7 Reasons You’re Losing the Buy Box

Did you know that more than 80% of Amazon sales come from the Buy Box—the coveted spot with the “Add to Cart” button on a product page? Winning that space means winning the sale, and only one seller gets it at a time. That makes competition fierce, with pricing and performance determining who comes out on top.

But what happens when there’s no Buy Box to win at all? Instead of “Add to Cart,” shoppers see “See All Buying Options.” It may look like a small change, but it can tank conversions and send customers straight to competitors.

While Buy Box suppression doesn’t affect every seller, when it does, it’s a nightmare. The upside? The issues that cause it are often fixable—and we’ll show you how.

1. You’re a new 3P seller and/or are not Prime Eligible

The first time most sellers experience a missing Buy Box is during the first 30 days after becoming a seller on Amazon.

Amazon uses those first 30 days as a testing period to verify your ability to consistently handle Amazon’s shipping requirements (which means no issues with order cancellations, late shipments, or confirming shipments).

Amazon places a premium on Prime-eligible products, giving them greater visibility and directing more traffic their way. If your product is not Prime eligible and you are the only one offering the item, you may not get enough traffic to your product page to create enough order experience data that shows you can meet Amazon’s performance requirements. As a result, your listing doesn’t “evolve” to have the Buy Box.

How to Resolve:

If you’re a new seller and want to win the Buy Box immediately, your best bet is to make your products Prime eligible through use of Fulfillment by Amazon or Seller Fulfilled Prime

While there are some situations where Prime eligibility doesn’t guarantee Buy Box eligibility on the product, most of the time this will work. Even without any order experience data.

2. Your product’s sales volume is too low

In addition to lack of performance data, Amazon may also remove the Buy Box from a product listing with low sales volume. This usually happens because Amazon doesn’t yet have enough order history to be confident that the seller can consistently meet its customer experience standards—such as on-time delivery, competitive pricing, and low defect rates. While Amazon doesn’t publish an exact threshold for what counts as “enough” sales, the platform relies on statistical models that require a certain level of order activity to verify reliability. In practice, products with very few or inconsistent sales often remain suppressed until they build sufficient momentum and demonstrate trustworthy performance metrics.

How to Resolve:

Clearly, it’s important to ensure that your product is selling at a decent rate to avoid a missing Buy Box. If you feel your product should be eligible for the Buy Box but has received scant sales, send Amazon Seller Support a message to find the reason.

If it’s due to low sales volume, Amazon will send you a message similar to the below:

“ASIN: B0XXXXX is not eligible as of this time for the Buy Box for the reason that this listing has shipped only 6 orders in the past 365 days.”

3. Your product is less expensive on another site

Amazon has an army of servers that scrape competitive websites in search of lower prices. If those servers find an identical product on another site for a lower price, Amazon is then likely to suppress the Buy Box for that item on Amazon.  

Removing the Buy Box when a lower-priced product is found off Amazon makes it less likely a customer will purchase it on Amazon. A missing Buy Box in this case is an effort by Amazon to protect the customer (and Amazon’s brand) from a negative experience where Amazon isn’t home to the lowest price.

How to Resolve:

For third-party sellers, Buy Box suppression can be frustrating—especially since they often can’t influence how a brand manages pricing across other websites.

For brands, the best way to protect Buy Box eligibility is to keep pricing consistent. Avoid offering discounts on other channels that aren’t also reflected on Amazon, and work with outside vendors to quickly update any mismatched prices. While it may not be possible to control every retailer at all times, staying vigilant is key. Amazon monitors pricing closely, so brands must do the same and adjust as needed.

4. A product similar to yours on or off Amazon is less expensive

Companies selling on Amazon are confounded when they offer a unique product at the lowest price, yet it still has no Buy Box.

It turns out that sometimes, Amazon compares prices of a product to another site’s prices on similar but not identical items.

For example: if one brand’s camping tent is selling well on a different site, and Amazon or a 3P seller carries a very similar camping tent by another brand, Amazon may decide the two products are similar enough that the higher-priced tent on Amazon is uncompetitive. If the Amazon offer is controlled by 1P or 3P, Amazon may choose to remove the Buy Box.

