Amazon Sales Rank Explained

Amazon is a very competitive e-commerce website. There are millions of sellers on the platform. When selling on Amazon, you encounter direct competition from other sellers. This is because there are other Amazon sellers selling a similar item to yours. Your goal should be to become the best seller above your competitors. One of the ways to achieve this is to make your item or visible on the platform.

When a customer wants to purchase an item on Amazon, they search for it from the Amazon's search bar. After a single search, hundreds or thousands of results or items are returned. These items cannot fit on one page. If you'v used Amazon, you know the items are grouped into pages. Most customers like to go with items listed on the first few items, especially the first page. Your goal should be to get your item to the first page. This will make it more visible to Amazon shoppers, increasing chances of it being purchased. You can also target to have your item appear as the first one on the first page. That way, there is no doubt that you will make more sales. The Amazon Sales Rank determines the popularity of your item on Amazon, hence, it determines the page on which the item upon search by customers. To make your item popular on Amazon, you must pay attention to this metric.

What Does Amazon sales Rank Mean?

The amazon sales rank is a numerical value that determines or tells of how popular an item is in its category on Amazon. All Amazon items are assigned an amazon rank depending on their categories. The value tells how your product is selling on Amazon.

The value of the sales rank can range between 1 and 1 million+. A good value is better, a large value is bad. A small value means that your item is more popular on amazon, hence, it is making more sales. A large value means your item is less popular on Amazon, hence, it is making less or no sales. The first item on the first page per category has a rank of 1. The items that appear on the first page are the ones with a small value for the rank. Those with a large value for the rank appear on the latter pages upon search. Customers don't want to purchase such items as they are perceived to be of less quality.

Again, to get a good value for sales rank, which means a small value, the time gap since the time the item was last sold should be small. As a seller, you must target to make consistent sales in order to improve the amazon rank for your item.

Amazon A9 Algorithm

To understand the Amazon Sales Rank better, you must understand the Amazon A9 algorithm. It is the algorithm that pulls results for users and displays them for viewing. Of course, this is when users search for items on Amazon. When a customer searches for an item on Amazon, they are displayed by following these two steps:

• First, the data that is considered relevant based on user's search is pulled from the catalog.
• Secondly, the items are ranked based on how relevant they are. The most relevant items come first, while the less relevant items come last.

This algorithm is updated regularly in a bid to achieve maximum revenue collection from customers. When ranking items using the A9 algorithm, here are factors that are considered:

• Relevancy- if you want your item to rank higher, ensure it's 100% relevant. To achieve, you should use keywords. Ensure your item listings has all keywords and search terms that Amazon shoppers use when looking for items to sell.
• Conversion Rate- An item with higher conversion rate will rank high on Amazon. The factors to help sellers achieve better conversion rate include image quality, product price, customer reviews etc.
• Customer Satisfaction- This is calculated from factors like customer feedback and order defect rate. Good customer feedback and reviews will improve customer satisfaction and ensure they return again.

What is a Good Amazon Sales Rank?

The Amazon Sales Rank is very important. The amazon rank tells whether your item has a good performance or not compared to the items from your competitors. It's also an indication of where you are on the Amazon marketplace. A low value for the rank is better.

However, the amazon rank doesn't indicate the number of sales you're making. This tells it's not related to the organic sales for your item. Also, it doesn't indicate the sales you will make in future.

What is Best Seller Rank?

As an Amazon seller, you may have noticed that there is number ranking that your products are given once that particular product has made a sale on the market place. Typically, this is a way that you can determine how well your product is selling when compared to other sellers. 

When your product has a lower BSR , then you know that you have better sales on that product. 

A product that is ranked #1 on the BSR will have significantly more sales than any other product falling within that particular product category. 

It is important to note that BSR is not a rank against the entire Amazon catalog. Rather, the BSR simply compares products within a single category. This actually makes BSR less competitive. 

