Buy Box Glitch Starting July? Professional Insight Requested
I am seeing multiple sellers mention a possible glitch in the buy box starting July 1 & 2. This has resulted in a large drop in sales (this isn’t specifically tied to July 4th weekend since there are some common issues we are all noticing). Here are the common issues for some of us…
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Overnight on 7/1 and 7/2, majority of buy boxes on FBA items were lost (even if the item is the lowest price). I know that the buy box isn’t based solely on lowest price…but it isn’t a coincidence that the all buy box that were previously held then shifted away from multiple sellers all at the same time on all different items.
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Additionally, the “buy box wins” widget has changed from a number percentage to a dash. See below. When the buy box was held on all the items, it would always how a number percentage. Anyone else seeing this?
From a metrics and feedback perspective, no changes or negative impacts have happened recently to explain this buy box change. Hence why, there is a belief that the buy box might have a glitch or is being worked on.
Any insight on this? Anyone else feeling this? And could Amazon forum support step in and provide an update on if this a known issue?
Thank you all.
Ale_Amazon
Hello Sellers,
Thank you for everyone’s feedback. Moderators have been monitoring this thread since it began and we relayed your concerns to the business.
We’ve confirmed there’s no “glitch” to the featured offer. The featured offer is designed to predict the offer we think customers would choose if they compared all available offers. It’s based on a variety of factors, including price, availability, delivery speed, and seller performance.
Thanks for sharing your concerns with us.
Forums Moderators
Seller_TWFIP6IJMYfEC
Perhaps if everyone answered the latest poll they might? take an interest us 3p’s??
Seller Poll
Amazon can help when there are issues with my account that I cannot resolve on my own
Seller_AKFEePkCPtw6T
I am seeing the change in the buy box percentage on my dashboard but if I click on the little arrow, it shows me my percentage for each marketplace. It is crappy UX/UI but the metric is still there.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I had great sales the last few days, especially the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th.
I don’t actually care if I have the buy box or not. I focus on my margins, not on being the lowest priced. If the margin is wrong, then I will be patient until the price gets to where it needs to be for me to get the margin I want.
Seller_nZbHPbEZTNc4p
I noticed the drop in buy box sharing about two days ago. I am an FBA seller. After an analysis of my listings that no longer get the buy box, I have concluded that Amazon is giving more of a preference towards sellers with a higher number of customer feedback. The percent positive feedback seems to not matter as much, but the number of customer feedback is important. So for example I have 99% positive feedback with about 167 reviews as a seller. However if another seller has 95% positive feedback but 1000 reviews, then that seller will get the buy box over me. I have noticed that I will basically get 0% buy box rotation if I match a seller who has significantly more reviews that I do. This is all a guess based on my analysis of which listings I no longer get the buy box on. I hope this is a glitch instead of an actual algorithm change. My solution has been to set my repricer to do aggressive price cutting using a price cycling / oscillating style repricing rule. Undercutting by a few pennies still will not get me the buy box from this glitch on Amazon’s end (It previously did). Instead, I have been able to the buy box by cutting the price 1 to 2%. I still win over MF sellers by matching, however for any FBA seller who has a more established store than mine, I have to aggressively undercut that seller in order to get the buy box. Hopefully this get fixed soon by Amazon’s algorithm
Seller_7cmrd2OLFwtPe
I’m having the same issue. Called support and they just gave me the rundown of how my account is fine and that lots of factors control the buybox. Very scary
Seller_qzoy2Ezlix0U1
It happened to me since 7/1. The same glitch happened on 6/9 and took one week more back to normal. the question is why always me?
Seller_CDnhoQJwza8e7
Just thinking through everything I’ve been reading on the forums…it’s just a waiting game then for it to correct itself?
Seller_CDnhoQJwza8e7
Some more thoughts…this issue seems to be only affecting FBA sales. My seller fulfilled orders are coming in every now and again just fine (slower probably because of the holiday weekend, but still coming in).
Seller_9Uf78DYSZ2lcW
I don’t know what is up with the – instead of a % because at the moment I still have the buy boxes on my products. (Back in the beginning of June there was something going on where they were suppressing the buy box on my products and my % droped down to 51%. Currently I’m the only seller and buy box eligible on everything I’m selling and the % should be 100% but for some reason they seem to be suppressing it every now and again since about mid May.
Even through it is showing below 100% and last couple days has been – when I check, my listings still show as they should.
But my sales have been very poor since the beginning of July Anyway.
Seller_92JiJJoiPyBWg
I see “- -“ as well for the “2 days ago” but I see the data for the “30 days ago” one. I think Amazon metrics measurements is having issues. Sessions data from July 2nd are not updating either.
Seller_4K7eqIN4GuF2E
Since everyone has the same result, obviously this is a problem at Amazon (since they created the metric). IT may mean less sales for some and more sales for others. For me I have been even - a friend has had no sales for 2 days (and he sells many more (different) items than I do).
Monday is hours away - let’s hope Amazon gets on the ball and puts things back to “normal”.
