Q: How does SellerSprite forecast a product’s sales (monthly sales estimation)?
A: SellerSprite uses an algorithmic approach to estimate sales, primarily leveraging the relationship between a product’s Best Sellers Rank (BSR) and its sales performance. The
sales forecasting principle can be summarized as follows:
1. Data Collection: Every day, SellerSprite’s system crawls Amazon to gather basic product data – especially BSR, as well as price, reviews, etc..
2. BSR-to-Sales Mapping: Based on over three years of historical sales data and real seller feedback, SellerSprite has mapped out how BSR correlates with actual sales for each category and marketplace.
3. Daily Sales Estimation: By looking at an ASIN’s average daily BSR (for a given period), SellerSprite estimates how many units that corresponds to in daily sales.
4. Monthly Projection: The tool multiplies the average daily sales by the number of days in the month to project the total monthly sales for that product.
5. Trend Adjustments: The algorithm also takes into account the product’s historical sales trends and seasonality to refine the prediction, so recent surges or slowdowns can adjust the forecast appropriately.
Important: If a listing has multiple variations that share one parent BSR, each child ASIN will show the same sales estimate since the ranking is collective. In reality, that number represents the entire
listing’s sales divided among all variations. SellerSprite’s estimator may show each variant with similar sales figures because it’s interpreting the one shared BSR. (Competitor analysis tools will typically attribute the same total sales to each child ASIN for consistency.)
Keep in mind that
sales estimates are approximations . Certain situations can cause deviations between the estimate and reality
:
1. Bulk Orders vs. Single Units: BSR is influenced by order count, not units sold. For instance, one order of 10 units has the same BSR impact as one order of 1 unit. If many buyers commonly purchase multiples in one order, the BSR-based method might overestimate actual units sold.
2. Promotions and BSR Spikes: Sudden BSR improvements (e.g. jumping from rank 100,000 to 2,000 due to a flash sale or deep discount) can temporarily inflate the sales estimate. The averaging method may lag in catching up to rapid changes.
3. Stockouts: If a product goes out of stock, its BSR will start to worsen (the numeric rank increases) but not immediately drop to zero. The system might still predict some sales for days where the item was unavailable. SellerSprite partially mitigates this by monitoring the Buy Box status, but minor inaccuracies can occur.
4. Incomplete BSR Tracking: In some cases an ASIN’s BSR isn’t recorded every single day (due to the rolling update schedule or Amazon not updating the rank). If data is missing, the tool relies on the nearest available BSR readings, which may not perfectly reflect that day’s sales.
5. Minor Category Ranks: Products that only have a sub-category rank (and no main category BSR) cannot be directly compared across the broader market. Any attempt to estimate sales from such a rank is prone to large error, so SellerSprite actively filters out or improves handling of these cases.
6. Extreme Seasonal Events: In high-sales periods like Prime Day or Black Friday, overall sales volumes jump dramatically. A product might sell far more this month than last month even if BSR looks similar, making predictions based on last month’s BSR-to-sales relationship less reliable.
7. Top Sellers’ Variability: For top-ranked products (e.g. top 100 in a category), small changes in rank can reflect big swings in sales, but the BSR might remain relatively stable. This can introduce larger estimation error at the very top end of the market.
8. Category Changes: If Amazon moves a product to a different category, the BSR relationship changes. SellerSprite’s model will need a few days to adjust to the new category’s dynamics.
Overall, SellerSprite’s sales estimates are best used as a directional guide. Experienced sellers often look at
historical sales trends provided by the tool, rather than fixating on a single month’s number, to get a more reliable picture of a product’s performance.