This is where it gets a little bit more complicated. Because some products fall into more than one category, your products might actually have more than one BSR ranking. In fact, most products also fall into a sub-category as well. Sub-categories are also awarded their own BSR ranking for each product listed underneath. 

Theoretically, a product that is listed under Kitchen and Dining might have a BSR of 250, while in the category of Home and Garden it has a BSR of 10,000.

How to get Best Seller Rank?

There is no sure-fire way to achieve a high ranking in your BSR within your category. This is because the method used to determine BSR is a mystery to anyone who does not work in the Amazon office. However, we do know some things about what helps to determine BSR.

• Sales
• Prices
• Competitors

These are the top three factors that will affect your product’s BSR on Amazon. They take into account the current sales as well as your history of sales. They also track and take into account your prices as well as how well your product does in terms of promotions. Lastly, they compare you to the competitors. 

There are other factors that can affect your Amazon BSR as well. For example, you may notice that if you offer a promotional sale, the BSR changes less quickly. Although you may be moving more product, the promotion tends to affect the speed at which your BSR is able to change. 

Although Amazon is not willing to discuss the specific factors or formula that helps them to determine their BSR, there are experts who believe that promotional sales are a huge factor in the BSR. Theoretically, this is to deter sellers from using promotional sales in order to trick the Amazon system into giving their product a better rank than it has really earned. 

How can I use the BSR Better?

The most powerful use for the knowledge of BSR is to understand how it can help you predict product sales on the Amazon platform. This is a complicated process, but there are certain tools and understandings that you can use in order to make this process easier. 

Using tools like IO Scout can help you to predict the amount of sales that a certain BSR can actually translate to in real life. These tools allow you to predict product sales using the current BSR on amazon without having to do all of the complicated math analysis on your own. 

Essentially, using the BSR allows you to translate what the potential number of sales each month might be for a product that you are considering selling on Amazon. This is an especially useful feature if you are thinking about listing a new product that you have not previously sold on the Amazon platform.

Improving Amazon Sales Rank

A good sales rank is good or your item. It makes it more visible to customers, increasing chances of them purchasing it. There are measures that you can implement to improve the sales rank amazon for your item. This means achieving a low value for the rank. These measures include:

Optimize the Item Title

A potential buyer will be attracted to your item by its title. Nearly all customers read the item titles. The title should be informative, creative and optimized using right keywords. It seems tricky, but after learning how to do it, it becomes simple.

Include these in your item title:

• Item name
• Brand name
• Item features like size, color etc.

Use Flywheel Effect

There are millions of items listed on Amazon. After publishing big inventories with the known brands, some items will get higher visibility compared to others. Remember that items with higher visibility will enjoy flywheel effect than items with low visibility. The less visible items remains hidden.

To balance your sales, cluster the inventories then build flywheel for the less visible items. Here are key aspects:

• Publish only few items on FBA to meet Prime shipping eligibility. This will improve item's visibility.
• Use Headline search ads and Sponsored Ads to boost the ranking. Combine them for 2-3 weeks.
• Create mechanisms to ask customers for reviews after purchasing items. There are many tools that helps sellers achieve this. For example, JumpSend.

Give Competitive Prices

The price set for an item determines whether seller click Buy Box or not. If you need to stay ahead of your competitors, you must offer items at competitive prices. By competitive, we don't mean low prices. You need to sell your items such that you make profits and run a sustainable Amazon business. You can use tools to help you keep monitoring the prices of competing items then offer your item at fair price in relation to competitors. These tools alerts sellers when competitors change their prices, so you take appropriate action.

Again, don't forget shipping costs. Avoid offering low prices, then increasing them during shipping. The amazon's algorithm can't be fooled. Some repricer tools automatically adjust item's prices based on competitor's prices.

Clear Description

Other than the title, the description also attracts or repels customers. When they are impressed by your item's title, they will click the item to read its description. If you win here, they will click the buy box. If you lose here, they will go with competitors' items. Utilize the description to ensure customers don't go back to other items.

