When it comes to shopping, many consumers find traditional online stores and marketplaces to be overwhelming, hard to use, and a waste of time. Amazon, in its never-ending quest to solidify its status as the king of eCommerce, put an end to this ‘traditional’ way of online shopping when it introduced Amazon Prime.
Prime, on top of unlimited TV and music streaming, shopping deals, and exclusive merchandise, also provides members with free two-day shipping on thousands of items. While Prime is an incredible perk for customers (all membership benefits are included in the annual subscription fee), sellers can also benefit from being included in Prime offerings.
One of the main things sellers have to remember as it pertains to Prime is that two day shipping—while a huge draw for customers—might not be feasible from a logistics standpoint. This is where working with FBA can become a huge advantage to sellers. FBA, or Fulfillment by Amazon, is a service that allows all packaging, storing, and shipping of products to be handled by the Amazon team. This means that instead of a seller trying to track down an item at a warehouse, package it, and ship it out to arrive at its destination in less than two days, Amazon instead handles all of the metaphorical heavy lifting.
While using FBA services does come at a price, it includes the huge benefit of automatically qualifying for Prime eligibility, making FBA an extremely appealing option for sellers and brands. Many Prime members segment out products based on Prime eligibility, and some exclusively purchase only Prime-eligible merchandise. Becoming a Prime-eligible seller can increase sales and help optimize customer engagement and feedback.
Becoming Prime-eligible with the FBA program also offers another perk to sellers—optimizing their position in the buy box. As most online sellers know, winning the Amazon buy box can drastically increase conversions and improve profits. Sellers with Prime eligibility automatically gain the upper hand in the buy box against a seller who doesn’t leverage Prime or FBA. So, for example, if there are two sellers with a similar product but only one is Prime eligible with FBA, that seller will win the buy box every time.
Sellers looking to win the buy box—and the sale—every time on Amazon need a fail-proof strategy, and Prime eligibility is at the heart of that strategy. Becoming Prime eligible through an FBA partnership is a great first step for brands looking to break into the Amazon selling landscape. You can learn more and get started winning the buy box with SupplyKick. Let's talk today.
