A vigilante formula for artificially increasing your Amazon seller metrics, getting positive feedback ratings, and winning the Amazon Buy Box with Fiverr.com.
The super controversial and totally vigilante Amazon Buy Box hack
All Amazon sellers with a faint heart and fragile sensibilities: Move along. There’s nothing for you here.
For the rest, let’s dive in…
We’re going deep into a guerilla tactic for those who will do anything to succeed with FBA.
The formula I’m going to outline is for two categories of Amazon FBA seller:
- Newer FBA sellers (or sellers new to a particular category) who want their listings to be eligible for the Buy Box.
- FBA sellers who want to increase their feedback rating (this is most of us).
Problem #1: You are not eligible for the Amazon Buy Box.
Many Amazon sellers who struggle with sales are not even aware that their books (or other inventory) aren’t showing in the Amazon Buy Box. It never occurred to them, and they never checked.
Is this you? You can find out if you’re Buy Box eligible via the following steps:
Amazon Seller Central > Manage Inventory > Preferences (upper right) > check box for “Buy Box Eligible”
Go back to your inventory view, and look at the column for “Buy Box Eligible.” Does it say yes for your inventory, or no?
Why are some FBA sellers ineligible for the Amazon Buy Box?
I don’t claim to be an expert on this. But the biggest reasons are:
- Low positive feedback percentage.
- Low number of feedback ratings.
- Not enough sales in a category.
If your Amazon feedback score is less than ideal, Amazon may prefer to give the Buy Box to a seller with a better chance of providing a satisfactory experience to the buyer.
If you’re new to selling on Amazon in general, you’re probably not eligible for the Buy Box. You’re going to need to get some significant sales before Amazon will trust you enough to refer sellers to your listings.
If you’ve been selling on Amazon for a long time, but have recently started selling in a certain category (like books), Amazon may give you the Buy Box in the category where you have experience, but will make you prove yourself in the new category before you get the Buy Box there.
In a moment, I’m going to show you how to fix all three of these.
What is the Amazon Buy Box? Quick refresher
This is not meant to be a beginners guide to the Buy Box, but in short: It’s the prominent box on the right hand side of the screen (or the middle with textbooks), where buyers can checkout quickly with one (or three) clicks. Some estimate over 70% of all sales happen through the Buy Box. While I don’t believe this number is accurate, I still repeat it to emphasize the Buy Box’s importance in sales.
Once you’re Buy Box eligible, your sales should spike immediately.
A lot of newer Amazon sellers (or sellers new to certain categories) get frustrated because they don’t see the sales they expect, but they never realize their inventory is not Buy Box eligible.
Problem #2: You want to raise your Amazon feedback score
This one is much more simple.
Either you’re balanced perilously on the precipice or getting banned from Amazon due to negative feedback, or you just want to get your numbers up.
This helps get the Buy Box, and it to a lesser extent it can also help directly with sales.
Both of these problems are only solved through one thing: Getting more sales, and getting buyers to leave positive feedback for those sales. That’s it.
Most believe the only way for this to happen is organically: Customers buy your products, about 7% of them leave feedback, and you just tap your toe waiting for that glorious day Amazon declares you Buy Box eligible (or your feedback score hits your desired percentage).
But what if there was a way to artificially generate sales, artificially generate positive feedback, and artificially increase the rate you accomplish all of this? What if….
The old fashioned way to raise your Amazon feedback score
This won’t help with sales (which is a necessary part of winning the Buy Box), but there’s always the option of soliciting feedback from your customers manually. You might get your customer/feedback percentage up from 7% to 15% (or something). There are even services like Feedback Five and Feedback Genius who automate this process.
The new, militant against-the-rules way to raise your Amazon feedback score
I’m going to outline a militant formula for the following type of seller:
- Serious about selling on Amazon in the long term.
- Is willing to invest serious money to accelerate their growth (should apply to everyone).
If that’s you, let’s get into it…
Introducing: Fiverr.com to solve both problems
Fiverr (two R’s) is a marketplace of people who will do almost anything for $5. Seriously.
