Following the agreement reached recently with the European Commission, Amazon will update the Prime eligibility and badge criteria, and Buy Box offer display in June 2023 across the EU. This will impact offers from retailers in Germany, France, Spain, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, and Belgium.
What’s changing?
The big change is that Prime eligibility and Prime badge criteria will be applied equally to offers from all sellers across the various fulfillment channels (Fulfilled by Amazon or Merchant Fulfilled) and Amazon retail. Previously, having stock in FBA or Seller Fulfilled Prime almost guaranteed better placement than Merchant Fulfilled orders in terms of winning the buy box.
The new EU Prime eligibility criteria
To qualify, offers will need to meet certain customer experience requirements. These requirements are derived from a Prime customer’s expectations around delivery speed and reliability, tracking, customer returns, and customer service.
Additionally, sellers who wish to enroll their Merchant fulfilled offers into the Prime program may use alternative logistics providers and negotiate their terms directly, as long as delivery tracking information is made available to Amazon through their tracking systems and the Prime requirements above are met.
Amazon will provide detailed guidance on the new criteria in the coming months, but it’s safe to assume that if you’re using a slow economy delivery service that you won’t be winning the Buy Box. Prime eligibility will likely need most products to be offered with a next day delivery service and probably free returns.
Large retailers and brands should have no problem qualifying for Prime eligibility as they will have access to late despatch times and probably already offer a comparable delivery service on their websites. SME merchants might find the change makes no difference to them, as if Amazon demand late cut off times or delivery services that require scale in order to access economical pricing they may well still not qualify.
As we strive to show our customers the best Featured Offer on the product detail page, we’ll continue to ensure that the criteria used to determine the Featured Offer are non-discriminatory and treat sellers and Amazon retail equally. Eligibility for Prime and the Prime badge won’t be a criterion when determining the Featured Offer. Prime will continue to offer free and fast delivery which are factors that customers value and therefore are relevant in determining the Featured Offer.
– Amazon
2 Responses
No mention of the UK
Is this another case of us being stuffed by Brexit again and Amazon can carry on doing what they want to control the marketplace in the UK?
Too late now, UK small businesses in online commerce now pretty stuffed, as the gov put up trade barriers but no protections.
You can carry on fighting, but what are you fighting for, access to the UK market stuffed with 50,000 overseas sellers and no access to export?
It isnt even worth fighting for.