What is a Best Seller Rank (BSR)?
The Amazon Best Sellers Rank (BSR for short) is sometimes called “sales rank” and it is the number given to a product after its first sale has been completed. In other words, although “bestseller” is in the name, having a BSR only indicates that you have made one sale, not that your product is a best seller. A BSR can range from 1 to more than 1 million. A high BSR indicates low sales, and a low BSR indicates high sales. For example, a product with a BSR of 100 is performing better in terms of sales than a product with a BSR of 500.
Amazon calculates the BSR by using the number of recent sales and historical sales data relative to other products in the same category. BSR fluctuates hourly. The BSR only applies to how a product sells in a particular category. Products don’t have an overall BSR comparing their sales to every other product on Amazon. Every product category has a separate best sellers ranking system. This way, listings under “Makeup” won’t compete with listings under “Hair Care”. Because some products can be found in multiple categories, some products have multiple BSRs.
One thing to note – your Amazon BSR is different from your organic ranking. Your BSR is how well your product ranks based on sales while your organic ranking is how well your product ranks for a given keyword. Don’t mix up organic rank with Best Seller Rank!
Why does BSR Matter?
A product’s BSR is a great indicator of how well it is selling on Amazon. More specifically, it indicates how popular a product is within a specific category.
Best Seller Rank can be used for estimating the sales frequency of an individual product or an entire product category. In other words, BSR can be used to predict how often a product sells on Amazon.
While your BSR is indicative of your success and can be used to measure your performance over time, your BSR itself is not considered crucial to the success of your listing. This is because your BSR isn’t easily visible and isn’t likely to influence a potential customer’s buying decision. The obvious exception is if your product becomes the number one bestseller and receives a #1 Best Seller Badge.
How to Find your BSR
To find an item’s BSR, go to the product detail page and scroll down to the product information section. The best sellers rank is right under customer reviews. If you’re on a mobile device, you may need to go to the product description block and click on it.
Additionally, Amazon has a page dedicated to “Amazon Best Sellers”. This page displays the top three sellers in each Amazon category. Every category also includes a link to view more best sellers.
Why You Should Track Your BSR Over Time
Your BSR is an indicator of if your product is performing well or not when compared to your competitors. It tells you where your product falls in the online marketplace.
You can use your BSR as a benchmark to measure your product’s performance over time. The best way to determine a goal BSR for yourself is to consider the number of sales that you want your product to have each day (or week, month, etc). Then, reverse engineer what your Best Sellers Rank for that total of sales would be.
How to Track Your BSR Over Time
Our proprietary software, myHorizons, allows sellers to track their BSR over time. The Best Sellers Rank By ASIN tool features a graph displaying your BSR over any selected time period (after account creation). The graph can be filtered by category and shows your BSR along with the associated sales amount, as shown in the image below. Additionally, the tool includes a table beneath the graph showing each ASIN with its product name, full category and category, average BSR, and latest BSR. The table can be filtered to order by best BSRs, worst BSRs, fastest growing BSRs, or most dropped BSRs. Check out an example of the graph and table for the brand ATEK.
How to Improve Your BSR
First things first- don’t attempt to improve your BSR with the goal of generating more sales. Flip this strategy. Focus on generating more sales, and your product’s BSR will improve. Additionally, if you want a lower BSR, your sales period should also be small. In conclusion, don’t stress about improving your BSR specifically – instead, focus on having a targeted advertising and organic strategy and you’ll likely see your BSR improve as a result.
