Amazon Best Sellers Rank (BSR) Explained

Introduction

With hundreds of millions of products listed in 30 different categories, Amazon is undoubtedly the top e-commerce platform for sellers.

In addition to those huge numbers, Amazon sellers can gain another huge boost in their product sales when using a special ranking system called the Best Sellers Rank (BSR).

What is the best Sellers rank, you ask? More importantly, how can it help your Amazon FBA business? For the answers to these questions and more, look below to see how Amazon BSR can be a massive boon to your growing brand.

What Does BSR Stand For?

Amazon BSR stands for Best Sellers Rank. Amazon assigns a BSR to a product, which also indicates its sales performance within its specific category.

Also, keep in mind that Amazon BSR uses an ordinal scale. A lower BSR on a product indicates that a specific item has high sales. A product with a BSR of 1 is the top in that category since it receives enormous sales. The BSR rank is updated regularly (a few times a day).

What Is BSR on Amazon?

The Amazon Best Sellers Rank is a very important number that most, if not all, of Amazon’s products have. This number is given to a product when it achieves at least one sale. The ultimate purpose, though, of the BSR (Best Sellers Rank) is to show how well a given product is selling on Amazon.

In short, the lower a product’s BSR, the higher its sales.

However, sellers should remember that Amazon’s BSR only shows how well a product sells in one category. Amazon products do not have a different BSR or number that shows which item in Amazon’s entire catalog is the best.

Instead, Amazon allows sellers to list their products in more than one category (let’s say a product is listed in three categories). In this case, Amazon will give that same product three separate BSRs, increasing the chances of that item receiving a top BSR.

In this example, this product has a BSR of 305 in the Kitchen and Dining category and is number 1 in the Mugs category!

How Is BSR Calculated?

Even though Amazon does not state specifically how the Best Sellers Rank is calculated, a few factors are likely to contribute to it.

These are:

• The current and historic sales of your product
• Your product’s price changes and promotions
• Your product’s competitors

However, the biggest influence on the BSR is undoubtedly the current sales trends—in addition to historical sales volume. It should also be noted that the BSR is updated hourly.

For instance, let’s say your product has ten sales units in an hour but dramatically decreases to only 2 or 3 in the next hour. Even if your product is number one during the first hour, the updated BSR will look at and combine the data from both hours in a secret way that is not revealed to the public, which may or may not shift your product away from being number one.

What Is a Good BSR?

Remember that individual Best Sellers Ranks differ for each of Amazon’s categories. This means that a good BSR for Electronics could be terrible for Home & Kitchen.

Also, different Amazon sellers may have other ideas about what is ‘good.’ Whether your goal is to sell 20 products a day or 2,000, the Helium 10 Sales Estimator will quickly become one of your favorite digital selling tools.

How to Find BSR on Amazon

You can easily find a product’s BSR by heading to a product page on Amazon, scrolling down to the ‘Product Information’ tab, and finding the information below.

Above, you can see that this product’s Amazon Best Sellers Rank is 305, which may sound bad but is actually really good considering the tens of thousands of competitors selling in that Amazon category.

How to Use BSR to Estimate Sales (link to our free Amazon sales estimator)

Many Amazon sellers agree that the most significant benefit of the Amazon Best Sellers Rank is the ability to predict the value of any given product on Amazon.

For example, let’s look at these LED outdoor lights using our Sales Estimator. This product has a BSR of 2,429 in Tools and Home Improvement. If we input 2,429 in the minimum field and put 2,500 in the maximum, we can see that the average sales are around $2,515 monthly. Pretty impressive!

However, the revenue estimates assume that the BSR stays the same. If the BSR drastically changes, either up or down, the revenue for that product will dramatically change.

Even though using the Sales Estimator is a great way to tell whether a potential product will be profitable, it is still only one piece of the puzzle. It’s also crucial that you examine the historical sales data for that product to ensure your future success.

How do you do this? It’s simple! All you need to do is use our free Helium 10 Chrome Extension. Specifically, when you’re looking at a product listing on Amazon and using the extension simultaneously, you’ll notice a section titled ‘30-Day Revenue’ above the product images.

By clicking on this, you’ll see a chart that shows monthly sales, the BSR of that product, and the review count. These three aspects will help you easily determine if the product you’re looking at is a winner.

How to Improve Amazon BSR

To take your Amazon BSR to the next level, you’ll need to sell sell sell! Remember that if you sell as many products as your competitor—no more, no less—your BSR will never improve. Check out these four essential tips for enhancing your BSR quickly and efficiently:

1. Optimize your listing

To improve the odds of shoppers finding and purchasing your product, you’ll need to optimize your listing with popular keywords within compelling copy. However, don’t overstuff your copy with keywords!

2. Competitively price your product

Sit down and map out a winning pricing strategy for each product. Do not overprice your item compared to your competitors; this lousy practice will not help you sell more products or boost your BSR.

3. Optimize your listing images

Selling products online means customers can only hold or even see your items after buying them, so optimizing your product images is essential. Think carefully before you add any, as these will go a long way in determining whether someone buys your product or passes it up for one of your competitors.

4. Attach a video to your product listing

Adding a video to your product listing instead of one image is helpful. When you add a product video to your listing, you create an enhanced—and professional—customer experience that’ll have them returning repeatedly.

Conclusion

If you’re interested in an e-commerce business but unsure what to sell, that’ll get your product on the list of the top 25 Amazon products, so don’t worry! Helium 10 can quickly provide the e-commerce tools you’ll need for every stage of the selling process. Using our Sales Estimator tool, for example, you can avoid randomly searching for BSR products. Instead, you can quickly put down the desired BSR you want to search for in our tool, and then we’ll reverse-engineer the answer for you!

Helium 10 can also help you track your competitors’ daily sales via the FREE Chrome Extension, discover highly profitable keywords using Magnet, and create a compelling and informational product listing with Listing Builder that will attract customers to your brand.

No matter how you sell on Amazon, remember to do as much research as possible to be fully prepared for any eventuality on your road to success and financial freedom.