We sell books, Been selling on Amazon for over 20 years.
For some reason, that no one can explain, we keep losing the “Featured Offer Eligibility”. We lost it last weekend on Friday (it said NO on our Manage Inventory page) and it returned (said YES) on Monday.
Now, again, as of Friday, it is switched to “NO” again. Hopefully it goes back to “YES” on Monday, but there is no explanation for why this is happening.
And Seller Support is no help whatsoever, especially in regards to any Featured Offer questions, because Amazon acts like this subject is TOP SECRET, which is so frustrating and ridiculous.
I posted in the Amazon Forums and even tagged some Mods, but haven’t gotten any response at all.
Has anyone else noticed their “eligibility” going off and on randomly?
As a low volume seller I’m vulnerable there and have become good at figuring out why, but there’s no prevention.
My latest though wasn’t connected to any of the usual troubles, but was due to a pricing violation alert. Since I regularly delete all inactive, all those price alerts get deleted before too many days, but other than that I ignore them. Never lost eligibility due to that before though.
Thanks April.
I am also fairly low volume and I don’t have any pricing violations at the moment. It is just so frustrating because it just seems to arbitrarily get switched off and on. When I have the eligibility I sell about 10-12 a day, when it is off I sell about 1 in 3 days. It is killing me.
Several months ago we lost the eligibility for several weeks and it was a nightmare.
On March 28th my seller central dashboard notified me that my account was at risk of deactivation due to a “critical issue” even though I maintain excellent metrics and 100% feedback ratings. Checking the Account Health page made it clear that the problem was that it was time to re-verify my business identity - I was able to successfully complete this in a matter of minutes, and all warning messages disappeared, and was told re-verification was complete and all looked normal again.
However, when I looked at my inventory page I saw that the Featured Offer Eligilbilty had been switched to NO on all my listings (whichad always been YES). This has still not been restored.
I have given up long ago on ever trying to get help from seller support, opening cases or reaching out on the NFSE in hopes of MOD support…I am so anti-Amazon at this point that the expenditure of negative energy and emotion in knowing noone there actually cares or has adequate training just isn’t worth it to me.
I know I am losing some sales but not lots - I sell only used books and many of them are collectible so I don’t usually get the Buy Box very often even in the best of circumstances.
I assume this problem will reset itself after a period of time, but Idon’t know how long that might be. Does anyone know how long this might take? Any other advice or pointers?
Thanks friends!
The NSFE has many threads about this, and a very large percentage of them are by booksellers. And like you, it has switched all from Yes to No. Coincidence or conspiracy? Or Amazon just being Amazon? I have yet to see any mods address it there.
I have had some high price alerts (who hasn’t by now??) but they have never turned off my FOE. Why would you think that other sellers would get their FOE reinstated much quicker than you?
I get about one high price alert per day. And I have only lost eligibility twice in the past year.
I got my FOE reinstated within two days, once I learned how to do it. The first time I wasted a couple of weeks futzing around with cellar support, trying to get them to understand the problem. By asking in the forum on Amazon, I found that I needed a mod to intercede for me. One did, and the problem was fixed rather quickly.
The second time, I went to celler support again, but only pro forma, just to get a case number. I ignored the usual lies and evasions and off topic advice, took the case number to the forum and tagged a mod. It was fixed fast. ( Thank you KJ_Amazon )
Okay I just have to ask…IS there something one can do to obtain FOE? I see many third party booksellers actually have it. I have sold here for 25 years and just always figured I was such microscopic potatoes that it wasn’t a thing. My banner has always said the % is 0.
I’ve muddled along so far without it, but if there truly IS something I can do…?
Hi booknut7 -
If I understand your question correctly, I think you are asking about 2 related but separate things (I’m sure you know this stuff, but perhaps didn’t connect the dots in the same way):
Featured Offer Eligibility is found by looking at your inventory management page - there is a FOE column with YES or NO displayed for each active listing (note that if the column is not there, you can add it in to your display with the Preferences button). If there is a YES in the column then the listing is ELIGIBLE for Featured Offer/Buy Box status. However, that says nothing about if/when your listing might actually win the Buy Box.
