tweaks to prompt this change.
But even when most of its items were featured, this US account didn’t manage to win the Buy Box for every single item.
This shows that price and other factors have an effect on how Amazon chooses the winner out of the Featured Merchant pool.
Sellers finding themselves in this situation have an excellent opportunity to test their pricing strategies.
Can You Win the Buy Box Without Being Featured?
The short answer is no.
As the graph below shows, you can have Featured Merchant status and win the Buy Box. More often than not, you’ll be featured and not win the Buy Box.
Sometimes, you’ll also lose your FMS status and the Buy Box will go with it.
But having the Buy Box without being a Featured Merchant? It’s unlikely to happen.
How Do You Know You’re a Featured Merchant?
Amazon explains it best on the dedicated help page: if you see your brand or seller name in the “Sold by” section under the “Add to cart” button, you own the Buy Box.
If it’s in the “Other sellers” list, which features up to 3 sellers, you’re not the owner of the Buy Box.
But you’re in the pool of sellers consistently eligible for the Buy Box and you’re a Featured Merchant.
Note that Featured Merchant status is granted for individual ASINs.
This means that, if you’re listing variations of the same item on Amazon, you may be eligible for and win the Buy Box for one variation, but not for any of the others.
Amazon’s selection will vary depending on things like price, availability, and buyer proximity for every ASIN listing.
How Do You Claim Featured Merchant Status?
If your item is available via FBA, then you’re automatically eligible to become the Featured Merchant.
If not, then there are plenty of conditions to overcome before you’re granted FMS. You can’t just claim it.
Amazon mentions the main requirements on the Become Buy Box eligible page, and it’s worth bringing them all up again here:
Pro Merchant status and at least 30 days’ worth of experience selling on Amazon.
Sufficient sales volume, which will vary based on the category and is not made public.
Performance metrics: Order Defect Rate (ODR), Cancellation Rate (CR), and Late Shipment Rate (LSR).
Price, availability, shipping options, buyer proximity, number of listings, customer ratings.
How Do You Gain Featured Merchant Status Quickly?
It’s important to focus on your ODR.
This is the number of unfulfilled orders out of the total number of orders received on Amazon over a 60 or 90-day period. It should always be under 1%.
But if you want to be a Featured Merchant, you should aim to bring it as close as possible to 0%. Why so?
As you can see in the graph below, there’s an inverse correlation between ODR and Buy Box percentage.
For this Amazon US account, a spike in Buy Box ownership will often have a corresponding drop in ODR.
So, the smaller the ODR, the higher your chances of owning the Buy Box.
But there’s more to it than this.
Notice how having excellent ODR levels didn’t prompt great Buy Box wins in January.
Buy Box percentage hardly ever surpassed 0.5%, not even when the ODR was under 0.3.
This prompts us to emphasize that ODR weighs heavily, but not exclusively, in Amazon’s decision to feature a merchant.
As we continue to research strategies that work to win the Amazon Buy Box, please don’t underestimate the importance of a good repricer.
It’s essential for your tool’s algorithm to be quick to win the Buy Box once you gain Featured Merchant status.
Then, as soon as the Buy Box is yours, it must raise your price quickly and safely to land you profits.
With over 20 years’ worth of research distilled into it, BuyBoxBuddy does exactly that.
Coupled with the selling experience of our Services Team, it’s all you need to start selling on Amazon.
And with access to all the latest Amazon Buy Box secrets, our blog post brings you the tips and tools to gain a competitive edge.
So, be sure to follow our blog, subscribe to our newsletter, and sign up for a free BuyBoxBuddy trial today.
Melanie takes an active interest in all things Amazon. She keeps an eye on the latest developments and keeps Amazon sellers up to speed.