Maximizing Metrics and Winning the Buy Box

A Comprehensive Guide for Amazon Sellers
Posted by Amanda Stein | 8 minute read
In short,
Maximize the metric as a guide to win the buy box.
Editor's Foreword

Winning as an Amazon seller is not just about having the best product or service. It's about understanding the rules of the game, and using them to your advantage. This is where the 'buy box' comes into play. It's not just a simple feature on a website. No, it's much more than that. It's a powerful tool that can significantly enhance your online sales, if used effectively.

Remember, in the world of e-commerce, the 'buy box' is king. And to win the king, you need the right tools, the right strategy, and the right mindset. So, let's embark on this journey together, and conquer the 'buy box'.

Tips for effective Amazon sellers

  1. Make it a habit to consistently ask for product reviews from your Amazon buyers. This should be a daily routine.
  2. Understand the importance of product reviews as they are a deciding factor for many potential buyers.
  3. Aim to transform your clients into reviewers. They’ve already spent money on your product and can provide valuable feedback.
  4. Always strive for 5-star ratings. This not only boosts your reputation but also improves your visibility on the platform.
  5. Remember to request a rating for all new orders. This can increase the number of reviews you receive.
  6. Make the process of leaving a review as simple as possible for your customers to encourage participation.
  7. Respond in a timely and professional manner to all reviews, both positive and negative. This shows potential customers that you value feedback.
  8. Learn from your reviews. If a product is consistently receiving low ratings, investigate why and consider making necessary changes.
  9. Never break your habit of asking for reviews. Consistency is key to maintaining a strong online presence.
  10. Monitor your reviews closely. This will help you understand your customers’ needs and preferences better.
  11. Be respectful and appreciative when customers take the time to leave a review. A simple ‘Thank you’ can go a long way.
  12. Do not incentivize customers to leave reviews. Amazon’s policies strictly prohibit this, and it can lead to your account being suspended.
  13. Keep your requests for reviews polite and professional. Avoid being pushy or demanding.
  14. Encourage detailed reviews. The more information a review provides, the more helpful it is to potential buyers.
  15. Be patient. It can take time for customers to leave reviews, but the effort you put into encouraging them will eventually pay off.
  16. Lastly, always remember that your ultimate goal is to provide a product that customers will love and want to review positively. Quality should always be your top priority.

Maximizing Metrics and Winning the Buy Box

Amazon forbids a seller to simply ask a buyer to give them positive feedback. Seller feedback and reviews must be neutral and unaltered by the seller. However there’s much you can do to increase the chances the buyer will give you the desired 5 star rating and positive feedback.


Can I ask a customer to give me a positive seller feedback

Amazon makes it very clear in their guidelines and terms, as can be seen in this page, that you are not allowed to ask for positive and favorable Amazon feedback. This is intended to ensure that the seller feedback and product reviews are pure and unbiased so that they are as helpful as possible for other potential customers. Amazon can severely punish sellers who disregard this guideline and solicit positive reviews.

Why can’t I directly ask for a positive feedback

While third party sellers can’t directly ask a buyer to leave feedback, they can request feedback in ways that will make it more likely that the feedback score will be positive. You must make sure you use safe and legitimate ways to get seller feedback and product reviews. More on that in the next paragraphs. But first, let’s see what are the actions that you should refrain from doing.

How can a seller get more positive feedback and product review on Amazon

Amazon publishes clear and strict rules that you must follow. If you fail to comply your account is at risk of suspension or worse. Many Amazon sellers do anything to win the buy box but are undermining themselves in the process and lose their business. Here are some specifics of behaviors you should refrain from adopting.


What should I be careful not to do

Amazon forbids any tactic that will impair the objectiveness of the review. You must follow exactly what the guidelines say, but to save you some time, here is what you should NOT do: giving feedback to your own products, asking friends and family, offer a monetary incentive like a free or discounted products in exchange for a positive review, pressure buyers in any way, offering a discount in exchange for a positive feedback , getting fake reviews etc.

You could and should read more about it on this page.

Feedback request behaviors you should avoid

If a seller asks a reviewer to change or remove their review it is a clear violation that can get you suspended. In the next paragraph we will see what we can do to handle a negative feedback or a negative review, but remember that you can not simply ask a user to remove their review via the buyer seller messaging like some sellers do.

You can not ask a user to reverse a negative feedback or review

As we have now established, directly requesting a positive product review or feedback is not acceptable by Amazon. In this section we will go over the methods you are allowed to take to improve your product reviews and feedback score and make buyers give more positive feedback.


Get positive feedback on Amazon

The factor that best improves your product review is if you offer a quality product so it’s only logical that the factor that best improves your seller feedback rating is your quality as a seller. The third party sellers with the highest rankings are the best sellers. Deliver on time, top tier product packaging, reply to questions and comments of your customers so you give excellent customer service and over deliver whenever you can. These will greatly increase the chances that you will receive more positive feedback. Remember, if unhappy customers leave negative or neutral feedback, happy customers leave seller feedback that will take you to the top and potentially win you the buy box algorithm.

