If you think winning the Amazon Buy Box takes a million complicated steps, you’d be mistaken. At RepricerExpress, we’ve uncovered the three main things you need to do to get there in your bid for the ultimate prize. To get the ‘Add to Cart’ words on your product page, read on.
1. Price Your Products Competitively
Pricing competitively means more than just having the lowest price; it means having the right price at the right time. But how exactly do you do that?
Look for High Margin Products
High margin products are great because they, well, give you a healthy profit margin. But more than that, they give you better wiggle room when deciding where to set your prices. And the more competitive you can make, the better your odds are of winning the Buy Box.
Keep an Eye Out on What Your Competitors’ Prices Are
Next, you’ll want to monitor what your competitors are doing, price-wise. Sometimes you can go a bit higher than them (and increase your profit margin a bit) if you can sweeten the deal with other extras, and sometimes you’ll have to undercut them a bit to nab the purchase. Either way, you’ll need to know what everyone else is doing so you don’t stick out like a sore thumb.
Set Your Min and Max Values
Last, you’ll want to establish what the lowest price for you is where you can still meet your profit goal, and what the highest price is where you won’t risk alienating buyers and losing a sale. For your min value, figure out what your minimum profit needs to be and how your product landed price compares to that, making sure to incorporate all costs involved.
Related: Setting Your Min and Max Prices in RepricerExpress
2. Don’t Run Out of Stock (And Don’t Carry Too Much Either)
If your inventory runs dry, you have zero chance of getting the Buy Box. Having too much isn’t as big of a deal, but it means you’ll have to hustle extra hard to move that extra stock, as well as risk long-term storage fees. But to remediate the former, here’s what you need to do:
- Follow and Track Trends: Use a plugin like Keepa or Camelcamelcamel to track a product’s history, then track and forecast your findings by exporting the CSV file. This way, you can see roughly when a product will go out of stock and when it’ll be time to capitalise.
- Research Competitors’ Inventories: If you can see that Joe Chic over there only has two items left, you may want to go ahead and expedite an order to take advantage of his soon-to-be-empty inventory. Supply will be a bit lower, giving you the upper hand.
- Fill Your Inventory: Once you have the previous two bits of information, you can adjust your inventory based on what the current market holds. If you anticipate a rush coming up and/or your competitors’ inventories running low, it’s time to stock up. But if you see most around you with plenty of items available and you’re about to enter a low spell, hold off on reordering. But remember, the more quantities you have, the likelier it’ll stay in the Buy Box.
3. Maintain a Stellar Seller Approval Rating
It goes without saying you should always have your metrics in great working order, but here are the finer points to pay attention to.
Product Images and Description
When a buyer clicks on your page, the first thing they usually check out are images. Show the item in various angles and take hi-res photos so they can zoom in easily.
If the pictures grab their attention, then the copy will hold it, so make sure you correctly and accurately describe the product’s colour, size, material, condition and other relevant details.
Related: 21 Ways to Rank Your Products Higher on Amazon
Inquiries
A good timeframe for responding to inquiries is 12 hours. Customers don’t — and won’t — want to wait around days for a question and they’ll move onto another seller who’s more attentive.
Fast Delivery
Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) ensures the product will be there within two days. If you choose to fulfill yourself, do your best to get the product on their doorstep as soon as possible. With today’s technology and options, there’s no excuse in delays.
Order Defect Rate (ODR)
There are three parts to your ODR:
- A-to-z Guarantee claim rate.
- Negative Feedback Rate.
- Service Chargeback Rate.
The acceptable threshold is under 1%, and the lower you can go, the better the odds are for winning a Buy Box on Amazon. And if focus on the above points when fulfilling orders, then you can help keep your ODR at a great level.
Final Thoughts
Having the right price is probably the biggest factor when it comes to winning a Buy Box, and it’s RepricerExpress’s specialty. We’ll do all the legwork to get you over the next hurdle so you can fine-tune operations for the last stretch. Better yet, we’ll start you off with the first 15 days free when you sign up now.
