The document outlines strategies for leveraging Amazon holiday sales to enhance profitability in 2015, emphasizing the importance of winning the Amazon buy box, which accounts for significant sales and revenue for sellers. It discusses key factors influencing buy box eligibility, including fulfillment method, shipping time, and seller rating, and provides practical tips for improving customer feedback and ratings. Additionally, it advises on feedback management best practices and automation tools to optimize seller performance.

1. How to Leverage your Amazon
Holiday Sales for a Profitable 2015
Brandon Checketts
SellerLabs
Shmuli Goldberg
Feedvisor

2. Who are we?
Shmuli Goldberg
Feedvisor
Buy Box Expert
Brandon Checketts
Seller Labs
Feedback Expert

3. Todays Webinar
● How the Buy Box works
● The main variables that affect the Buy Box
● Using feedback to improve Buy Box chances
● Practical steps to improve feedback
● Open Q&A

4. Why Win the Buy Box?
● $82bn of sales go through the Buy Box
● Responsible for 95% of seller’s revenues
● Pays back sellers for great customer service
● Sellers compete on their merits, not marketing

5. The Buy Box Fundamentals
To put it very simply…
The Amazon Buy Box is an algorithm
that tries to give the customer the
best possible value for money

6. The Buy Box Fundamentals
To put it very simply…
It does this by determining which
product offerings promise the best
balance of high seller performance
and low cost price.

7. Buy Box Rotations
If there are several merchants offering similar value for money,
the Buy Box winner changes during the day, these changes are
called “rotations”.
For Example:
● 10 equal sellers will each get 10% of the Buy Box
● A relatively high performing seller could have 70% of the Buy
Box against a lower performing seller, who could have 30%

8. Buy Box Requirements
In order to be considered for the Buy Box, you will need:
● Professional Seller account
● (Featured Merchant Status) Buy Box Eligibility
● New items
● Items in stock

9. Buy Box Requirements
There are 4 levels of impact that variables can have on the
Buy Box:
● Very High -The Mother of all Metrics
● High -The Big 3
● Medium –The Differentiators
● Low – Meh…

10. Very High Impact Variable
Fulfilment Method
● Choosing FBA is the quickest and easiest way to drastically
improve the chances of winning the Buy Box.
● If all else is equal, an FBA seller will always have a higher
share of the Buy Box then an FBM seller.
● This should be a business decision, not a Buy Box one.

11. High Impact Variables
Shipping Time
● These are divided into brackets:
• 0-2 days
• 3-7 days
• 8-13 days
• 14 or more days
● Jumping between brackets is more effective than moving within
them

12. High Impact Variables
Landed Price
● The easiest variable to manipulate
● The only metrics that the seller can directly control and
change instantly.
● No brackets here, the lower the landed price, the higher the
Buy Box share.

13. High Impact Variables
Landed Price
● The higher the seller’s relative metrics, the higher the seller
can raise their price.
● This can be seen as the “dollar value” of improving customer
experience.

14. High Impact Variables
Seller Rating
● Amazon gives a score for every sale you make, the average of
these is called your “Seller Rating”:
○ Perfect: 110
○ No problems: 100
○ Minor problems: 0
○ Moderate problems: -100
○ Major problems: -500

15. High Impact Variables
Seller Rating
● These scores are then divided into 6 brackets:
○ 100-98%
○ 97-95%
○ 94-90%
○ 89-80%
○ 79-70%
○ Less than 70%

16. High Impact Variables
Seller Rating
● The higher your bracket, the higher your Buy Box share.
● Jumping from one bracket to another will have a
stronger effect than moving within the brackets
themselves.

17. Medium Impact Variables
These Include:
● Order Defect Rate
● Feedback Score
● Delivery History
● Customer Response Time
● Feedback Count
● Inventory Depth and Sales Volume
● Cancellation and Refund Rate

18. Medium Impact Variables

19. Negative Feedback Monitoring
How are you notified of negative feedback?
1. Review daily in Seller Central
2. Negative Feedback Report
3. Use a monitoring service
a. Email
b. Text Message

20. Negative Feedback Removal
● Work directly with Amazon
○ Product review
○ FBA issue
○ Profanity
● Work with the customer
○ Address the problem as quickly as possible
○ Apologize / Empathize
○ Ask buyer to remove

21. Pay attention, but don’t stress over
perfection
● Some people will never be satisfied – let it go.
● Some people are liars – move on.
● Some people are confused – help them if you can.
● Some people are absolutely right – pay attention.

22. Understanding Ratings
What is the value of a review?
● 4- and 5-stars are positive
● 3-stars is neutral but still counts against you.
● 1- and 2-stars are negative
2-stars and below count negative
500 points against your Seller Rating

23. Two Medium Impact Variables
Feedback Score and Feedback Count
Use the peak Holiday sales to increase both your
Positive Rating and your Overall Count.

24. Amazon Feedback Requests
How it works?
● Occasional emails to request feedback on a past purchase.
● Seller has no control over content or timing
● Response rate for Amazon-originated feedback requests is 2-
3%

25. Asking for Feedback
How to:
● Timing is important
● Focus on customer service first
● Be polite and convey your brand
● Soft ask for feedback
Increase orders with feedback to 6-8% (or more)

26. Do’s and Don’ts of Feedback Management
✓ You may request feedback from a buyer.
⃠ You many not offer pay or any incentive for providing
feedback.
✓ You may provide a link to your feedback page.
⃠ You may not offer a link to any page outside of the
Amazon ecosystem.

27. Do’s and Don’ts of Feedback Management
✓ You may provide links back to your seller page on
Amazon.
⃠ You may not offer a link to a company webpage.
✓ You may communicate with your customer about their
order.
⃠ You may not contact them about your newsletter or
other specials.

28. Dos and Don’ts of Feedback Management
✓ You may contact customers through the Amazon email
messaging system.
⃠ You may not contact them directly via phone or mail,
or ask for their direct email address.

29. Feedback Count
Why it Matters?
● Social Proof
● Helps you absorb a negative review
● Slight advantage with buybox percentage
● Should be relative to your competition

30. Do-It-Yourself vs
3rd Party

31. Do-it-Yourself Feedback Management
Your options:
Two manual ways to solicit feedback:
1. Messages on your packing slip
2. Use the “Contact Buyers” link in Manage Your Order.
i. Orders => Manage Orders
ii. Click on buyer name next to “Contact Buyer”

32. Send A Message Through Seller Central

33. 3rd Party Feedback Management System
Why consider?
● Leverage automation to save time and customize
your message
● Ensure you are following the rules
● Filter messages to target customer and increase
response rate
● Always be asking for feedback in a timely manner
● Free up your time to focus on your business

34. Tip for Success
● Setup messages to be sent based on actual delivery, not
shipped date
● Customize by SKU, ASIN, Condition or Channel to improve
likelihood of success
● User variables to personalize your message
● Eliminate orders/products that have a bad history of reviews
● Remove orders that were delivered late
● Respond to negative feedback as soon as possible
● Work within the Amazon guidelines

35. Open Q&A
Brandon Checketts
Seller Labs
support@sellerlabs.com
Shmuli Goldberg
Feedvisor
info@feedvisor.com