I know lots of sellers who focus on Sales Rank when scouting. And this can be a great way to tell an item’s current ranking. But remember how susceptible Sales Rank is to recent sales. It’s very easy to be fooled by an item with a Sales RankThe sales rank of products on Amazon ind... More that is artificially low due to a recent sale.
I mention this because over the weekend I ordered a book with a Sales Rank of 3.5 million (what can I say, I have unique tastes!). A few hours after I ordered it, it had dropped to about 200,000. A book that may only sell a few copies a year now looks like it sells one every few weeks. That’s a pretty big difference!
An even more extreme example is a story I heard from a seller late last week. She sold a book that she’d been holding for over 2 years with a sales rank of about 9 million (talk about long tail!) At the next update, the Sales Rank was around 300,000. And now a few days later it’s still under 500,000.
There’s no way to avoid this confusion, unfortunately. Just be aware of it and consider other factors, like your product knowledge and other available offers before jumping on an item just because of its current Sales Rank. Product reviews can be a valuable way to judge a book’s popularity as well. High Sales Rank items with few sales are likely to have fewer reviews than more popular items with more frequent sales and more frequent reviews.
The next time you’re buying something based on its Sales Rank, consider how that number can be misleading. Or else you might be holding onto a long tail item a lot longer than you expected!
2 Responses
Thanks for the informative post.
If sales rank is known for all items right now, then it can be known for the past as well, yes? So then couldnt the rank be displayed as a 6 month average next to the actual rank?
For example, say the book above is at 9 million for 5 months and then one is sold and it dips down to around 300,000 for a month due to a sale. The the sales rank could be shown as 300,000/4.55 million, indicating that it is 300,000 now, but look out- it has averaged way higher over the last 6 months. This would make sales rank much more useful in a buying decision.
Perhaps even a tap to cycle through current/6 month/year.
Or color coded font indicating volatility. A 2 million ranked book that averages 2 million over the last year shows it to be a slow but consistent seller, and it could be labeled a different color than another 2 million ranked book which averages 6 million over the last year.
Great question!
Amazon doesn’t provide historical Sales Rank, but you can check it out on CamelCamelCamel.com.
-Paul