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A British ex-pat, Tami been writing and content-strategizing for Israeli tech start-ups for the last 5 years. When she's not writing nerdy content, you can find Tami on open water charity swims or traveling to far-flung countries.
Fulfillment by Amazon influences both product discoverability and product buyability. In our previous FBA series installment, we discussed how FBA affects a product’s discoverability, or it’s visibility on Amazon searches and therefore its likelihood of being purchased. In this post, we’ll discuss how FBA increases product buyability, which ultimately has a larger impact than discoverability.
Buyability means a product’s likelihood of being bought. In more actionable terms, this actually means a product’s chances of winning the Buy Box. In general, a product’s buyability is directly proportional to its share of the Buy Box on the product page.
In terms of its connection to discoverability, discoverability has to do with buyers seeing your product, while buyability is focused on converting the people that discover the product into buyers.
Product buyability (i.e. a products likelihood of being featured in the Buy Box) is influenced by a few different factors, some of which are impacted by FBA.
FBA and Buyability
Below is a chart delineating the different factors that influence buyability, and which of them are impacted by FBA.
Buyability Factors
Impacted by FBA
Fulfillment method
Fulfillment latency
Landed price
Seller rating
Seller feedback
Product content
Product review
Inventory quantity
Fulfillment Method
A product that’s fulfilled by Amazon automatically has a much higher likelihood to win the Buy Box. Practically speaking, this means that a product that’s sold FBA will have a higher Buy Box share than one that is FBM, even if everything else about the 2 products and the sellers selling them is totally equal.
Fulfillment Latency
The shorter the fulfillment latency, the larger the positive influence on Buy Box ownership. Any FBA item is by default placed in the shortest latency window, but FBM offers are subject to longer windows (ex. in 24 hours, 1-2 business days, 3-4 business days).
Seller Rating
Because all aspects of fulfillment are handled by Amazon, FBA sellers are not subject to negative ratings for metrics like On-Time Delivery Rate (ODR) and Late Shipment Rate. These directly affect a seller?s seller rating (seen in Seller Central), which is a heavy Buy Box factor.
Seller Feedback
Most negative customer feedback has to do with late shipments or damaged products during
Shipment, or, in other words, aspects of fulfillment. Amazon handles customer service for all FBA products, so an FBA seller is not subject to negative feedback that relates directly to aspects of fulfillment. This is a huge advantage in maintaining a high seller rating because well-fulfilled orders which are the majority of FBA orders will also reflect positively on the seller if the customer chooses to leave feedback.
As a final point, FBA is also more likely to increase general conversion of a product because potential customers are more reassured and impressed by items fulfilled by Amazon.
Conclusion
Overall, FBA significantly influences product buyability for the better, and an FBA seller is far more likely to win the Buy Box. FBM sellers who wish to increase the buyability for their products would have to have very high relative scores in all areas and a competitive price.
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