Marketing Insights tracks price, availability, and seller information on Amazon for all of your titles.
What is the Buy Box?
Amazon supports a third-party marketplace that allows anyone to sell used and new products on Amazon. The Buy Box refers to the "Add to Cart" / "Buy Now" option a consumer sees when initially viewing a product on Amazon. The default seller listed is said to have "won" the Buy Box.
Under normal circumstances for active, in print titles, Amazon itself is the default seller for new books. This is considered a "win" for publishers as it represents a first-party vendor sale to Amazon. However, in 2017, Amazon began allowing third-party sellers to win the Buy Box for books. This means that potentially any book sale could go to a third-party merchant.
- A "won" Buy Box represents a first-party vendor sale. Amazon is directly selling new inventory to consumers. (They may be sourcing that inventory directly from the publisher, from a wholesaler, or from a print-on-demand supplier such as Lightning Source.)
- A "lost" Buy Box means a third-party seller is likely to capture the sale. Third-party merchants may be individuals, professional online sellers, or independent booksellers who are selling excess inventory online through Amazon.
What do I need to know?
An estimated 80-90% of all sales on Amazon go to the seller who "wins" the Buy Box. So understanding when and how often you are losing the Buy Box is an important part of maintaining sales and ensuring profitability on Amazon.
For the Amazon Buy Box, Marketing Insights tracks:
- Date last won: The date the title was last seen available as a first-party/Amazon sale
- % lost last 30 days: Percentage of time in the last 30 days that Marketing Insights found the title available from a third-party seller (the lower the percentage, the better)
- % lost prior period: Percentage of time in the prior 30 day period that Marketing Insights found the title available from a third-party seller (the lower the percentage, the better)
- Amazon rank: Overall Amazon bestseller rank for the title at the time of the lost buy box
- 3rd party seller: The seller name and link to the seller on Amazon
- 3rd party seller price: The price at which the title was for sale from the seller
- Condition: The listed condition of the third-party item (may be new, used, or rental)
The Buy Box report is accompanied by a link to the Amazon product page to view it as it stands now (which may be different than when Marketing Insights captured the data), and the grid to the top right links to a detailed, downloadable report of all third party buy boxes from the day prior.
Why did I lose the Buy Box?
Typically, it simply means that Amazon’s algorithm has decided that a third-party seller provides either a) what Amazon considers a better experience (lower price, faster delivery, safer stock buffer, etc.) or b) they are out of stock themselves and either can’t or don’t wish to replenish.
- It often does not mean the publisher is doing anything wrong, unless it has to do with availability.
- The third party may or may not be a “bad actor.” Often, it is simply a bookstore who bought the book and is reselling it online using Amazon as the marketplace.
What can I do about it?
- Look for recurring patterns to determine if you are consistently losing the buy box due to inventory or pricing issues.
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Avoid marketing books with an unfavorable buy box situation.
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Utilize the data in any conversations or negotiations with Amazon and others to point out what is happening in the marketplace.
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Assess impact of rental marketplace on sales.
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Make sure your are “out in front” of the information to cut down on being surprised when, say, an author calls.
- Identify fraudulent or otherwise illegitimate sellers who may be selling finished ARCS as new books, selling used copies as new, selling counterfeits, or selling imported editions under the US ISBN. You may be able to report these to Amazon to block these sellers.
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