# Winning the Buy Box The Buy Box is the single most important thing to understand if you want consistent sales on Amazon. Over 80% of purchases come through it. If you're not winning it, you're barely selling. *** **How Amazon decides who gets it** There's no single magic formula but the main factors are: * **Price** — you need to be at or close to the lowest FBA price on the listing * **Fulfilment method** — FBA sellers almost always beat FBM sellers for the Buy Box, all else being equal * **Account health** — poor metrics, policy warnings, or a history of customer complaints will hurt your chances * **Fair pricing** — this one catches people out. Even if you're the cheapest FBA seller, Amazon compares your price against the product's historical sales data. If your price looks unusually high compared to what it's sold for in the past, Amazon may withhold the Buy Box entirely to protect customers from price gouging *** **The suppressed Buy Box** Sometimes the Buy Box disappears from a listing entirely. No Add to Basket button — just a See All Buying Options link that most customers won't bother clicking. This happens when: * All current prices are significantly higher than historical norms * There are customer concerns associated with the listing * Only FBM sellers are available with long delivery times A suppressed Buy Box means dramatically lower sales for everyone on the listing. If yours is suppressed, try lowering your price — sometimes even a small drop is enough to bring it back. *** **How to maximise your chances** * Match the lowest FBA price rather than undercutting it — matching is usually enough and keeps margins healthier across the listing * Use FBA — this alone gives you a significant advantage over FBM sellers * Keep your account health clean — defects, late dispatches, and cancellations all damage your eligibility * Stay in stock — running out of inventory loses you Buy Box time and it can take a while to recover it when you restock *** **As your account matures** New accounts sometimes struggle to win the Buy Box even when they're the cheapest FBA seller. Amazon's algorithm favours accounts with a track record. This is frustrating early on but it does get better — the longer your account has been active and the cleaner your metrics are, the more Buy Box time you'll naturally pick up. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://behind-the-buybox.gitbook.io/behind-the-buybox-docs/winning-the-buy-box.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.