On Amazon, sellers offering the same product share a single product page. Only one offer gets the Add to Basket and Buy Now buttons. Every other offer sits in a list that shoppers have to click through to find. So you can have a live listing, stock in a warehouse and a fair price, and still sell very little because someone else holds that spot.
That spot used to be called the Buy Box. Amazon now calls it the Featured Offer. This guide explains how Amazon chooses it, what changed in 2026, and the practical steps that improve your chances, based on Amazon's own UK guidance at the time of writing (October 2026).
What the Featured Offer is
Amazon describes the Featured Offer as the offer that appears with the Add to Basket and Buy Now buttons on a product detail page. It chooses it by evaluating all the offers on that product to find the most attractive one for the customer. When no single offer is clearly better, the Featured Offer can rotate between the best offers. Offers that aren't featured are still available in the All Offer Display.
A few details are easy to miss:
- Each variation is decided separately. You might hold the Featured Offer on the blue, medium version of a product but not the red, large one.
- Different customers can see different Featured Offers, depending on their delivery location, whether they have Prime, and whether they've used a filter such as delivery date.
- There may be no Featured Offer at all. Amazon won't feature any offer if none of them meets its customer experience requirements, even when there's only one seller.
What changed in 2026
Until mid-2026, Amazon used two steps. First it decided which sellers were eligible, based on seller performance criteria. Then it ranked the offers from eligible sellers and chose the Featured Offer from that pool.
In July 2026, Amazon announced it would remove that first seller eligibility step, rolling the change out across all its stores by the end of 2026. For Amazon.co.uk, Amazon's UK help pages now say that as of 20 July 2026 it no longer maintains a seller eligibility requirement, and offers from all sellers are eligible to be evaluated. UK trade news reported the same date for UK and EU sellers.
Don't read this as "everyone gets a fair turn". Amazon says it is not changing how the Featured Offer is selected, and that being considered doesn't guarantee your offer will be featured. Individual offers can still be ruled out, for example if they're priced above competing retailers outside Amazon. What has gone is the separate pass-or-fail check on the seller. If you read older guides that describe "Buy Box eligibility" as a status you either have or don't, that no longer applies in the UK.
The factors Amazon publicly lists
Amazon says it ranks offers the same way for every product and never uses manual overrides. These are the factors it names:
| Factor | What Amazon looks at |
|---|---|
| Price | The total price: item price plus delivery. Promotions and vouchers can help. For business customers, Amazon compares VAT-exclusive prices where available. |
| Delivery promise | Faster offers, and offers with a specific delivery date rather than a range, are more likely to be featured. |
| Free delivery | Offers with free delivery are more likely to be featured. A basket-level charge, an item-level charge or an unmet free delivery threshold all count as not free. |
| Seller performance | Order volume (with steps so smaller sellers aren't disadvantaged), chargeback rate, and complaints such as damaged, defective, wrong or not-as-described items. |
| Stock | Your offer can't be featured if you're out of stock, or if it can't be delivered to the customer's location. |
What Amazon says doesn't count
Amazon is unusually clear about three things it does not consider:
- Customer reviews and star ratings. Seller performance is judged on the measures above, not on feedback stars.
- The Prime badge. If all other factors are equal, offers with or without Prime are equally likely to be featured.
- Fulfilment method. If all other factors are equal, Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) and seller-fulfilled offers are equally likely to be featured.
FBA can still help indirectly, because it usually brings fast, free delivery with a firm date, and those are factors. A seller-fulfilled offer that matches that delivery promise competes on equal terms.
Practical steps to win it more often
1. Measure it
Your Featured Offer percentage is in Business Reports in Seller Central. It's the share of your product's page views in which your offer was featured. Check it weekly for your top products so you notice a drop within days, not at the end of the month.
2. Check Pricing Health every week
The Pricing Health page lists offers that can't currently be featured because they aren't priced competitively against retailers outside Amazon, or are priced well above recent prices. It also shows offers within 5% of the current Featured Offer price, where a small change could win it. The reference prices Amazon uses include the Featured Offer price, the 60-day average selling price, the list price and the "was" price.
3. Compete on the total price
Customers, and Amazon, compare the price including delivery. Where you can, build delivery into the item price and offer free delivery, and avoid free delivery thresholds that a single item doesn't meet.
4. Tighten your delivery promise
Review your delivery settings and handling times so your promise is as fast and specific as you can reliably keep. Then keep it. Amazon expects seller-fulfilled orders to have a late dispatch rate under 4% and a valid tracking rate above 95%.
5. Use automated pricing with a floor
Amazon suggests Automate Pricing, which adjusts your prices within the limits you set. Always set a minimum price based on your real costs. Our guide to Amazon UK seller fees shows how to work out your floor.
6. Don't run out of stock
An out-of-stock offer can't be featured. For FBA, reorder based on sales velocity and the time it takes stock to arrive and be received, not on what's left on the shelf.
7. Cut defects and complaints
Send the right item, in the condition described, authentic and in date, and charge customers correctly to avoid chargebacks. Review the Voice of the Customer page for complaints about specific products. Keep your order defect rate under 1%, which is also an account health requirement.
8. Look after business buyers
Business customers on Amazon.co.uk tend to compare VAT-exclusive prices. Amazon recommends enrolling in its free VAT Calculation Service so your VAT-exclusive prices can be shown, and reviewing your business prices.
If you're the only seller and still lose it
Brand owners are often surprised to lose the Featured Offer on their own products. When there's no Featured Offer on a product you list, Amazon says to check three things: that your offer can be delivered to the customer's location, that you have stock, and whether Pricing Health shows a pricing issue. Price is worth checking first. If the same product is cheaper at retailers outside Amazon, Amazon may judge your offer uncompetitive against that "competitive external price" and stop featuring it. Keep your prices consistent across the channels you sell on.
Brand Registry helps protect your listing content, but it doesn't change how offers are ranked. See our guide to Amazon Brand Registry for what it does cover.
Don't race to the bottom. Winning the Featured Offer at a loss isn't winning. Set your minimum price first, then compete on delivery, stock and service, which cost less than a price cut and help every sale.
Regular pricing and Buy Box reviews are part of our pricing and Buy Box service, if you'd rather someone else kept watch.
Key takeaways
- The Buy Box is now called the Featured Offer, and it's decided separately for each variation and each customer.
- Since July 2026, Amazon UK no longer applies a separate seller eligibility check. Offers are still ranked, and uncompetitive ones can be excluded.
- Amazon names total price, delivery speed, free delivery, seller performance and stock as the factors.
- Reviews, the Prime badge and fulfilment method don't count on their own.
- Check Business Reports and Pricing Health weekly, and always set a minimum price.