Amazon Price Match

If you are selling on Amazon and other marketplaces—i.e. Walmart, Wayfair, etc.—know that Amazon price matches almost always.

What that means is, if one of the marketplaces drop their prices, you can expect Amazon to do the same. As a result, you will lose the buy box until you match the competitive external price. And when you lose the buy box, conversions drop significantly. To know which of your products are affected, go to Seller Central Menu > Pricing Health > Pricing Opportunities.

This happened today to one of the accounts I’m managing. We’re preparing for the upcoming Prime Day next week (Oct 8-9) and we have sale prices already set up. Then this morning, I woke up to several top selling products losing the buy box because one of the marketplaces, where we’re also active, dropped their prices. Worse—we’ve increased the advertising spend before the weekend because we have a big sales target to achieve this month and we really need to catch up. So just imagine the effect of losing the buy box to advertising—cost per clicks and ACOS could easily go up, not to mention, a hit on profitability.

Of course I had to tell my immediate superior so they’re aware. Instantly, they decided to deactivate the products in the other marketplace but 5 hours in and we still haven’t got the buy box back. Things like these are out of my control but it doesn’t matter, I’m still responsible whether or not we reach this month’s target. So what do I do? I could match the price to bring back the buy box but that would mean sacrificing margins. I do nothing and we risk losing sales, and eventually—missing this month’s target.

Damn if I do, damn if I don’t.

Got questions or suggestions? Drop a comment or send me an email.