Certain items sold on Amazon are labeled “Amazon’s Choice.” For Amazon sellers who are aspiring to enhance the popularity of their product, the formula Amazon uses for deciding which products get that designation is shrouded in mystery. Jeff Bezos and Amazon are secretive about their product selection algorithm. How the online retailer determines what products to highlight on your screen remains is mostly kept hidden from prying eyes.
With regard to other labels, such as book recommendations, one can readily see that the selection algorithm takes into account what books you have previously purchased as well as similar books bought by others. In the case of Amazon’s Choice, however, the algorithm is not as clear.
Now, Jeff Bezos and Amazon have recently shed some light on how candidates for “Amazon’s Choice” are picked. This certainly gives budding entrepreneurs a glimmer of hope that they too can be featured on Amazon’s Choice. Let’s have a look.
How Amazon’s Choice began
Amazon’s Choice gives you a one-line definition that doesn’t do anything to clear up the confusion: “a feature that helps Amazon customers save time and effort when searching for common, everyday items and suggests highly-rated, well-priced products with Prime shipping.”
A more helpful description is given by a Amazon insider: Amazon’s Choice began in 2015 and is intended to help customers narrow down their choices by showcasing well-priced, popular products with a high rating.
Man versus Machine
But even if we know the what, the how aspect of Amazon’s Choice is still not very clear. Are the products displayed with the Amazon’s Choice label chosen by humans or software? This is a very important question as it affects the trust factor that’s so crucial in making a purchase.
Do we trust the judgement of humans more than machine; or vice versa? Amazon has been very quiet about this and does not comment on this aspect. Vendors whose products were picked as Amazon’s Choice have really no idea how they were chosen. A similar concern nags those who are aspiring to win the badge. If only they knew the formula, they’d do everything to win it.
Even more intriguing, the Amazon’s Choice label feature is not available for purchase or by request; it is solely granted on the basis of rating and eligibility of the items for sale.
What’s new about Amazon’s Choice
Recently, certain products featured on Amazon’s Choice show a list of criteria as to how they earned that logo. The Amazon website has this list appearing under the Amazon’s Choice badge. Next to the logo is the link “Why we love this product,” which will show you the three criteria explaining why the item was chosen as Amazon’s Choice:
- Low Return Rate. This factor requires that return rate of the product be lower than 38 percent compared to other products of similar design, quality and purpose
- Highly Rated: If a seller has received great reviews, feedback and a rating of not less than four stars, then it’s likely for that vendor to get selected.
- Popular Item: This simply means popular in that people always type this term when making a search.
The above does not only give the seller a chance to see what Amazon thinks is important with regard to the selection criteria, but also customers too can glean important insight as to why Amazon thinks that the product is outstanding.
What benefits does Amazon derive from this?
Amazon’s intention for driving this campaign is not geared towards boosting sales. Rather, what it wants to achieve is improved buyer experience. By helping buyers refine their decisions, Amazon is certainly doing them a great favor.
But make no mistake about it, Amazon still reserves the right to promote specific products it is interested in and boost sales in the process. Whether you like or not, Amazon has the monopoly of information and it is entirely up to them whether to keep it a secret or let the public know.
The three criteria discussed above are not exactly a road map for getting the coveted badge for your products, but it’s something you can rely on as guide as you work towards your goal.
Popular products
Amazon’s one area of focus is in making popular items more accessible to buyers. This can be detrimental to the interest of lesser known brands, or vendors who are just starting out. This again resonates with Amazon’s intention to drive popular brand sales and customer satisfaction.
However, it is in Amazon’s best interest not to make the criteria too narrow in scope. Relaxing the rules a little bit would make it even easier for customers to complete their purchases, which in turn allows Amazon to gather more sales. We do hope to see an improvement in this area in the near future.
Product price tags
Another thing Amazon is keeping an eye on is the price tag of your products. Amazon keeps an updated record of what’s a reasonable price for a particular brand or item. And yes, the lower your price point, the more likely you’ll get that coveted Amazon’s Choice badge.
Even a simple act of lowering your price can do wonders in increasing your visibility, popularity and sales. This can help you move up the rankings fairly quickly, especially if yours is a highly competitive niche.
Conclusion
The survival and success of your Amazon store is not only dependent on how much sales you have made, but on your ability to collect reimbursements for your lost or damaged goods stored in various FBA warehouses.
If you have suffered such losses or damages, but have so far been unsuccessful in making the claim, Seller Investigators can help.
For many years, FBAi has been helping countless clients, and has had great success in collecting their reimbursement for them. If you need the kind of assistance we offer, we’re just a phone call away. Let us know how we can be of service to you. Have a great day.
