One of Amazon's many strengths is its extensive inventory. The retailer is said to stock hundreds of millions of different products, from virtual aisles to fishing rods and dog food. But this level of choice can also be overwhelming: If you're shopping for wireless headphones, you have more than 3,000 models to choose from. Amazon will consider products that have ① an average rating of at least 4 stars, ② a lower return rate than similar products, ③ are relatively popular in Amazon search results, and ④ Prime products receive "Amazon's Choice" .
Three reasons are described
1. Low return rate 2. High rating 3. Popular products
or
1. High rating 2. Popular products 3. Prime delivery
or
1.Low return rate 2.Best seller 3.High rating
All things being equal, you’d probably choose the one with the “Amazon Choice” label. The little black badge has migrated to Amazon's main website after starting out in 2015 as a way to simplify voice buying for Amazon's Echo voice-activated speakers.
But what does it mean? If you hover your mouse over the Amazon's Choice badge on the company's website, the pop-up explanation goes something like this: "Amazon's Choice recommends highly rated, well-priced products that are available for immediate shipment." OK. But is it "highly rated" based on user ratings, or is it an aggregation of external reviews and all sorts of nonsense? How do you define “reasonably priced”?
Amazon Choice
Amazon's Choice is a badge awarded to certain sellers. Amazon's Choice is only for products sold through the Amazon Echo. Through Alexa and Echo AI, Amazon Prime customers are already able to reorder items they’ve purchased in the past. Now, they can also use Amazon Echo and Echo Dot devices to buy new products. With voice commands, Alexa can search Amazon's Prime Select Prime products and make recommendations for Prime members.
There's a lot of demand for improved Alexa-Echo devices, which means there's a sizable opportunity for sales. So how do Amazon sellers get the Amazon’s Choice badge?
Becoming Amazon’s Choice Amazon remains silent on how it chooses the products that are included in the Amazon’s Choice list. We don't know much about what products the Echo might recommend or which brands it tends to offer. What we do know is that Amazon’s Choice products are selected based on several attributes. Positive product ratings, higher sales, reasonable prices, and favorable shipping speeds are four features that we are almost certain play an important role. Lower return rates and seller feedback may also influence the selection of products or brands for inclusion in Amazon’s Choice. Based on observations, the comments do not appear to have had a huge impact. However, there are reasons to be skeptical.
Amazon’s ChoiceAmazon sellers have been known to play dirty time and time again. A popular tactic that made headlines a few years ago was submitting fake negative reviews. By forcing a competitor’s review rating to drop, sellers may be given a boost. If reviews were a factor in Amazon’s selection, the practice could come back in a big way. Amazon sellers must be wary of this possibility and make sure to monitor their reviews carefully.
As far as shipping is concerned, Amazon Prime should guarantee fast shipping speeds for all of its eligible products. This would appear to conflict with one of the factors in Amazon's Select eligibility. Perhaps it'll go a step further and become a factor in Prime membership. It makes sense that only Prime products would make it to Amazon's Choice.
Major Brands Amazon’s focus seems to be on making major brands more accessible to customers. This is bad news for smaller sellers. Amazon wants Prime members to be able to find and buy major brands more easily, causing many lesser-known products to disappear in low sales.
Amazon's Choice Amazon would be wise to consider a wider range. After all, its overall goal is to generate more sales. Making it easier to buy an item means more people are likely to buy it. You can buy toilet paper at just about any store around the corner, but why leave your home when you can just tell Alexa to go shopping?
One issue about smaller brands is of course their reputation. Amazon puts its customers first and doesn’t want to recommend products that customers may have had a less-than-stellar experience with. It would hurt Amazon's reputation so understandably they put their name behind it.
Amazon also excludes certain categories from Amazon's Choice, regardless of whether the items listed there are Prime eligible. Some of them are Amazon Fresh, Prime Pantry, Prime Now, Apparel, Jewelry, Shoes, and Watches. It’s unclear whether these categories are permanently removed from the list, but it’s likely that Amazon is considering including them in the development phase of its voice-ordering program.
Amazon's Choice is a feature launched by Amazon to help customers save time when searching for shopping. Amazon will mark Amazon's Choice on products with high quality and good prices. This black mark is located above the title of the keyword search results.