Expand your item then tell more about its features. When describing item, always use keywords. This will attract many customers and convert majority of them, increasing number of sales. It will also improve customer engagement.

If the description doesn't please many shoppers, you will lose many sales. It's a part that you must ensure that you get right to make more sales and earn profits.

Use Bullet Points

When you add the item features in bullet features, more customers will be attracted and the information will become more informative. Instead of using paragraph, identify the key features of the item and keep them in bullet points. Bullet points have helped many sellers improve their conversion rates. However, ensure that the bullet points are only few. They should only feature the major or key features of the item, hence, don't make them long.

HD Images

Now that your item has a catchy title, optimized description and key features in bullet points, next consider the item's image. You can leverage the item image to increase sales. Yes, it's good to have a good title, description and key features in bullet points, but failing on the images won't increase the sales.

Pictures are key in online marketplaces, Amazon included. Actual, images determine whether buyers buy or not. If it doesn't impress the customers, they will leave your item and go to next one belonging to your competitor. You don't need this, so use high quality images. The following are key points when choosing item images:

• Amazon recommends using items of 2560 pixels wide, but you can choose those with at least 1000 pixels. Avoid using anything with below 1000 pixels.
• Click the image such that it occupies 85% of the provided image frame. Avoid anything smaller than that.
• Use white color for the background of the image.
• Use good image formats like PNG, JPEG, TIFF and GIF.
• Click each item's image professionally and using the right light setting.
• Avoid hyphens, blank spaces, special characters or underscores in the image's file name.
• Avoid using logos, watermarks, borders in the images.
• Keep the quality of the item high, simple and attractive.

Related article: Amazon Image Requirements Guide

You may have incredible items on Amazon and invest much money to work on Amazon SEO , but failing to work on the images will make all those efforts fruitless. This means the item's rank won't become better. If your images lack professionalism, your potential buyers won't purchase the item.

Differentiate the Images

Note that Amazon has millions o items listed, hence, your item is competing with tens, hundreds or even thousands of other items on the platform. That's why explaining your item's story via images is good for compelling buyers to make purchases.

That's why you must play around here. Ensure your item has white background and adheres to all standard requirements as stated by Amazon. However, you must also consider the items your competitors are using and incorporate some of the ideas into your item's images. Look for the images your different competitors are using and see how you can beat them.

Imagine using a white background for all your images. Or imagine using only one model positing with the item at one angle. It looks very boring. To make your item listing appeal and interest your potential buyers, use 2-3HD for white background images, then 4-7 lifestyle images, whereby you should pose for a different model in each, posing at different locations and angles per image.

If you use different locations and angles for the images, you will be showing potential customers how they will be using the item. At the same time, you will remain unique and different from your competitors. This will in turn improve the amazon rank for your item.

Use Innovative Graphs

Most sellers don't include these. Why can't you take advantage of this and be different from them? If you include graphs or infographics instead of relying only on images will help you increase your item's sales.

When creating the item's pictures, ensure you include some of its core features in the pictures. This will tell customers what the item is about. This way, customers will know much about your item at a glance.

So, including key features and neat visuals will help buyers grasp the overall value of your item quickly. Again, there are shoppers who don't like reading through large chunks of text. Including the key item's features within the pictures will help them know more about your item. It will also save the shoppers' time since they won't have to read through the text.

Answer Customer Questions

If you browse through Amazon's item listings, you must have come across some listings where some key customers questions have been answered. You can find this section after scrolling down, below the item features and description.

Some of your potential customers will go through this section. For a customer to reach that section, it means they are interested in purchasing your item. Do what it takes to make sure they don't run from your item. This means you invest your time in this section.

If a customer reaches the Q&A section for your item and fail to make a purchase, it means you haven't invested adequately in this section. You must avoid this. You can do something simply as follows:

Simply list all the concerns and objects that have been raised by your customers. After that, answer all these objects in the sales copy of your item. If you do this, there is no doubt that you will achieve many conversions for your item.

