ECommerce Assortment: Amazon Best Seller Insights

[Pages:8]eCommerce Assortment:

Amazon Best Seller Insights

A retailer's assortment determines their conversions and ultimately their success. Struggling to keep up with trends on a SKU-level for assortment planning, especially when trying to expand into new markets, is an unfortunate reality for many retailers. It's a matter of balancing longtime bestsellers and hopping on trendy products, if they make sense.

Here at Wiser, we monitored Amazon's top 100 selling SKUs across 8 categories over a 55 day period. In our analysis, we wanted to answer a few key questions:

How much volatility is there across best sellers on Amazon?

Is there a difference between the best of the best and best of the rest?

Which categories tend to have more volatility?

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There were 250-400 SKUs that cycled through each category's top 100 over the test period. So there's quite a bit of change in what's most popular with shoppers. A closer look helps us find where the opportunities are for assortment planning.

To determine which products were worth considering adding to a retailer's inventory, we took a look at the SKUs that stayed in the top 100 at least 25% of the time, or 14 days.

Sports & Outdoors

Appliances

Computers & Accessories

Smart Watches

Portable MP3 Player Speakers

Furniture

Tools & Home Improvement

Fitness Technology

60

65

70

75

80

85

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Most categories have around 80 products that consistently stay in the top 100 for their respective categories. This tells us that most of the volatility in best sellers occurs in the bottom 20% of products that cycle in and out.

From there, we conducted a deep dive analysis of SKUs consistently in the top 100. Here are a few metrics to underscore how attractive these products are for assortment planning:

Average rank What was the average position for each product?

SD rank What was the standard deviation (how much movement in rank occurred) for each product?

a. Fitness Technology b. Computers & Accessories c. Tools & Home Improvement d. Portable MP3 Player Speakers e. Furniture f. Sports & Outdoors g. Smart Watches h. Appliances

Average of stars How many stars did each product have (how much do customers like each product)?

Average of listings How many listings did each product have (how competitive is the seller landscape on Amazon)?

Avg Stars

Avg Listing

4

45

2

25

0

0

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

g.

h.

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When looking at average rank, the consistent best sellers averaged a rank around 40 with a standard deviation of 2-3. This tells us that the consistently best selling products enjoy a ranking in the top 50% of the best sellers (with a higher chance of customer exposure) and generally don't change position too much.

A deep dive into stars and listings show opportunities to improve assortment across different categories. Sports & Outdoors had the highest average star rating while Computers and Accessories had the lowest. Generally, categories with established products like Sporting Goods have higher quality products, while categories that often introduce new products (like Electronics) will have a lower star rating.

a. Appliances b. Sports & Outdoors c. Furniture d. Smart Watches e. Portable MP3 Player Speakers f. Fitness Technology g. Tools & Home Improvement h. Computers & Accessories

When looking at listings, we confirmed some suspicions. Computers & Accessories is extremely competitive with over 40 sellers competing per listing while established verticals like appliances and Sporting Goods had less competition.

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Finally, we took a look at the best of the best, defined as top 10 products, and calculated the average number of days they spent on the top 100. In the Fitness, Appliance, and Computer verticals, winning the top spots is quite lucrative due to low volatility. On the other hand, in Tools, Portable Mp3, and Sports, best selling products cycle through much more frequently.

Key Findings

* The Sports & Outdoors category doesn't have many listings per SKU, but there is a lot of volatility, since only 18% of SKUs were frequently ranked.

* Computers and Accessories are highly competitive verticals with 42 listings per ASIN, however the best selling SKUs stay in the top for a significant amount of time.

* Two notable categories are Furniture and Appliances because they aren't terribly competitive on Amazon and winning products tend to stick around, making them a valuable investment.

* Fitness Tech, Mp3, Tools, and Smartwatches surprisingly show trends that favor best sellers and less overall volatility with moderate competitiveness.

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How Wiser Can Help

Wiser takes merchandising to the next level and keeps retailers up to date on the top selling items within desired categories with custom reports. Wiser combines best seller data with analytics such as rank trends, product ratings, and market price intelligence to help your business find the most profitable opportunities for assortment planning.

The journey begins with identifying best sellers in key categories. Next, Wiser ups the game by finding the products trending upwards and selling consistently. By incorporating market price intelligence and projected costs, Wiser then helps you identify the most profitable additions to your catalog.

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About Us

Wiser is the leading provider of actionable data for better decisions. Wiser collects and analyzes online and in-store data with unmatched speed, scale and accuracy. The Wiser platform then blends these insights with advanced workflow software to drive business value for brands and retailers, including restaurants. Using a unique combination of data science and human validation, Wiser offers integrated solutions for every aspect of retail, all in one place.

Wiser is a single source partner by design, with solutions for every aspect of retail, including:

Market Intelligence ? Promotional Analysis ? Assortment Intelligence ? Pricing Intelligence

Optimization ? In-store Shelf Health

Learn more at and follow @wiserdata. ? Online Repricing

Compliance

? MAP Monitoring & Case Management

? In-store Merchandising

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