For $5, you can get everything from someone recording a video of themselves insulting your former landlord by name and mailing them the link, to video editing, to recording a custom made rap song (the last of which I’ve purchased countless times as last-minute birthday presents). It’s endless.
If your imagination can conceive of it, someone on Fiverr will do it for $5.
Maybe you can see where this is going, maybe not…
Solving your Amazon problems with cheap labor
Essentially, all we need to solve the two problems I outlined above is:
- Get more sales.
- Get more positive feedback for those sales.
If someone is willing to ghostwrite a custom love letter to your coworker in the next cubicle for $5 (a service that’s offered on Firerr), do you think they would make a couple clicks on Amazon and leave you feedback (2 minutes work) for $5?
Guaranteed.
Step One: Post a job request on Fiverr
Post a “gig request.”
In the upper right hand corner of the Fiverr homepage, there is a button to “post a request.” Click that.
Then describe what you want.
It might look something like:
“I am looking for someone to go to my personal storefront on an ecommerce site, make a small purchase, and leave me a review for the purchase. It will require about 2 minutes of work.”
Step Two: Wait
Wait for offers to come in.
Step Three: Have them make a purchase from your Amazon store
Send them a link to your Amazon storefront, with instructions to purchase the cheapest book they can find, and then instructions on how to leave five star feedback once the book has been received.
Pick your target (100 postive feedbacks, for example), and hire that many people accordingly. (I would not advise having the same person make multiple purchases. Could look suspicious in the eyes of Amazon).
Every question about this scandalous tactic, answered
You probably have a million questions right now, so let me address them
I’m not saying I’ve done any of this before (and if I had, I wouldn’t tell you), but here are some notes on making this work.
“What if I don’t have tons of cheap books in my inventory?”
If you haven’t been selling very long, you may not have an abundance of bargain basement books in your Amazon inventory. Personally, I have hundreds of these, and I wish they would just go away.
If you don’t, you have to decide how much this is worth to you. You have the option of discounting your cheapest items even further, since you will be paying for the book on top of the Fiverr fee.
“How do I know how many Amazon sales / feedback ratings I need?”
If you’re trying to get Amazon Buy Box eligible, there’s no easy answer. Amazon doesn’t reveal numbers they need to see. I know of people with over 100 positive feedback scores who are still not eligible, but there could be other issues at work there too. As far as I’m aware, there is no specific target number.
If you’re trying to raise your Amazon feedback score, the answer is pretty simple. Just determine what percentage you’re trying to hit, then do the math on how many positive feedbacks it will take to get there. Simple.
There are so many people looking for “work” on Fiverr, there should be no shortage of takers on your offer.
“This sounds expensive.”
Remember at the beginning when I said this was for serious FBA sellers willing to invest in the long term growth of their business? This is why.
Getting 100 sales & 100 feedbacks could cost as much as $1,000 ($5 Fiverr fee + $5 book cost).
This is a small investment considering 100 positive Amazon feedbacks would get most of us out of any feedback danger zone, and most of us (probably) eligible for the Buy Box. But its a gamble.
“Isn’t this against the rules?”
Of course.
Covering your bases: How to do this without getting in trouble
Realistically, there is no way for Amazon to have any idea why someone is buying your books, or have any idea they are being paid to do so. This is a virtual impossibility.
As paranoid as you can possibly get, you cannot create a scenario so “Big Brother” as to explain how Amazon could possibly know what’s happening here.
That said, here are a couple ideas to be extra careful:
Don’t mention Amazon in the job request. Because you just never know: Amazon might be searching Fiverr and pull a sting operation on you…
Only hire people in the US. This is also probably the only way to keep it economically viable, since you don’t want to be paying overseas postage (or orchestrating 100 friend’s addresses where the books could be sent). But getting a flood of overseas buyers *might* flag you in the eyes of Amazon.
Don’t have the same person order more than one book. Another thing to avoid triggering any of Amazon’s “irregular activity” algorithms (which probably don’t exist).
