The Amazon Sales Rank – a number so integral that sellers scramble to claim the top spot. If you’ve ever thought about checking how well your product competes with others, this metric is the one to watch.

In this deep dive, we’ll address your most pressing questions, explaining the significance of this metric and its impact on your success in the world’s largest marketplace. Let’s begin!

Key Takeaways from this Post

Amazon Sales Rank Significance: Understanding and leveraging Amazon Sales Rank is crucial for sellers. This metric, indicating a product's sales performance compared to competitors, influences inventory decisions, pricing strategies, and marketing efforts.

Decoding Sales Rank and BSR: Best Sellers Rank (BSR) is essential for assessing a product's marketability, while Amazon Organic Ranking focuses on search engine visibility. Knowing the ideal Sales Rank varies by category—lower is better, and aiming for the top 3 or below 50 is optimal.

Strategies and Metrics: To improve Sales Rank, sellers should optimize listings, choose the right category, and strike a balance with competitive pricing. Understanding the real-time nature of Sales Rank updates, its calculation based on sales velocity, and utilizing both Sales Rank and Organic Rank

What is Amazon Sales Rank?

An Amazon Sales Rank gives you an accurate idea of a product’s sales performance in a specific category. The number is ranked in comparison to its competitors.

For sellers, understanding this numerical ranking can improve decision-making concerning inventory management, pricing strategies, and marketing efforts.

How Important is Sales Rank for Sellers?

The importance of the sales rank cannot be understated. This rank serves as a critical metric for online sellers in the eCommerce space while also acting as an indicator of a product’s performance.

Indeed, it says a lot about your product’s demand. A lower rank reflects a higher sales volume. Hence, aiming for a lower rank will be the key to success for sellers in the Amazon marketplace.

What is BSR? What Does BSR Stand For?

BSR stands for Best Sellers Rank. Sellers often use this metric to gauge the sales performance of a product sold on Amazon. This number is given to any product that has been sold at least once. Sellers often examine a product’s ranking to determine its marketability.

Amazon Organic Ranking vs. BSR - What’s the Difference?

You might be familiar with Amazon Organic Ranking, which refers to how well a product ranks on Amazon’s search engine results pages (SERPs). One question you might ask is: what’s the difference between the Amazon Organic Ranking and the BSR?

Although influential determinants of a product’s sales, the two metrics differ. First, let’s get into detail on the Organic Rank. The commonly used sales refer to a product’s ranking when a user searches a keyword or phrase on Amazon’s multi-million catalog. The higher the rank, the better the product’s visibility.

All of this is thanks to Amazon’s algorithm, which bases its rank on product reviews, sales volume, and other undisclosed factors.

The main distinction between the Organic Ranking and the BSR is that the former is linked to search queries, while the latter is correlated to a product’s sales performance within a particular category.

Business professional analyzing financial charts with pen and calculator.

What is a Good Sales Rank on Amazon?

The golden question is, what is a good Sales Rank? A rank that falls between 1 to 3 is excellent.

Anything below 50 is also considered fine, as this product appears on the first page. Anything higher will be less desirable.

Remember that this is the highest standard. Only a select few will reach this ranking. If you don't, your product can still be profitable on Amazon. Still, there’s no harm in shooting for the stars.

What is a Good Amazon Sales Rank for Books?

For books, an Amazon Sales Rank below 100,000 is desirable. Also, consider the rank for each category, as some categories are in higher demand.

For example, a ranking of 5,000 would be considered impressive for a mystery novel (a popular and competitive category). Meanwhile, this ranking would be considered low for a book on a niche topic such as corporate taxation.

What is a Good Sales Rank for Toys on Amazon?

When striving for a good Sales Rank for toys, you should aim for a rank lower than 50,000. As of this writing, the latest data from FBAToolKit shows that a toy must have an average of 5 sales per day to earn this rank. Anything lower should be considered favorable.

What Sales Rank is Good on FBA?

Ideally, you should strive for low numbers between 1-50. The product should be fine if the rank is on the lower end of six digits. These will ultimately depend on a seller’s circumstances. You can easily get there by exploring the essential steps to optimize your FBA sales.

How is Amazon Sales Rank Calculated?

Now that we’ve covered what’s considered a good Sales Rank, you might have wondered: how is it calculated? The calculation is simple. While there is no exact formula, the rank is calculated based on the amount of sales over time – also known as sales velocity.

