Chapter 10: Competition and the Buy Box
What you'll learn: what the Buy Box is and how sellers share it, how to judge whether there are too many sellers, what to do when Amazon sells the same product, and what a suppressed Buy Box means.
What the Buy Box is
When several sellers offer the same product, Amazon shows one of them as the main offer, with the Add to Basket and Buy Now buttons. That's the Buy Box (Amazon also calls it the Featured Offer). Most customers buy from it without looking at the other offers, so the seller in the Buy Box gets most of the sales.
You don't own a listing as a reseller. You add your offer to an existing one, and compete for the Buy Box with everyone else selling the same product in the same condition.
How sellers share it
Amazon decides who gets the Buy Box, and the details aren't published. In practice it depends mainly on:
- Price: including delivery. Offers priced close to the lowest competitive price do best.
- Fulfilment: FBA offers come with Prime delivery and Amazon's customer service, which helps a lot.
- Your account: a healthy, reliable seller account.
- Stock: you need stock available to win it.
When several FBA sellers are priced about the same, Amazon usually rotates the Buy Box between them, so each gets a share of the sales. That's why you can sell on a listing that has other sellers.
How many sellers is too many?
There's no fixed number. What matters is how the sales compare with the competition:
- Divide the sales between the competitive sellers. Twenty sellers on a product that sells 1,000 a month can be fine; five sellers on a product that sells 20 a month means slow sales for everyone (Chapter 8).
- Count competitive FBA offers, not every offer. Sellers priced well above the Buy Box rarely win it.
- Watch the trend. An offer count that's climbing quickly often leads to a price war, where sellers keep undercutting each other. In ArbiSource, hover over the magnifying glass next to the number of sellers to see how it's changed over time.
- Be wary of single-seller listings. A product with only one seller is often a brand's own product (private label) that retailers don't stock and you may not be able to sell. That's why a minimum of 2 sellers is a good starter filter (4.3).
ArbiSource takes seller counts directly from Amazon at the time it checks the product. Keepa may have checked at a different time, or count offers differently (for example, including used offers). Small differences are normal. If you see a big difference, check the listing on Amazon itself, and email support with the example if something looks wrong.
When Amazon sells the product too
Amazon is often the strongest competitor on a listing. It usually prices keenly and can hold the Buy Box most of the time while it's in stock.
- Check how often Amazon is in stock. On a Keepa chart, look at the Amazon price line (Chapter 9). If it's there almost all the time, sales left for other sellers may be small.
- Gaps can be opportunities. If Amazon is regularly out of stock for weeks, other sellers can do well in between. Plan your profit on the price you'd sell at when Amazon is back.
- Don't try to undercut Amazon. It rarely works, and it pulls the price down for everyone.
The suppressed Buy Box
Sometimes no seller is shown in the Buy Box, and customers have to click See All Buying Options to choose an offer. This is a suppressed Buy Box. It often happens when the offers are priced higher than Amazon considers competitive.
Sales are usually slower while the Buy Box is suppressed, because buying takes an extra click. When there's no Buy Box, the ArbiSource result header shows No Buy Box - Lowest Prime Offer with that offer's price and type (for example No Buy Box - Lowest Prime Offer: £48.14 (FBA)) instead of the Buy Box price. Treat these leads with extra care: check the history to see whether the Buy Box is usually there.
Putting Part 3 together
Before you move a lead forward, you should be able to answer:
- Does it sell? Regular rank drops, and sales that are steady over months (Chapters 8 and 9).
- At what price? The usual Buy Box price, not today's peak (Chapter 9).
- How much of that will be mine? The sales shared between competitive FBA sellers, with Amazon's presence taken into account (this chapter).
These answers feed straight into the Momentum question of the Lead Check in Part 5. Whether you're allowed to sell the product is the Safety question, covered in Part 6.
Checklist
- I understand what the Buy Box is and why FBA helps me win a share of it
- I compare the number of competitive FBA sellers with the product's sales
- I check how often Amazon is in stock before buying
- I know ArbiSource shows "No Buy Box - Lowest Prime Offer" when there's no Buy Box, and to treat it with care