Note that the Amazon's Choice logo is only available for search results of specific keywords. Therefore, searching for products using other keywords may not necessarily result in this logo.
How does Amazon's Choice help sales?
Voice Purchase
Products with the Amazon's Choice logo will be included in the voice purchase recommendations of Amazon Echo.
Sellers can purchase products with this label directly from Amazon Echo (i.e., through voice commands), streamlining the purchasing process directly for customers. The editor believes that as voice intelligence becomes more and more popular, its impact on conversion rate will become more and more obvious!
Search Buy
In the categories supported by Amazon's Choice, only one product in the search results for each keyword can get this logo! There is no doubt that consumers will prefer products officially recommended by Amazon. Therefore, this tag can greatly improve the conversion rate.
What is the difference between Amazon's Choice and Best Seller?
Common points:
1. They are all automatically identified by the Amazon system
2. Both can help attract and convert products
3. Listings must be in good condition
4. All are free support from Amazon
Differences:
1. The positions of the two logos are different
Amazon's Choice logo is located above the title of the keyword search results
The Best Seller logo is on the top of the picture.
2. Click on the listing to see different
There is no special mark when you click on the Amazon's Choice listing
The Best Seller listing has a yellow best seller mark.
3. Different categories covered
The categories covered by the Amazon's Choice feature are only Amazon's own categories, including books and audio-visual, movies, music, games, electronic products, home decoration, toys, clothing, shoes and hats, jewelry, handicrafts, outdoor, and automobiles.
Best Seller supports all categories
4. The prerequisites for obtaining annotations are different
To obtain the Amazon's Choice label, products must have brand registration and be shipped to FBA warehouses.
The Best Seller label means that you have the opportunity to get it as long as you sell on the platform
5. Different requirements for obtaining a logo
How to get the Amazon's Choice badge?
Amazon does not disclose how it calculates Amazon's Choice. However, when comparing products that have obtained this logo, the following factors have a certain impact on Amazon's Choice.
Sales and conversion rates
When we measure whether a product is good or not, we mainly look at whether it is popular among consumers. The same goes for Amazon. Amazon will judge whether the product is worth recommending based on sales volume and conversion rate. Therefore, in order to be recommended by Amazon, the conversion rate and sales volume must be high, and the sales volume ranking must be among the top five in the subcategory.
Product Review
Amazon also attaches great importance to product reviews. Generally speaking, the average star rating of a product review needs to be above 4 stars to have a chance to obtain the Amazon's Choice logo. However, in categories with very little competition, a product may be recommended even without reviews.
A+ Content
On sites other than the Japanese site, A+ pages are functional only after brand registration. This also shows that Amazon attaches great importance to brand registration. Products with A+ pages have a better chance of getting the Amazon's Choice badge.
Return rate
A high return rate will directly affect the status of a listing. Amazon will not recommend a product that has a high return rate.
How does Amazon describe it? Amazon's Choice <br/>When you click on the badge, don't expect to find much information about it on Amazon's actual website, aside from the one-line definition of Amazon's Choice.
The closest I got was an Amazon employee describing it as “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.” The answer came from an Amazon message board in response to a user question from 2016.
When I asked for a current definition, an Amazon spokesperson was happy to fill me in:
“We launched Amazon’s Choice in 2015 to simplify shopping for customers by highlighting highly rated, well-priced products instantly for the most popular searches on Amazon. It’s been a very popular feature on both Amazon and Alexa because it allows customers to quickly and easily decide what to buy. Amazon’s Choice is simply our recommendation, and customers can always ask about a specific brand or product if they choose.”
Allow me to unpack this for a moment.
The program was first introduced in May 2015 as a feature of the original Amazon Echo Alexa voice-enabled speaker, which had launched six months earlier. The concept, as reported by The Wall Street Journal at the time, is that if you ask Alexa to order a product like toothpaste, it will first look at your order history and offer you previous toothpaste products you've purchased. But if you've never ordered any toothpaste, Alexa (Amazon) will "make recommendations from the Amazon's Choice program."
Gradually, Amazon began expanding the capability beyond its Echo voice-activated speakers to its website, revealing to shoppers products in its Amazon’s Choice program by putting badges on those products.