New sellers who succeed when launching new brands will often have a higher sales velocity. For that reason, Amazon establishes a limit on this metric. Once it’s exceeded, Amazon conducts velocity reviews to determine the legitimacy of transactions.

The Amazon Sales rank places higher weight on recent sales. The metric is updated hourly. Hence, a product with a rank of #1 today could easily be a #10 in a few days.

The consistency of sales matters just as much as the sales velocity, as it strongly influences a product’s ranking. However, note that consistency is just another part of the equation. Your ranking can increase despite consistent sales, indicating a shift in consumer preferences.

How to Find Amazon Sales Rank

Anyone can locate a product’s Sales Rank. Here’s how you can do it:

Search for the product through Amazon’s search engine.
Narrow down your search by specifying the product category you’re looking for – say, you’re looking for an optical mouse.

A screen shot of the product information page for a computer.

Select the product you want and scroll down to ‘Product Information.’ Under ‘Additional Information,’ you should find an entry under “Best Sellers Rank.”

Alternatively, sellers can find a compilation of their products’ BSRs in Seller Central. All they have to do is follow these steps:

Go to ‘Reports’ in the navigation bar.
‍
Select ‘Business Reports’.
‍
Choose ‘Inventory in Stock.’ Select ‘Brand Performance’ for sellers with registered brands. The Sales Rank should appear here.

How to Improve Amazon Sales Rank

Boosting your Amazon Sales Rank is far from a simple process. By employing as many of these strategies as you can, you improve your chances of improving your rank:

Choose the Right Category

The first step to climbing the sales ranks is to select the right category. Your rank says a lot about how a product fares against others in a particular category. If you place a product in the right category, you ensure that your market can easily search for your product.

Optimize Listings for Amazon’s Search Engine

Optimizing your product listings through SEO isn’t a marketing strategy restricted to general search engines like Google and Bing, as the same principle applies to Amazon’s internal search engine.

Target specific keywords that customers search for and incorporate them in product titles and descriptions where natural. Your images count, too! Add accurate and high-quality images that best represent your product.

Strike a Balance with Pricing

Another way to boost your sales is to set competitive product prices. Set your price too high, and potential customers may veer away.

Set a price too cheap for a product’s market value, you compromise profitability. Analyze the pricing strategies of competitors as well to position your products in the market better.

Close-up of hands typing on a laptop keyboard with one hand holding a smartphone.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

In this section, we’ll cover the most common questions on the Amazon Sales Rank:

How do I get an Amazon Best Seller badge?

Earning the Amazon Best Seller Badge means your product is a top seller within a specific category. For general categories, about 100 Amazon Best Sellers are chosen. This metric changes every hour, so you can easily sneak into the top 100 and lose it in the next hour.

By following the strategies mentioned in the previous section, you significantly improve your chances of earning (and keeping) that Amazon Best Seller Badge you need.

How often is Amazon Sales rank updated?

An Amazon Sales Rank is updated every hour. Hence, a rank is highly reflective of real-time sales performance. From this metric, you’ll gain deeper insights into the seasonal demand of your products or even possible market shifts.

Does Amazon Sales Rank affect search results?

We touched on the topic of Amazon Organic Ranking earlier, which refers to the ranking of a product in Amazon’s SERPs, making it more keyword-focused. In comparison, the Amazon Sales Rank is determined by the sales frequency.

It’s easy to think that these two affect one another, but both are actually independent of each other. At the end of the day, sellers must use both metrics to boost their chances of success in the marketplace.

Can a product have multiple sales ranks?

Yes, a product can have multiple sales ranks. Under each category in Amazon, there are also sub-categories under which you can classify your products. There are rankings for each.

For example, a popular cookbook can rank #10 under the Books category while simultaneously ranking #1 in Quick & Easy Cooking.

Is it possible for a product not to have a sales rank?

Some products on Amazon do not have a Sales Rank. If the product hasn’t been sold, the ranking will be “None.” A product must make at least one sale to have its own ranking.

Conclusion

No question whatsoever – the Sales Rank is a fundamental gauge of your product’s performance in the Amazon marketplace. Mastering the basics, from its calculation to ways to enhance it, allows you to adapt your business strategies effectively.

Sales will always matter for every business. The more sales, the more bookkeeping. Link My Books is an eCommerce tool that can automate your bookkeeping process as you rise through the ranks. Start your free trial today!