What is going on with Amazon's Buy Box Rotation?  

As of the time of writing this post, over the last couple of weeks, we have noticed that the buy box is not rotating the way it used to.  There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason to who the buy box is sticking with.  We have seen it stick with sellers with very low overall rating and low stock as well.  We assume this is just a glitch that Amazon will eventually resolve, but it has caused quite the impact to a lot of historically strong replens.  The reason it impacts replens is when the buy box sticks with one seller too long, the other sellers are eventually going to lose patience and start lowering prices to try to take the buy box.  There is always a chance this will happen regardless, but with the current buy box issues, this has been happening a lot more frequent.

So, what can we do? 

Our advise is as always, to go wide and shallow on your purchases, meaning do not buy too many of any one particular product.  Spread your purchases out across many products to lessen your risks.  Also, try to stay patient with the pricing.  With replens, your goal is to be able to source those again and again, so if you start chasing the price, you might be able to get your current stock sold, but you will have burnt that replen for the future.

Another piece of advise, if you sourced a product where the price has tanked, but you managed to sell out and do not intend to purchase again, make sure to keep that product on a list somewhere and refer back to that list in the future once all of this has settled down to see if that product is once again a good sourcing candidate.

If you have experienced this recent issue with the buy box not rotating to you, or if you have been on the receiving end and the buy box never seems to leave you, we would love to hear a bit about your experience in the comments below.

See below for a list of tools you may need:

NOTE: We will add to this list as we move forward.  Any tools you can not live without?  Please let us a know in the comments what they are.

1. Keepa – Keepa is a great resource to get a historical view of how a particular product has performed.  This allows you to see if a product is seasonal or not and get a rough idea for how often it sells as well as how many sellers are typically on the listing.
2. BQool – BQool is a repricer tool.  While it may not be the best option with Replens, it can come in very helpful on your one off products that you find.  The tool will help you to obtain and keep the buy box by keeping you price competitive.  NOTE: Competitive does not always mean the lowest price which is why having a repricer can be a good idea.

How can I ungate those restricted categories?

The category most everyone interested in Replens wants or needs to get ungated, is Grocery, and If you are wondering if it’s possible to ungate the grocery category on a completely new account with zero sales, the short answer is absolutely.

The way to accomplish this for any category or specific product, is to setup a wholesale account with a manufacturer or a distributor and order 10 or more of an existing Amazon item that you are currently gated in.  Make sure you order 10 or more of that same item.  Don’t worry if it’s profitable, just find a low cost item to get you ungated and then you can worry about sourcing profitable items later.

From the Grocery category, one site that we have seen recent success with, in terms of providing an invoice that Amazon will accept, is Frontier Foods.  Just make sure you setup a wholesale account with them and once you place your wholesale order, they will Email you an invoice.  You then need to use this invoice to submit for approval on the Amazon item that you ordered. 

If you do use an emailed invoice to submit for approval rather than the one that ultimately comes in the shipment, go ahead and print it out and make a couple of folds in it, unfold it, and then take a picture with your phone camera.  This seems to work much better rather than just sending the image from your Email.

For other categories such as topicals, otc medications, baby diapering, and baby feeding, we would recommend you buy products from Price Master.  In some cases, baby feeding will require you to provide a CPC.  The latest we have heard is that sometimes Price Master provides this and sometimes they do not.  The best bet if it is required for you is to call them and verify before you place your order.

Another site we know people have tried with some success but it seems to be hit or miss is Kole Imports.  We mention them here just to provide you another option, but definitely try them as a last resort.

If you do all of the above and your request for approval gets denied, just want a little while and submit it again.  If you originally submitted with the emailed invoice, wait for the invoice that comes in the box and submit that along with a photo of the actual product in the box.  This has worked in the past.

We hope this helps you get ungated in those categories.  If you have any questions or comments for us, please leave them in the comment section below.

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