Why this trick will pay for itself
Remember the two scenarios we set out to solve here:
- Ineligibility for the Amazon Buy Box.
- Bad feedback score.
As for the first, getting eligible for the Amazon Buy Box should set off a huge spike in sales. Assuming your inventory is big enough, this should offset any upfront costs.
As for the second, we all know Amazon is absolutely ruthless about banning people who fall below the required feedback score. If your business is on the line, almost no cost is too much.
Success in business is about working smarter, not harder. Conquer that Buy Box, get out of the feedback score danger zone, and listen to the cash register ring…
-Peter Valley
When hiring for fiverr would a requirement also must be a Amazon Prime member. I ask because if they are not Prime members shipping cost would also be a cost.
Peter, feel free to correct me if I’m missing something obvious, but all I see here is a monstrous risk.
Think about it: If people started openly advertising that they want to pay people to buy their books and leave them positive feedback on Amazon (which is exactly what your example offer above does), Amazon could simply have an employee take a little time and accept a few of these gigs. Remember, in order for someone to buy your book and leave you feedback, you would obviously have to tell them EXACTLY who you were on Amazon!
Boom! BANNED!
Or do you think that companies never use shills to protect their interests?
You wouldn’t be openly advertising (I edited the article to clarify). The post would be something vague enough to solicit inquiries, and the specifics would not be public.
First of all, you know that Amazon employees read your blog. Now that you have posted this, some Amazon employees may start checking Fivers and similar sites for requests such you described. It won’t cost them anything to investigate these offers – they’ll even get paid for it. As soon as the seller gives the link to their storefront to the Amazon employee – they are caught and will probably get banned for life.
If somebody has money to burn on building feedback, they can just buy a lot of low sales rank books in like new condition, sell them at a loss if necessary, and solicit feedback from the customers who buy them. The feedback response rate might be low, maybe 5%, but feedback response rate may be another metric Amazon looks at, or could look at, to catch people trying to fake their feedback. Paying people to give you feedback would bring the feedback response rate near 100% which is extremely abnormal and would set off a red flag if Amazon checks this metric.
Fair concern, though you’re talking about one of the largest companies in the world being roused enough to take interest in something that will be employed by a microscopic number of sellers.
I wouldn’t agree that seeing a spike in positive feedback would trigger any alarms at Amazon. It would never be close to 100%, because presumably you’re selling books to “normal” buyers concurrently, as always.
This tactic can literally save a business, and I always present tactics other sellers won’t talk about in the interest of people knowing the full range of their options.
Even if Amazon as a company doesn’t take an interest in the issue, a few employees might take a vigilante interest in it. If an employee takes it upon themself to investiage these gigs, they can report what they find to the appropriate department, and I’m sure the information would be acted on.
Furthermore, it is easy to find lots of low sales rank books in very good or like new condition in thrift stores, especially if the seller’s priority is sales volume rather than profit. These will sell quickly regardless of whether a seller is eligible for the buy box. A seller can just focus on sending in a lot of low sales rank books until their metrics come up. That would be an easy, fast, and low risk way to bring sales metrics up.
Fair concerns, but I would consider a anti-Amazon rule-bender-vigilante to be a fairly exotic scenario.
I’m providing an option for people in a desperate or semi-desperate situation, and if there is a better option I invite anyone to post here. Desperate times call for desperate measures. (And let’s be honest, the only person stuffy and blowhard enough to snitch on Amazon sellers is Bob Wiley).
And the flaw in selling lots of cheap books is that your feedback rate is going to be around 7%. So you’ll have to do 15x the sales volume to match this tactic. If you’re willing to take the time to do this, then it can absolutely work.
This is a good idea but Amazon tracks everything and they would notice if you’re getting close to 100% of your customers to leave feedback when on average 5% or less of customers are leaving feedback. The better strategy would be to selectively apply this at a rate lower than 20%. So for every 80 real sales try this strategy with around 20 people on Fiverr. Your feedback rate is still going to be high and the pattern isn’t tough to figure out but I assume Amazon isn’t going to issue any warnings if done in small doses.