Remember why they are rating you in the first place

If you only request product reviews and Amazon feedback once in a while, you are more likely to be hit by a random negative seller feedback from unhappy customers. This is why you need to ask for feedback after each purchase. Not only will you get consistent reviews, but you will also improve your Amazon health as seen in seller central and increase your chances of winning the buy box.

In order to make a feedback request and make sure customers are leaving feedback you can use a few methods. These methods range from the early reviewer program, through Amazon buyer seller messaging service via seller central and product inserts to using the Request a Review button. You can read more about them in this article.

Note that in many of the ways you are at a risk of violating Amazon’s guidelines (see the previous paragraphs). This is why we highly recommend using the Request a Review button which is safe and effective.

You can make the feedback requests manually which takes time and in many cases causes you to miss on potential feedback, or you can use automation. HightFive is a free seller app that requests feedback for you at the times you pre define (e.g. after 5 days, after two weeks etc.). It’s hands down the easiest feedback management and feedback request tool out there.

Request often and consistently

It takes a different time to experience and enjoy each product. That is why the optimal time to ask a buyer to leave feedback depends on the specific product bought. While this refers to product reviews in all likelihood it will also affect your seller feedback. We suggest that you sit and think about the customer journey from the moment they receive the product. When are they most excited and happy with it? Good chances this is the ideal time to ask for Amazon feedback. The right timing can sometimes be the difference between a negative feedback and a positive one

Ask a buyer to leave feedback at the right time

If you deploy our previous result, figuring out the proper time to ask for a feedback per the specific product, you’re already more advanced than the usual seller. However, you can go even further by experimenting. For example, for a month, ask customers for feedback after a week and keep track of the ratings you get. Now, conduct an experiment – for the next month ask for the feedback after two weeks. Did the average rating change?

If you are methodical there’s a good chance you can significantly increase your average rating and feedback score and reduce negative reviews. You can save on much of the manual work if you use HighFive – it will allow you to automatically send the requests at the proper times you choose and easily make the changes needed for the experiment.

Choosing the right time – the advanced method

We know how you’d like to deal with a negative feedback or a negative review, complaining customers and incoherent Amazon buyers, but it’s … illegal 🙂

Don’t worry, we can still tunnel this sentiment to productive channels to deal with bad reviews and increase your Amazon seller feedback score.


Dealing with negative feedback

Customer satisfaction is the deciding factor when collecting positive feedback. If a customer complains or sends a question after the purchase, make sure to answer it in the most helpful and quick way you can. A helpful and respectful response can cause an Amazon customer to change or remove their negative or neutral feedback and up your seller rating.

Make sure your customers are happy post purchase

It is true that Amazon’s rules are making communications more challenging, but they can sometimes work in your favor and assist you in removing feedback that isn’t just. Amazon encourages sellers to help maintain a clear and relevant feedback ecosystem and this can work to your advantage and improve your Amazon seller rating.

What you need to remember is that while a product review feature is about the product, the feedback is about the seller. So, in the case that a customer’s Amazon feedback contains a complaint about the product, you can request to remove negative feedback the minute it arrives.

Amazon’s feedback policies also dictate that you can request to remove reviews with personally identifiable information or such that contains abusive language. You can read more in this helpful article here.

Amazon rules also work in your favor

Here’s a quick summary of the tools and methods you should use to make sure you are getting the best Amazon feedback score possible as well as the ways to incentivize reviews from buyers. These are important factors that will boost your Amazon business and surprisingly not many sellers use them.


Tools that will help you get positive Amazon seller feedback

Instead of using the feedback page on Amazon seller central to contact buyers one by one, which makes buyer seller relationship a burden rather than an opportunity, you can use automation.

Each feedback and review request can be handled automatically by seller apps, paid or free tools. HighFive is the best in class Amazon feedback software and Feedback management tool used by smart sellers to improve Amazon feedback and review gathering. It uses the Request a Review functionality to get Amazon customers to leave feedback automatically by the parameters you define. This lets you choose the time that will increase the chances of positive feedback. It also gives you data and analytics on your seller performance in this field.

Request feedback routinely and effectively

If you want to get the buy box, think of what separates the top sellers from the rest and act like one. Requesting feedback and request reviews are only a small part of the puzzle. Amazon sellers use product reviews to improve what’s wrong in the product and use negative feedback to improve their conduct. Amazon sellers that succeed not only send feedback requests, but they professionally reply to customer queries and take responsibility. You must not view seller feedback rating as a metric you need to maximize – you must view it as a guide to get better. That’s how you win the buy box.

Frequently Asked Questions

Screenshot of the 'HighFive' software interface showing an automation toggle for Amazon's 'Request a Review' button, with a focus on the number of reviews for a product.

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