What Amazon's Choice Is Not
If the “what” about Amazon’s selection is pretty straightforward, the “how” is shrouded in mystery. Simply put: was this thing chosen by a human, or was it a machine-driven algorithm?
On the surface, it doesn't seem to be a very important issue. But people might react differently to the badge if they knew it was generated by an algorithm. Some of us might have thought it was. But others might think humans were involved. Would we trust badges less or more if we knew those choices were driven solely by software?
Beyond the official definition cited above, gaining insight into the program is a challenge.
Back in 2015, The Wall Street Journal’s Greg Bensinger — in the same story mentioned above — asked some similar questions and got bupkis. “Amazon declined to disclose the process behind Amazon’s selections, including whether its choices were driven by software or humans,” the article said. Amazon also did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment when it followed up on the same story.
However, we can eliminate that based on how we determine Amazon's choice.
Amazon’s Choice designers don’t know how they “win”: Companies that receive the Amazon’s Choice badge on their products appear to be in the dark about exactly why the product received the label. “The net is that no one knows for sure,” a Creative Labs PR representative wrote to me. “I wish I had something more specific to tell you, but it seems like this is a puzzle for everyone.” He directed me to this page from AMZ Advisers, a third-party consulting firm that seemed to have just as much to say as anyone else on how to grab the Choice badge.
Companies can’t “buy” the Amazon’s Choice badge: On a European message board for Amazon resellers, a moderator who appears to be an Amazon employee posted this message:
“Sellers do not need to register or sign up to be considered for Amazon’s Choice – The Amazon’s Choice feature considers all highly-rated, Prime-eligible items sold or fulfilled by Amazon. It is not possible to specifically request that your product be selected as Amazon’s Choice… The selection is continually updated, so continuing to provide your customers with high-quality, well-priced products will give you the best chance of being selected as Amazon’s Choice.”
Amazon's Choice winners aren't based on any human testing: People familiar with the program told me that Amazon employees don't test the products selected for the Amazon's Choice program. Amazon employees may well have been using the product as part of their daily lives, but there don't appear to be any designated testers in the context of what CNET is saying.
Third-party reviews don't determine Amazon's choice of designers: I speculate that outside reviews — from sources like CNET, Engadget, Consumer Reports, and others — may be a factor. But that clearly wasn't the case, the person said. Therefore, my Jabra Elite 65t review has nothing to do with the product’s Amazon’s Choice badge.
It's no surprise that many Amazon-branded devices have the Amazon's Choice badge these days. I wouldn’t be so naive as to suggest that Amazon should exempt its own devices — the Kindle, Fire tablets, Echo speakers, and a host of AmazonBasics accessories — from its Highlights program. But there’s a catch: How you search for a product affects whether the badge shows up.
At first glance, only the Kindle Paperwhite earns the badge. The entry-level Kindle, Voyage, and Oasis don't get it. Additionally, only certain Echo speakers and Fire tablets have the badge. But click on it and you’ll find the badge popping up on products that didn’t have it before.
In order to qualify for Amazon’s Choice, we know that a product needs to be “highly reviewed” (Amazon user ratings), “well priced” (whatever that means) and eligible for Amazon Prime shipping.
We think it needs to be in stock and available, but the pre-ordered Jabra headphones seem to believe that.
We know that outside evaluations, human testing and the manufacturer's relationship with Amazon do not appear to be factors. Being a first-party Amazon device doesn't seem to be a huge help in getting the badge.
So how is Amazon’s Choice chosen?
At its core is an algorithm. I haven't heard anyone explicitly deny that. The entire Amazon shopping experience is built on algorithms (“customers who bought this item also bought”), so it only makes sense. Adding the badge to an Amazon product when it’s hit the sweet spot of popularity and availability is certainly less of a problem than YouTube boosting creepy, disturbing videos in its kids section, or Facebook or Google having issues with fake news conspiracy theories. Search results within the critical first minute of real-world events.
Still, I'm a professional product reviewer who, over the years, has given CNET Editors' Choices to products that represent an excellent value for the price. It is based on actual human testing and evaluation. If you disagree with it — and believe me, many people often do — you can hit me or my colleagues up in the comments section, on social media, or via email. So the idea of an algorithm-based “reward” like Amazon’s Choice might hit so close to home that it’s like a robot coming for my job.
