If you are the only seller of a product will you automatically win the Buy Box?

Amazon will only highlight offers that it is confident will present a great experience for buyers i.e. its customers.  This means there may be circumstances in which a third party offer would be ineligible to be displayed as the Featured Offer (i.e. something sold by a seller other than Amazon themselves) even if it's the only offer for an item.

For example, an offer would be ineligible if the third party has a history of providing a poor customer experience or presents a high risk of fraud or abuse. Similarly, an offer at a price that is uncompetitive, for a product that is not available or cannot ship to a customer’s location, or for a product about which there may be product-quality or customer-experience concerns may be ineligible to be displayed as the Featured Offer.

Note Amazon does not always promote itself as the buy box winner (usually but not always). If an Amazon retail offer is out of stock with no outstanding purchase orders and that same product is available at the same or a lower price from a Prime-eligible seller with a high-performance rating, then the Amazon retail offer would not be the Featured Offer.

How does using Fulfilment By Amazon (FBA) impact search results?

Seller using FBA have the orders fulfilled by Amazon's high-quality fulfillment services.  Quick, reliable shipping is what customers want.  FBA provides sellers with items being labelled as Amazon 'Prime' eligible and helps seller performance. The featured offer (buybox) is based on factors affecting customer experience, and FBA generally provides a better and more reliable experience for Amazon’s customers than fulfillment through other means; accordingly, that difference may be reflected in the offer that is featured.

Why are products suppressed or removed?

Suppressing a product from shopping results is different from removing the listing from Amazon’s store, although Amazon uses both processes to protect the experience of its customers and prevent fraud and abuse in its store.

Suppressing a product from shopping results has the result of hiding the listing from search and personalization, yet the product remains buyable in Amazon’s store.

Amazon may suppress a listing from shopping results when a listing risks impairing the customer shopping experience for reasons such as missing or incorrect information.

Listings may be unsuppressed and reappear in shopping results when flaws are corrected.

Sellers are able to see suppressed products in the Codisto grid (red offer status icon).  They can also run suppression reports and correct or manage suppressed listings through the “Manage Inventory” tab in Seller Central.

If the errors are corrected, the listings become unsurpressed in 24-48 hours (Amazon dependent).

In contrast, Amazon may remove or “de-list” a product from its store where the product is illegal, prohibited by Amazon’s policies, or otherwise presents a risk of fraud and abuse. Once removed from Amazon’s store, such products cannot be purchased by Amazon’s customers.

How many Amazon Prime members are there?

Amazon Prime has over 100 million paid members worldwide.