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If you head to any product page on Amazon, you will see a number somewhere on the page that defines a product’s Best Sellers Rank, also known as the Amazon sales rank. This number is crucial for Amazon sellers who want to succeed on this platform. Let’s take a closer look at it.
What does “sales rank” mean on Amazon?
A sales rank is defined by the number of your sales of a certain product relative to the similar products of your competitors. The more a product sells, the higher it will be in the rankings. You are not being compared to every other product on Amazon. If you sell leashes for dogs, then you will only ever have a sales ranking compared to other leashes for dogs.
How are Amazon sales ranks calculated?
The problem is that Amazon is not particularly forthcoming about how its sales ranking algorithm works. However, let’s be honest, that is for a good reason. You do not want people trying to game the system. We can take a decent guess at how everything is linked together, however.
It is likely that Amazon takes several pieces of information into account:
- How many people are viewing your product
- How many people are buying the product once they have viewed it
- How other products are performing in the category
There are a lot of people that seem to believe that Amazon sales ranking is based upon total sales. While this is likely to be a big factor in the ranking, conversion rate likely plays a role too i.e. the number of people buying the product after they have viewed the product description. This makes sense because Amazon wants to serve up the products that stand the biggest chance of making them money. This will inevitably be the products that convert well.
Remember; the higher your ranking, the more your products will sell. Once you start cracking into the top 100 sellers for your category, you will notice sales go through the roof.
What is a good Amazon sales rank?
Ideally, you want your Amazon ranking to have a number that is as low as possible. Your higher sales rank would put your product in front of more potential customers, and thus this could increase your overall sales.
We shall be brutally honest with you here. Unless you are in a very niche category with little to no competition, the chances are slim that you will secure an Amazon seller ranking in the top 100. You would need to spend a huge amount of time on developing your product page, and you would also need to rely on a lot of luck.
We suggest that you try not to focus too much on what your sales rank is. This isn’t the ‘be all and end all’ of Amazon. You should just be using your sales rank as a metric to measure your success. As you play about with your product listings and product descriptions and work on your Amazon SEO, you can see the impact your changes have on your Amazon seller ranking. The change in your ranking will allow you to work out whether you are going down the right or wrong path.
While you shouldn’t be focusing on it too much, you aim to always get the best seller rank possible.
How often does the Amazon Best Sellers Rank update?
You will notice your Amazon ranking fluctuates throughout the day. This is because the seller rank stats to determine the top sellers will update once per hour. If you have a low sales volume, and then suddenly see a sharp increase and achieve higher rankings for a short period before falling, this would indicate that your product is selling for a short period, and this could indicate that you are doing something right with your product listing.
To make the best use of the Amazon ranking system, you will need to focus on your ranking over a prolonged period. It is all well and good seeing your product climb up the Amazon bestseller rankings by about 2,000 positions over the week. However, if you fall by the same amount the following week, it is clear that whatever you did was just a fluke. Most people that track their position on the Amazon best sellers pages will see what sort of gains they are making over one or two months. This will give a far better idea of whether you are taking your Amazon business down the right path.
How can you improve your Amazon sales rank?
Improving your BSR is going to be a long process. You may see huge improvements in your rank one week, and see zero gains the following. This is why it is recommended that you track your ranking over time as opposed to just focusing on passing victories.
Improve your conversion rate
A lot of your gains from Amazon sales rank will be increasing your visibility in the Amazon search engine. The more your product appears the more people will be clicking on it, and the more sales you will make. This means that you will need to focus on improving your Amazon SEO. You need to find the best possible options for your images, titles, and descriptions. These factors affect your conversion rate and, therefore, your sales rank.
Don’t forget to include the MPN into your products. Selling the exact items to customers will lead to fewer returns, save your money as well as increase your conversion rate and sales ranking. Read our blog to learn what is MPN.
Lower your prices
If you can shave a couple of dollars from the price of your product, you may notice an improvement in your Amazon seller rank. Amazon buyers are price-conscious, and if they can save a dollar, they will save a dollar. You may be making less on one product, but your increase in sales ranking will see countless more sales which will, ultimately, make up for that loss.
Add Amazon Prime
Finally, you may notice that products that have Amazon Prime available tend to sell a lot better and, as a result, have a higher Amazon sales rank. Therefore, you will need to use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). Yes. It will cost money but, once again, eating into your profit a little bit may be worth it in the long term as it will lead to increased sales.
Try to avoid making all of these changes at the same time. If you do, then you may find it slightly difficult to work out what is having the biggest impact on your Amazon sales rank. In this game it is “slow and steady” wins the race.
Now when you know what is BSR on Amazon, it’s important to spare a minute or two to learn essential things on how to improve the indicator. We have prepared even more tips in our 2023 article, so follow the link to delve deeper into the issue.
