Amazon has a sales rank for every product based on sales data. They have millions of products, and they track all the sales of each product like clockwork. This allows them to assign a sales rank to each product.
Sales ranking is updated hourly, and it can range from 1 to over 1 million, though the numbers get really high after the first 100. Sales rank is the biggest indicator of how well your product is selling compared to all other products in one category, since it’s based on their hourly sales data and their algorithm they use to compute it.
This information is not made public, but it’s a common practice among sellers to guess how many units or dollars are being spent on products by looking at its ranking in a category.
How is the Amazon sales rank calculated?
amazon sellers rank is an estimate of how well a particular product is selling compared to similar products on the site. The sales rank takes into consideration both recent and historical sales, as well as factors like customer reviews and ratings, which are all meant to help a customer decide whether or not to buy a product.
The sales rank is calculated based on the number of actual purchase transactions as opposed to the number of units sold. So, a bestseller will remain in its place on the list for some time, even if it isn’t being purchased as frequently as it was before.
Products with high demand and low supply have higher sales ranks than products with low demand and high supply.
The sales rank is updated hourly, so a product may move up and down in the rankings throughout the day. A product can appear on multiple bestseller lists if it fits into multiple categories
Amazon considers customer reviews and ratings important when calculating the sales rank of a particular product. The more positive reviews a product receives, the higher its ranking will be. Amazon also uses this information to calculate overall customer satisfaction with sellers.
A book’s sales rank is updated hourly, so it’s a living thing. It’s part of Amazon’s algorithm that uses past sales to predict future sales, so the more copies you sell, the higher your ranking will be. But don’t expect to see or climb up the charts overnight. Sales are reported on a weekly basis, so your book will have to sell quite a few copies before it appears in the top 100 or even 1,000.
When you first upload your title to Amazon, it won’t have a ranking and will be listed as “out of stock.” This means that no one has bought it yet. Once you make your first sale, Amazon will update the listing and assign your book a ranking for the category in which it was published (based on how many titles have been sold in that category).
If you have KDP Select, your book will receive a ranking for all categories after just one sale. In other words, if your book is classified as a mystery novel but someone buys it from the science fiction category, then everyone will be able to find it in both places!