Amazon Took Buy Box! We are Brand Owner and Manufacturer!
Our store name is Sprinkle & Sweep. We sell a 15oz bag of our product on Amazon which is our flagship product. We own the brand and we manufacture the products. There are no other sellers of our products on Amazon. 2 weeks ago, Amazon crawled the web and found a random website selling an old bag design with a different UPC and different size (20oz) at a much lower price but Amazon decided it was close enough to our current product and bag size and took the buybox and featured offer away from us because they found a similar product at a lower price on another website! So, we contacted that website and had them remove the product from their site. We provided Amazon support with all documentation needed to prove we are the brand owner, the manufacturer and that the website they are using for a price reference has removed our product. We were told the Buy Box team cannot be directly reached but to wait a few days and this should be resolved and we should have our Buy Box and featured offer back. Well, its been 2 weeks and still nothing! No buy box, no updates, not even a simple message back. Inventory page still says we do not have the lowest price on the web and we need to drop our price to meet the low price even though that low price does not even exist anymore, we had it removed! We are losing ranking and losing sales because of this and are stuck here with no buy box! Please if anyone has had this happen, tell me what we can do to accelerate the resolution for this. Is there a secret way to contact the buy box team?? Amazon if you are reading this, please reach out to me ASAP to resolve this!
Seller_NbYSGJ8Tehgbv
I took a look at the pricing history for your ASIN.
From February 2-4 the price was actually 14.99.
Its now 18.99. Based on what I have seen in the past, this would be enough for Amazon to conclude that the price was increased too rapidly and the idea is to wait until enough people buy it at 18.99. Amazon will then award you the buy box.
To avoid this in the future, I would be very careful as to how the price is changed. If you go into your edit inventory and just type in the new price, Amazon does not consider this a sale but rather...the new going rate.
Alternatively, you can go back down to 14.99 and increase 10% at a time and see if you do not lose the buy box that way.
Michelle_Amazon
Hello @Seller_3SGDJdwuELx2B,
Michelle at Amazon here. I understand you have some questions about your buy box. As @Seller_NbYSGJ8Tehgbv has provided you with some good information. Do you have a case with Selling Partner Support that I can take a look at and I would be happy to look into this for you.
Regards,
Michelle
Seller_TwLumnxAU8eXX
What I don't understand is if you are the manufacturer and their are no other sellers of your products on Amazon how do you not have the buy box. Or better yet, who does?
I always thought that if your the only seller of your product the "buy box" is irrelevant. Am I thinking about this wrong?
Seller_FYNdoigJ1zzEy
I wonder how much money amazon is losing because of this buy box issue. We sell a wireless product at $250. Amazon sold it at $250 all these years. $250 is RRP. Now amazon is out of stock but the bot picked up the wired one which is $100 cheaper and says price should be lower than $150 to get buy box. All that commission does add up.
Seller_Sram36TnVt73c
Do you have a list price on your listing?
If you don't have that, sometimes the buy box will disappear, even if you are the only seller.
And after the product was removed from the other website, perhaps you should have changed your price to 18.98 to trigger the bots to look again?
Seller_gQbSFmRyrZxXZ
I have had a situation not too dissimilar to your own. I have had a product up since 2022 and only now have I had two companies try and mimic my product and win the buy box away from me. Even now I have a lower price and yet for reasons unknown I have not got the buy box. I do not get it why Amazon will allow people to just come in and hijack other peoples hard earned work. It's against their own policies and when we try and update things on the product Amazon say the product isn't ours or the brand name isn't ours. I hope that Amazon see the error of their ways and resolve our issues as the owners of our products.
Seller_s5GKGHsQAFbWd
We are encountering an issue where, despite being the exclusive seller of our product on Amazon, any increase in our price, even by as little as $1, results in us losing the Buy Box.
Seller_tzb0Adb4whsRu
I believe all Brand Owners/manufacturers should have control over their prices and no other seller should be able to resell your products without the Brand Owners permission.
Sellers don't have any control over their own Brand and products anymore.
Does Amazon not realize all the fees they charge the sellers? That's why we have to keep increasing our prices so we can pay for the fees in hopes to still make a profit.
For Amazon to "search" for other prices outside of Amazon is absolutely a waste of time and resources. They have bigger things to worry about and fix on their platform.
Amazon, just leave the sellers alone for crying out loud.
Seller_h8Ql324X7rZkx
Sounds like Amazon did the math based on you selling on Chewy for $19.99 for 20oz. Wants 15oz for $14.99. Makes sense. Literally took me 10 seconds to find.
Seller_scNqfqVmscHw6
Similar issue. We are not the manufacturer, but an official dealer. In our case, Amazon is violating MAP prices enforced by the manufacturer, taking the Buy Box almost exclusively for itself and soon driving us from Amazon. And in two other cases where Amazon is not violating MAP requirements, it still relentlessly keeps the Buy Box for itself, despite promises made in Europe that it would level the playing field with 3rd Party sellers to avoid hefty fines. We have reported these abusive practices, but so far to no avail.