The “Featured Offer %” box on your seller dashboard tells you what percentage of your listings currently HAVE the Buy Box. Depending on how many listings you have, and whether you sell NEW books or primarily Used/Collectible books, this % may be so small (a fraction) so that it always shows as zero (this is true for me as well).
I’m not sure that Collectibles EVER win the BB (even if “eligible”); Used books do, but only when existing NEW offers aren’t eligible or there are no NEW offers. I have a suspicion that the “%” box on the dashboard actually only reflects NEW products in the BB because in other places Amazon differentiates between “New Buy Box” and “Used Buy Box”. When I looked in to this a few years ago, I determined that the sales reports only include information about the New BB; I haven’t found anywhere you can learn which of your Used products have won the BB.
I would say, though, that lately I seem to be seeing more Used offers in the Buy Box than was previously true. I wonder if the algorithm has changed, or perhaps because there are fewer FBA offers (which always got the BB), or because there are fewer offers overall (as booksellers have been leaving the platform). It definitely helps if you list books that have a limited number of other existing offers.
Hope this contains something helpful; I tried to include information that might be helpful to others as well (and are not as experienced as you!).
One more thing: I think some sellers may be having trouble maintaining their FOE status because the feedback system is so broken. Hardly anyone leaves feedback anymore (and often only do it when it is negative) which erodes your % Positive Feedback score. This score is one of the several factors Amazon uses to decide whether your listings can be eligible for the BB. However, I have never seen any clues as to how high your feedback score needs to be. This is also not gospel, because I sometimes see listings in the BB from sellers with very poor feedback scores.
Other things that I know makes a difference to winning the BB is keeping your delivery promise window as tight as possible and offering Free Shipping.
This occurs to us about every 6-8 weeks. Sometimes it lasts a day or two, sometimes a week, 10 days. Never can figure out why since, usually, everything is 0 or blank. Occasionally, have a late delivery, almost anything APO is late but we’re not stopping selling to our guys/gals overseas. We’re still above 97.5
We don’t usually get the BUY BOX either unless there’s no MEGA selling on the title. The inevitable price alerts, fixed in a few minutes or deleted permanently don’t seem to affect us…
Someone-sorry, don’t remember who-I can barely recall my own name some mornings–mentioned that AMZ may keep a “secret” metric list, so much for their vaunted transparency. Could be we’ve criticized TPTB on the NSFE more than acceptable or they’re monitoring SAS. The MODS have come down hard recently when I mention SAS, though got away w/ it for a while.
Thanks Gamis for that clear answer. I just wondered if I’m doing something “wrong” as none of my listings have ever had YES in the eligble box. I have never found any info on what makes them eligible. I have sold there for 25 years with good metrics, 94% positive feedback and that Voice of the Customer thing has always been sitting with about 300 at the Excellent rating, and only ever 1 Poor. I don’t bother looking at that stuff often, but the numbers seem to be pretty consistent when I do.
For books that I am looking at, there at tons of used ones in the Buy Box. I have never had one, even when mine is the only listing for the title.
The only other thing I can think of is to ask what kind of account you have… I think (but can’t swear by this) when I signed up I was told you can’t be eligible for the Buy Box unless you have a Professional account and that’s what I signed up for… I have no idea if this is still true (or ever was!).
I have a Pro account. But since I’m in Canada they might operate differently. I know I wouldn’t have any USA ones, as my shipping time to the US would certainly not compare! But now that I think more on it, I don’t remember seeing any of the “smaller” third parties, several of whom I know “personally” ever have it either. So likely just the FBA and Thrifters on CA.
Thanks for your reply, it seems to have made my brain see this. Also, I never really applied many cells to the issue.