Each product in the Amazon catalogue has a single listing on the website, known as a product detail page. The product detail page will display information about the product and give several buying options.
- Title. The product title is a maximum of 200 characters, and you should aim for at least 80 characters. Include your top 5 keywords and capitalise each word.
- Images. Aim for at least five high-quality images (min 1000px on the longest side). For the main image, the product should be on a white background and be 85% of the picture.
- Variations. Such as colours, quantity, or sizes
- Bullet points. Up to 5 points that highlight key features and benefits.
- Featured offer. (‘Buy Box’) The featured offer on a detail page. Customers can add to their cart or ‘Buy Now.’
- Other offers. The same product sold by other merchants offering a different price, shipping options, etc.
- Description. Write a description which gives clear and precise information about the product. Can use HTML to structure.
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- Reviews. Customer reviews of your products.
- Questions and Answers. Customer questions.
- A+ Content. A rich content section available to brands used to give more information about the product. Amazon says using this feature increases conversion.
- Additional product information. Further information about each product, such as material, weight, or energy efficiency class.
Featured Offer
Many Amazon listings will have offers from multiple sellers. Of these, one will appear as the featured offer in the ‘buy box.’ This is the default offer for buyers and will receive the lion’s share of orders. Other buying options are displayed on the product detail page under the Buy Box as ‘more buying options.’ Clicking on more buying options will link to an ordered list of offers.
This system rewards sellers who offer good customer service and competitive prices. Every Amazon seller aims to get their offer into the buy box. Winning the buy box is vitally important as 80-90% of Amazon sales go to the offer in the buy box. Amazon rotates the featured offer for listing with multiple sellers, giving high placement to sellers who perform well in the following areas:
Price
The ‘landed price’ (item plus shipping) is one of the most influential factors when Amazon awards the buy box. Even being cheaper by £0.01 can be enough to win over another offer.
Prime Eligibility and Fulfilment Method
Amazon takes the fulfilment method’s quality very seriously and rewards higher placement to offers that are Fulfiled by Amazon or Seller Fulfilled Prime. Also, Prime members will often filter out non-prime offers entirely. See section on fulfilment options below.
Availability
Amazon will give a higher ranking to offers that have better availability. For example, offer A, which is available in 1-2 days, will rank higher than offer B, which is available in 1-2 weeks, even if offer A is more expensive than product B.
Performance Metrics
Buy a merchant’s performance metrics also influences box performance. All other things being equal, merchants with better performance metrics will rank higher. The most important metric is Order Defect Rate (ODR). The ODR is the percentage of sales which was not perfect, that an order which receives one of:
- Negative feedback. Orders which received negative feedback (defined as a score of 1 or 2 out of 5)
- Credit Card Chargeback. Amazon treats a chargeback like a piece of negative feedback
- A-Z guarantee claim. A-Z claims are complaints by customers that a product did not arrive or was not as advertised.
Each order will only count once toward the ODR. Other important metrics include refund rate and late shipment rate.