Another version of this problem happens when a unique multipack is sold on another site and Amazon 1P decides to apply unit pricing to its multipack. For instance, Costco.com sells an exclusive 10-pack of a SKU, while Amazon has a 6-pack. If the price per pack on Amazon is higher than the price per pack on Costco.com, a Vendor Manager may see the pricing difference for one pack outside of the context of a multi-pack and suppress the Buy Box.

How to Resolve:

This issue can be tough to prevent or diagnose since it often comes down to arbitrary decisions by Amazon employees rather than deliberate brand actions. If your product isn’t priced lower elsewhere, reach out to Seller Support, explain that your SKU is offered at the lowest price on Amazon, and request Buy Box reinstatement. Sometimes Amazon will restore it quickly; other times, it may require persistence and multiple follow-ups to get the listing corrected.

5. Your product’s Amazon price is higher than the MSRP

When a third-party seller offers a product at a higher price, typically more than 5% higher than the list price that Amazon has in its catalog, Amazon will suppress the Buy Box for that individual seller. List price is also known as the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP), recommended retail price (RRP), or suggested retail price (SRP). If multiple sellers are selling a product above list price, then the Buy Box will be suppressed for everyone.

This is a mechanism that Amazon has put in place to prevent price gouging. Think of what happens in December for popular children’s toys: Amazon doesn’t want to reward sellers for selling hot products well above list price. So, Amazon suppresses the Buy Box as a bottleneck to slow down customers’ interest in buying the product.  

How to Resolve:

Fortunately, there are straightforward ways to avoid this.

• For third-party sellers: Resist the urge to raise prices when inventory is low. While it may seem like a quick win, Amazon often interprets sudden price hikes as unfair to customers, which can trigger suppression.
• For brands: Work with your authorized sellers to keep pricing steady and prevent spikes as stock levels change. Consistency across all sales channels helps maintain Buy Box eligibility.
• MSRP considerations: Amazon compares your offer against the MSRP stored in its catalog. If your price is higher, the Buy Box may disappear. One way to prevent this is by ensuring MSRP data is accurate and up to date—or, in some cases, by not including a list price in your product feed at all. Without a reference price, Amazon has less reason to suppress your offer.

The bottom line is maintaining fair, consistent, and competitive pricing is one of the most reliable ways to keep your Buy Box active.

6. Amazon is reviewing your product’s authenticity

Rather than pull a product, Amazon will sometimes suppress the Buy Box while it’s reviewing authenticity complaints received from customers, such as complaints about falsely labeled fashion apparel.

If there is a sudden rush of complaints, Amazon will want to validate that there isn’t a problem with the available inventory from all sellers, so it may slow down sales of the item during this inspection period.

How to Resolve:

If you are selling authentic product on Amazon, there really isn’t much you can do beyond reaching out to the customer and to Amazon.

If you didn’t get a notification about the situation from Amazon, inquire with them about the cause of the missing Buy Box. The complaints may be coming from sales by a competing seller offering the same listing. It’s entirely possible that you may get caught up in a situation like this that you didn’t cause directly.

7. Your seller rating has dropped

When a seller experiences performance issues, Amazon takes notice. If the seller’s trailing 30-day rating drops below 90%, they often lose Buy Box eligibility. Common causes include late shipments, high order defect rates, poor customer feedback, or frequent cancellations—all signals to Amazon that the seller may not deliver a reliable customer experience.

If multiple sellers are competing on a listing, losing eligibility typically just shifts the Buy Box to another seller with stronger metrics. However, if there’s only one seller—such as a brand selling its own product—then the entire listing loses the Buy Box.

How to Resolve:

If you’re the seller, check to make sure that all of your recent seller ratings are legitimate seller ratings, and not product-related ratings or FBA-related issues.

If the issues are not related to the seller’s shipping or customer service, file a Seller Support ticket to challenge the feedback. Potentially, it will be struck from your account, and hence from your trailing 30-day seller ratings average. Removal of bad seller ratings can help drive up your average seller rating and move you back into Buy Box eligibility.

When It Comes to the Buy Box, You Have More Control Than You Realize

Buy Box Eligibility is crucial to your success on Amazon. Every seller should review its products on a regular basis to check that the “Add to Cart” button is available on each listing.

While some of the problems holding back Buy Box Eligibility are caused by forces outside of the seller’s control, most issues can be influenced by the brand and its choice of behaviors both on and off the Amazon channel.