How to lose 70% of your Amazon sales in 1 minute

The disaster that can result from ONE customer leaving ONE negative feedback.

There are the obvious effects of negative feedback (having your Amazon account suspended), and there is one VERY big less-than-obvious one. I’m going to cover the less obvious one. And it’s happened to me.

It is estimated that 70% of sales on Amazon occur through the “Buy Box” – that box in the upper-right corner of the page that displays the price of a new copy of a book, and a used copy. 70 percent. That means you need to have your listing in the Buy Box, or for all practical purposes, it’s not even for sale.

The good news and the bad news

Here’s the good news: With books, Amazon only gives the Buy Box to FBA offers. So if you use Fulfillment by Amazon, you’re 90% of the way there.

Bad news: Amazon only let’s you have the Buy Box if you maintain rigorous performance standards. They will also give the Buy Box to a book selling for more than your copy, if the seller has a better history of satisfying customers.

The metrics Amazon uses to calculate who gets the Buy Box are both complex and not made public. But price is only one factor. Your seller performance is another.

If your “Order Defect Rate” (a way Amazon measures seller performance) reaches 1%, you lose the eligibility to win the Buy Box. After losing it, it will take 30 days with an ODR below 1% to be eligible again. That’s 70% of your sales – gone.

But there are other ways to lose the Buy Box too…

Don’t get comfortable – there’s more.

You don’t have to hit a 1% Order Defect Rate to lose the Buy Box. Amazon will give it to your competitor merely if their price is close to yours AND they have better seller performance. Basically, if they have better feedback and their price is the same or close to your offer, the Buy Box is theirs, not yours.

Last month I found out the hard way how true this is

Recently I got two negative feedbacks in quick succession. They were left in error, and it took me a couple days to have them removed. In those two days, I watched closely to my Buy Box placement, and it plummeted. In fact, I may have lost it for ALL my listings – I couldn’t find a single offer that Amazon would give the Buy Box to. It was brutal, and my sales went through the floor.

This is why every single negative (or neutral) feedback must be addressed vigorously. Its not just about that feedback score next to your store name. A single negative feedback can mean disasterous consequences for your short-term sales.

Endnote: The blueprint for repairing feedback is coming

Some years ago I almost lost my Amazon account due to a small wave of bad feedback, inspiring me to learn everything I could about two things:

• Having feedback removed
• Buffering myself against its impact by artificially increasing positive feedback.

What I learned inspired an upcoming 50-page ebook I’m about to release: Feedback Mastery: The Amazon Annihilation Feedback Repair System. You have so many more options for removing bad feedback than you realize.

I know feedback is a huge pain point for Amazon sellers, and I’m aiming to publish the bible on all things related to feedback, covering all angles. I may have missed something in this one, but I doubt it.

Update, January 2014: The ebook is out. Feedback Mastery: The Amazon Annihilation Feedback Repair System can be read here.