“Most [sellers] I know are just literally removing the product and not selling it because they can’t sell it at a loss,” he said. “People are just not sending in shipments to see what happens here the next few weeks.” BI reported earlier this month that Amazon employees, suppliers, and sellers were scrambling for solutions as they received little guidance from the company regarding how best to respond to the turmoil caused by Trump’s tariffs.
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Then, I’m not too sure about getting rid of bad actors (but hopefully!), but I am sure that US-based Amazon Sellers whose business model capitalizes on pricing + inventory turnover, with a dependency on products shipped directly from China, to monopolize the BB will need to adjust.
Unfortunately, many US-based Sellers have a proprietary product that is merely manufactured in China. I don’t personally consider these to be bad actors, but they will not be able to pivot nimbly simply because the US manufacturing infrastructure is currently inadequate and will take many years to replicate.
However, for most of these folks, they are BR, so they’ve got 99 problems, but the Buy Box ain’t one.
What is a buy box on Amazon? I have NEVER simply clicked on some “buy now” thing when purchasing on Amazon.
I do a search for what I am looking for and then spend 5-10 minutes clicking around between listings until I am satisfied and add to cart… and even then I might change my mind and go back because the one in the cart wasn’t free shipping eligible, or was going to arrive at a different time than the other things, or just because the LJDFOIGC “brand” seemed sketchier than JOIJNDF, etc.
The buy box is the “featured offer”, so the one that you see on the item page and can just click add to cart. All the other sellers are under the “see other options” tab, which is not easily found if you don’t know what/where to look
I agree with you on Buy Box. We always search the listings on all items-because we don’t believe AMAZON’s biased picks-particularly in books, which we sell.
Good, Acceptable books( these latter w/ underlining/highlighting or battered beyond belief) shown as best deal-unbelievable!! Mostly Megas (dealers who have 75, 100:, some say 250m 500K in inventory). Donated by shoppers to those blue bins in supermarkets or shipped to them in boxes/postage the Megas provide, left overs from non-profit book sales) Most aren’t FBA, they’re just huge, w/ anywhere from 70-93% FB. They do huge volume-making more dollars for the mother ship, but best…hah!!
We get the buy box occasionally, as long as none of the above(Mega/FBA) are on the listing. Our BB goes up or down due to AMAZON clandestine policies-so we mostly do without. Our FB is 99%-and we’re proud of every volume we ship. Occasionally, the purchaser doesn’t agree-but that’s business in America.
It is not useful to me as a buyer in any category where items may be sold as used or collectible.
It gave me a boost as a seller selling items which were not NEW,
In many cases, when buying an item which is New and not a major brand in the category, I have often felt the Buy Box is undeserved by many of the products.
If this situation causes the loss of many of the identical products sold under different brand names, I doubt if Amazon would experience other than a drop in overhead cost and advertising revenue. I suspect that Amazon buyers will not miss the loss products, and some might even find buying on Amazon a more satisfying experience.
Obviously, some sellers will suffer greatly, but there are always some sellers suffering.
First, and this is neither here nor there, but the typos in that “petition” give me a headache. Doesn’t anyone proofread anything before trying to start a movement to influence a multi billion dollar international corporation? It’s as bad as the memes-as-petitions people were passing around for the boycott attempts. If you want to change the nature of capitalism, use spell check. GAH.
The BB has plenty of problems, but my bigger concern here is the high price bot. If a competitor can offer an item at a lower price, why shouldn’t they get the BB? From Amazon’s point of view, that’s a no brainer. On the other hand, if I have to raise my prices because everyone has to raise the price, Amazon’s despotic bot of capricious stupidity will just shut every listing down. I’m much more worried about my offers getting killed off even when I’m at my minimum price because the item is more expensive now than it was a week ago. The bot is programmed to prevent sudden, significant price increases that might indicate price gouging, but there is no mechanism to explain that the price is just more now. This was a big issue for me during covid when prices ballooned rapidly, and that was a calm, gentle rise compared to whatever you want to call this erratic nonsense.