The idea would be to stagger this out somewhat, have “normal” sales coming in at the same time to dilute things a little, and send the buyers feedback requests manually, so it appears organic.
Great article. I don’t find a box for “Buy Box Eligible”. Just Buy Box Price. Do I need to upgrade my account to Professional to see that? Thanks-
Not sure, but you should see the box to check under “preferences.”
Yes you do.
Thanks for clearing that up.
By the way, how do you guys get cool avatar images for your comments and I’m stuck with this generic one?
Gravatar.com – You can set your image to be anything linked with a certain email address.
Sent a photo to an artist on Fiverr.
Fivvr already takes $1 of the $5 as part of their deal. , so you’re going to have to pay an add-on service fee for a $4 book buy. Aside from the math, book trading is your area of expertise,, so you may not be aware that Amazon can and does track this type of activity. I’m not even a programmer and could write that routine, if they didn’t already have and use it.. They are well aware of fivvr in particular as well as other review sources. You share lots of great info and advice, but this is an exception. Ethically questionable and a post I wouldn’t want anyone with control over my seller account to stumble across.
Given that the buyer would mimic an “organic” buyer in literally every way, whatever tracking ability Amazon had would have to include hacking into a person’s private Fiverr messages to determine the underlying conspiracy (illegal and improbable). Tell me what I’m missing.
I have a question about FBA bookselling. When you list books you’re basically using information that is already on Amazon. Do you recommend adding more information to the listing such as keywords, photos etc.?
No, just not worth the time.
Peter,
Folks here raised concerns about Amazon ‘finding out’. A quick Wikipedia search revealed a ‘word to the wise’ that should not be minimized.
“In October 2015, Amazon.com started legal action against 1,114 Fiverr sellers it claims provide fake reviews on the US version of its website. Fiverr did not dispute Amazon’s allegations and stated: “As Amazon noted, we have worked closely together to remove services that violate our terms of use, and respond promptly to any reports of inappropriate content.”[11]s
Perhaps this stealth method works — but I’d rather sleep at night. YMMV.
Very interesting. I’ll point out this is why I have heard (and suggested) people make the post, so Fiverr sellers are contacting you and not vice versa (interaction not searchable).
I just started selling on Amazon except 8 years ago in 2008, I was selling a few books. Some of the books didn’t sell for a long time and not knowing anything about Amazon, I didn’t know the listings were still active. A couple of people bought 2 books, and I was no longer checking, and I didn’t ship the books and I got 2 negative feedbacks. 8 years later, I only have 3 feedbacks, 2 negative and 1 positive. The interesting thing is I am buy box eligible for clothes and 1 electronic item I have been selling, but my book listings show as ineligible. At the same time, my account shows as healthy with no recent negative feedbacks. I’m thinking of selling a bunch of books from my house that I want to get rid of for $.01.
Paying for reviews in this way will sooner or later result in an Amazon suspension and account closure. You need to use software that is 100% Amazon compliant such as FeedbackExpress.
Peter, I am usually a big fan, but this time you lost me. There are enough ways to get suspended for no good reason without adding this kind of risk. I say this as someone who just lost Buy Box eligibility because of one inexplicable and unjustified bad feedback after maintaining a 100% score (80 ratings). I may consider using Feedback Genius, which is a legitimate way of dealing with this.
Aside from the risk of getting caught, I think this kind of feedback hacking is just unethical. Here is why I say that: Not long ago I ordered a couple of loose-leaf textbooks (using Zen Arbitrage). What I got was a different edition, not worth selling, with fake barcodes pasted over the real ones. I ended up filing an A-to-Z claim and got a refund, and I gave a 1 star rating. A couple of months later, I came across the seller again and saw that they still had a 96% rating. My review had been buried under hundreds of obviously fake ratings. They were getting away with it, but would you say it was ethical? It is the same as all the fake product reviews.
Anyway, thanks for the tip about checking Buy Box eligibility.