Many Amazon sellers and vendors don’t see a lost buy box as a problem. They believe that in one way or another, the revenue will flow back to their bottom line, even if it is a third-party seller winning the buy box. 

This simplistic view can be problematic. Let’s look into why:

• The third party company may not follow your brand guidelines e.g. removed original packaging.
• The seller may not offer Prime shipping, meaning the lead time of your product is longer than what you were offering. 
• Your product ranking begins to fall.
• Your advertising campaigns become less effective. 
• Your conversion rate drops.

1.Pricing

The lowest price of an ASIN can quite often dictate who wins the buy box. As the brand owner, 9 times out of 10, you will be able to offer the best price , given you will have the strongest margin. Affordability is a big part of Amazon’s business and there are continuously monitoring this. They are always scanning existing Amazon sellers as well as looking at other line retailers and e-commerce websites.

2. Out of stock 

No inventory = no buy box. If you fail to get stock of your item to Amazon on time, your listing will deliver the ‘out-of-stock’ message. This will then lead to third party sellers being offered the chance to dominate your listing. 

If you are a Vendor, it is also worth paying attention to CRaP product (these are products that cant realise any profit), ultimately ones that are unprofitable for Amazon. This can lead to you losing the buy box on Amazon. There are numerous reasons why a product may be added to the CRaP list, however, the most common one is down to Amazon making a small profit margin. 

If you find yourself in this tricky situation, here are our top tips for resolving it:

• Understand what’s leading you to lose the BB in the first place. Is it no stock, or perhaps a pricing issue?
• Review your cost price against other providers and try and make sure you are the cheapest. 
• Keep a firm grip on your distribution partners. Giving them too much control can come back to bite you. 
• Monitor your buy box percentage at least once a week.