How to tell if a product will sell
This post may contain affiliate links. Disclosure here.
I was recently asked “how do you know how well an item will sell… is there some sort of data search”?
When I am out shopping I do use a few guidelines to help me determining if a product will sell and I will share them with you!
Ranking
The first thing you need to understand is ranking. Amazon gives products a number, AKA ranking, to rate how popular that product is.
The lower the ranking the more popular the item is. The higher the ranking, the less popular.
If a product is popular, that means a lot of people are buying it.
The more people buying it… the more likely that product will sell quickly.
The rank is a fluid number and always changing! Just because something is popular right now doesn’t mean it will be next week, next month or next quarter. That is where Keepa comes in.
Keepa
Keepa breaks down the history of a product including the of the rank, price, how many other people are selling it, how much inventory those sellers have, Buy Box history and more.
Best thing is that Keepa has a FREE version available! Just download the app and install the to extension to your web browser.
The example above Keepa is showing this Christmas tree ranking (the green line) dropping very low during the holiday season, but jumping back up in the off season.
You can also see the price of the tree (the magenta line) tends to go up between October and December.
Learning to read Keepa can take some practice but it gets easier and comes in handy to understanding ranking.
Categories
The value of ranking also varies by what category the product is in. For example there are categories for grocery, toys, books, pet, baby and so on.
A rank of 100,000 in grocery category is GOOD!
A rank of 100,00 in pet is NOT SO GOOD
A rank of 100,000 in books would be EXCELLENT! As a matter of fact a good ranking in the book category can go as high as 1,000,000.
Rank Sheet
So you might be thinking this seems super complicated and how the heck are you supposed to keep track of all these numbers, categories and ranks?! HELP!
I have a solution for you!
The solution is a ranking sheet. This sheet breaks down the categories and gives you a “highest comfortable rank.”
I got my rank sheet from Nikki Kirks blog. All I did was subscribe to her blog and I was able to download the rank sheet. I will put that link here - Get Nikki Kirk Rank Sheet
TIP: Once you have your rank sheet save it to an album in your phone for easy access while sourcing.
Where to find the rank
When you search for products in your amazon seller app the rank will show up on the left side of your screen right under the product summary. If no number appears, the product does not have a rank and you probably shouldn’t buy it.
Where to find the category
Once you select a product, the Product Details will show the rank as well as the category in the top left of your screen.
That’s it!
Those are the guidelines I use to determine if a product is worth investing in. I look for products that have great ranks in their category. If i’m unsure about a seasonal item, I check out Keepa for more information.
Frequently asked questions -
How often do Amazon rankings update? According to Google “Rankings are updated hourly but may take 24–48 hours to appear.”
How are Amazon rankings calculated? According to Google “The Amazon Best Seller rank is calculated based on the sales of a product”
