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Input on sales rank. Is a 6 million sales ranked book useless
I've been thinking a lot about Amazon sales rank lately and wanted to get everyone's take on it. Personally, I feel that the sales rank charts you find online are often inaccurate and don’t paint the full picture. I sell in 95% of Amazon’s categories so I'd be interested in hearing everyone's opinion.
How much weight do you give it when purchasing, pricing, or listing an item? What ranks do you consider "daily movers," "monthly movers," or just plain gambles, in the category or categories you sell in?
I now feel that books with a rank above 2 million are useless. I went through my sold listings for books. The highest-ranked book I’ve ever sold was at 3,400,000, and I’ve only sold three books with a rank of 2,000,000 or more. Currently, I have 689 books listed as FBM and 90 listed as FBA. After reviewing these numbers, I’m removing all books in my inventory with a rank of 3,000,000 or higher. It doesn’t cost me anything to store them, but I feel like the rank is an inaccurate reflection of their potential to sellh. Also, these books are taking up mental and physical space. What are your thoughts? Is this a bad idea?
I’d love to hear your strategies for managing inventory with higher-ranked items. Do you keep them listed, or do you remove them to focus on faster movers?
Looking forward to everyone’s input!
Swartout Family Market
16 replies
Seller_i6S8knzW6zU6Z
Hi @Seller_LcXclxC6bwfCw,
Rather than focusing solely on sales rank, I try to look at the overall return on investment potential. While sales rank gives us some insight into historical demand, it's just one piece of the puzzle.
When evaluating any product, I consider several factors: the total investment (including purchase cost and any prep/shipping to Amazon if FBA), the expected selling price based on price history and competition, the potential sales velocity (where sales rank comes in), and the competitive landscape including buy box dynamics.
A product with a high (poor) sales rank might still be worth stocking if your cost is very low and you can price it significantly higher. As long as you have efficient storage/handling and you're willing to be patient with longer-term inventory, it could be a profitable choice.
Conversely, a product with a great rank might be a poor investment if margins are too thin due to heavy competition.
In short, I wouldn't automatically rule out high-ranked items, but they need to offer compelling potential returns to justify the longer holding period.
Best regards, Michael
Seller_8heIxAf1mLwgp
Don't think sales rank means too much. Sometimes it just means low supply and buyers want the book.
Seller_MyXY4Myx9zVcR
Ever watch the progress of a high-ranking book you have sold on Amazon? That 12 million-ranked book you just sold for 50 bucks shows up ranked 100,000 just hours after your sale, which might be the only sale of that book in the past five years.
It might take somewhere between a few days and 10 years before the next sale of that book.
Seller_awYU0oH8skccg
I consider title, condition, current events, relevance and whether the book interests me...Higher ranked books in 6 million range are often higher priced but not best sellers...If you want to sell cheap popular books quickly stay with new titles...
Never be duped into listing truly "Obsolete" or "Old Books." They're often worthless. Stay with current titles, perhaps even those with ISBNs...
It really depends on how you feel about a title...not its "ranking" on AZ...Oversized books are often "impulse buys"...But that really depends are if they're "interesting" inside...Thames & Hudson Books are usually very will done...Other reprint publishers are usually not worth keeping...
I know sellers who look at rank exclusively...But Those Books are not usually available cheap in secondary market...
Seller_JEZM0XKCFBgyp
Yes, I always consider the ranking. But I use a scanner which not only tells me the ranking, but also the number of times it's sold in the past 6 months. Ranking used to go up to 22 million but something changed a couple years ago and now I rarely see one ranked over 8 or 10 million. I think a book ranked over 10 million has probably sold once. Also remember that many books don't even have a ranking because they've never sold.
I consider a ranking under 1 million to be very good and the book should sell in a month or 2. A ranking of 300 sells about once every 5-10 minutes if you have the buy box.
Seller_wWvjvVGee2TZj
Sales rank is quite important since it determines the interest customers have in your product. 6 Million sales rank is very poor in the Books category!
Seller_GcgO8JJ3AX3Rw
I really don't know about books but I am much more excited about cds that have no sales rank as opposed to ones with a rank of 900K, 1 million etc which is pretty low for cds. My two biggest sales this month were for $66, both with no sales rank listed at all. One I listed a year ago and another I listed a few months ago. One was a rare book of the month records release (yea, it was on cd) for Sondheim which I knew from instinct was a collectible find that probably was so rare it might have never been listed on amazon. I figured the biggest obstacle would be anyone finding it in the search on amazon. In retrospect, I should have listed it for more.
I also have seen listings that I have sold before here on amazon for high dollars that show no sales rank? How can that be? I have a couple in my inventory right now that I've sold before that show no sales rank but I know better LOL? It's quite possible the Sondheim set had sold before. It makes me wonder if just one historical sale on amazon even computes as having a sales rank; does it take say 5 sales to even garner a sales rank?
Regardless, I think you have to follow your instincts on whether a book has a market of at least one out there. If the item has several listed and a bad/no sales sales rank, that would be a bad sign to me. If it has one item listed for a high price, I would probably list it. If there are none, it's instinct and availability of space that are foremost in my opinion!
Well, remember those 2 sales I had this month? Neither one is showing a sales rank and they both sold over a week ago.
Seller_JPMo6wCZLFhTD
From my data a book with a rank of 6 million probably sold a copy within the last 2 months, so I believe its worth keeping if the price is above my minimum and I have storage space.
Seller_kqnOP2Tz20ISr
It depends on the title. We routinely make sales on books with 2 million plus ratings. 6 million is not too high if the subject matter is right.
Seller_SoEgExWsFfFdl
wuth 3mil + ranking is practically nonsellable
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