Offer Prime

The Prime service is a key feature of Amazon. It is a great filter than can differentiate your item from the rest. When an Amazon shopper filters all the non-Prime items, many of the items will disappear. This is because most Amazon sellers don't belong to this program. You don't need your item to fall into that category.

It's difficult for your item to make it on Amazon if you don't belong to this subscription service. This is because a number of Amazon sellers have joined this program, hence, your item can't compete with their items. There are a number of advantages associated with this service, including same-day shipping for your item. Some customers will need items to be shipped quickly, hence, they will prefer items whose sellers have joined the Prime membership program. Sellers who have joined Prime membership program have their item given a Prime badge.

This helps differentiate their items from those of non-Prime sellers. You can't compete without that badge. You need the badge now.

Offer GiveAways

Giving giveaways, especially during product launches has helped many sellers improve their amazon sales rank. Put 80-90% off each week. This will eat into your profit slightly, but in the long run, you will enjoy the results. You will attain higher rank, and you can revise the price if possible.

High discounts get listed first, which helps the sales shoot up and improve the item's sales rank. When launching an item, the goal is to improve the ranking of the keywords. this is much better compared to improve organic sales.

Google Optimization

As an Amazon, forgetting Google isn't an option. When most Amazon sellers begin to be so much engaged with Amazon, they normally forget Google. Google is a powerful search engine that keeps watching the whole content of various websites. Amazon isn't an exception.

Google indexes everything done on Amazon. Even though you're selling on Amazon, typical SEO methodologies shouldn't be ignored. They help improve sales rank.

It's true that Google's algorithm works differently from Amazon's algorithm, but there is an association between the two. When you search for an item on Google's search engine, some items listed on Amazon will be shown. Take advantage of this to pull buyers from Google to your item listing on Amazon.

Target Consistent Sales

Most newbies will be shocked when they don't see their item getting a good sales rank after listing it on Amazon. Your item may be unique, but that doesn't mean it will immediately get a good sales rank. You need to make some consistent sales after launching the item for the sales rank to begin showing an improvement. If the item doesn't make sales, the rank will keep on worsening.

Before you launch the item, you need to think of how to make the initial sales. This will help improve your item's rank, which will in turn generate more sales. Consider giveaways, coupons or price entry. After getting good sales ran, you need to keep on improving it, or at least maintain it. This way, you will keep on making good sales on Amazon.

Again, to maintain the sales rank, the sales have to be consistent. The gap between the sales should be as close as possible. If this is not maintained, the sales rank will begin to get worse. This means you must always look for ways to market your item to generate sales, which in turn improve the sales rank for your item. To see the fluctuations in the sales rank, use an amazon sales rank tracker.

Final Thoughts

Amazon is a very competitive platform. Millions of sellers meet on the platform to sell their items. When you decide to sell on Amazon, you will encounter direct competition from other sellers. This is because there are other Amazon sellers selling a similar item to yours. Your goal should be to become the best seller above your competitors. One of the ways to achieve this is to make your item or visible on the platform.

For a customer to purchase an item on Amazon, they have to search for it from the Amazon's search bar. After a single search, hundreds or thousands of results or items will be returned. These items cannot fit on one page. The items are grouped into pages. Majority of customers like purchasing items listed on the first few items, especially first page.

When beginning to sell on Amazon, your goal should be to get your item appear on the first page. This way, the item will be more visible to Amazon shoppers, increasing chances of it being purchased. You will then make more sales. The Amazon Sales Rank determines the popularity of items on Amazon. It determines the page on which an item will appear upon search by customers.

It is a numeric value that can be calculated using the amazon sales rank calculator. When you view item's details upon listing, you will see the item's value of sales rank. The value of sales rank can range between 1 and 1 million+. A good sales rank value is one with low value. It means item is more popular on amazon, hence, it's more visible to shoppers. A large value of sales rank means item is less popular on amazon, hence, less visible to shoppers.