What’s the WORST Amazon Sales Rank you should accept?

What is the worst Amazon Sales Rank (aka BSR) you should tolerate for books you sell? How to know when a book is too low-demand to list for sale.

Video: Three basic rules for Amazon “Best Seller Rank” (BSR)

The great Amazon Sales Rank debate

This is a common debate among Amazon sellers: What is the worst rank you should accept to list an item for sale on Amazon?

In the books category specifically, you’ll hear some passionate debates. Some of the opinions you hear are:

• “You should never list a book with a rank worse than 1 million.”
• “Books ranked worse than 4 million never sell.”
• “Sales rank doesn’t matter – list everything that’s worth money.”

But in business as in life, sweeping generalizations and simple rules usually miss the mark. The real answer always comes with, “it depends…”

I plan to give you specific answers to the question “What is the worst Sales Rank you should accept for books?” But I’m going to do it in three parts:

1. A specific answer for Amazon sellers who are more experienced.
2. A slightly different (but still specific) answer for Amazon sellers who aren’t new, but not super-experienced.
3. A third (specific) answer for Amazon sellers who are brand new.

Let’s dive in.

A short synopsis of Amazon Sales Rank

You’ll hear “Sales Rank” referred to as several things: Either Amazon Sales Rank, Amazon Best Seller Rank, or simply BSR. These are all the same thing.

The purpose of Sales Rank is for Amazon to communicate the current demand for any item in its catalog. The lower the number, the higher the demand. (And no rank usually means an item has never sold.)

The question we’re trying to answer in this article is: What demand is so low (or what Sales Rank figure is so high), that we should not bother listing it for sale?

Understanding current Sales Rank vs Average Sales Rank

Also important to understand the difference between the current Amazon Sales Rank, and the average rank.

The figure that you see in the “product details” page of every item on Amazon is the current sales rank. This is an imperfect figure, because a book that was ranked 10 million this morning, could be ranked 100,000 right now. How is that possible?

Because as soon a book sells, it’s Sales Rank leaps up from whatever it is now, to around 100,000 to 150,000 (or thereabouts, depending on the day). This can create the false impression that a book is selling frequently, when in fact it just sold the only copy that has sold in the past year (or more).

Average Sales Rank is a more accurate figure. It takes the current sales rank across a broad period, and averages it out. This provides a more accurate view of a book’s actual demand.

Where can you find average Sales Rank?

Two places:

1. Keepa
2. Your scouting app (like Scoutly)

For the purpose of this article, I’m going to suggest referring to average Amazon Sales Rank if it’s available to you. Since all the available sources of average rank that I’m aware of cost money, you may not have access to average Sales Rank. In that case, current rank will be an acceptable substitute.

Brand new sellers: What Amazon Sales Rank should you stay under for books?

This first answer will only apply if you are a brand new Amazon seller. By “brand new,” I mean you either:

1. Have been selling for less than 30 days.
2. You’ve been selling for longer than 30 days, but don’t have consistent sales yet.

If these apply (and only if these apply), then here’s your answer:

For brand new sellers, do not list anything for sale with an Amazon Sales Rank of worse than 1.5 million.

Estimating Amazon sales gets a little murky beyond a rank of one million, so we can’t say for sure how often a book with an average rank of 1.5 million is selling. But we can roughly estimate they are selling at least two to three times per month.

Putting a cap at 1.5 million for newer sellers is much more conservative than I’m going to suggest for more experienced sellers. The logic is simple: When you’re getting started, you want your inventory to sell quickly so you get get momentum, and get more cash to invest in more inventory.

By keeping a maximum Amazon Sales Rank of 1.5 million, you should expect that most of your inventory will sell in the first month (if you stay on top of your repricing).

Sellers with limited experience: What Amazon Sales Rank should you stay under for books?

This next criteria is for sellers who have momentum, but don’t yet understand why some books tend to have value while others don’t.  If you’re reading this and you still feel like book value is mostly random, and haven’t learned to understand the principles that create value in books, that’s okay. It takes awhile to understand trends in what books sell versus books that are simply obsolete.

How long does it take to get this level of understanding? The answer depends on whether you think this skill is important, or you intend to permanently rely solely on your scouting app for all decision making, forever.

For sellers who understand the understanding trends in value in bookselling, and are absorbing information as you source books and get sales, you should start to understand these basic concepts in about six months.

For sellers with limited experience, do not list anything for sale with an Amazon Sales Rank of worse than 4 million.

Beyond a rank of 4 million, it becomes even more difficult to estimate how often a book is selling. But if you keep to under 4 million, you can be reasonably confident all your books are selling at least every two months.

Does profits matter when deciding what Sales Rank is too high?

This is where we introduce our first “it depends…” qualifier. While keeping your inventory to under a 4 million rank is a solid guideline, it only makes sense if the profits are high enough.

Think of Amazon Sales Rank as another term for “risk.” The worse the Rank, the more risk you are incurring as an Amazon seller. Risk of the book not selling, risk of long term storage fees, or risk of the price collapsing.

So if you’re taking on this “risk,” you need to be paid according to that risk. A book ranked 500,000 doesn’t bring with it that much risk. It’s selling at least every few days. So a $3 payout might be acceptable for you.

But a book ranked 4 million brings with it moderate risk. So you should raise your payout standards accordingly. Maybe you decide you need to be compensated at last $20 for this risk.

This is all subjective and up to you to decide. But most sellers agree that it doesn’t make sense to list a book ranked 4 million if the payout is small.

Experienced sellers: What Amazon Sales Rank should you stay under for books?

Good news for experienced sellers: You options open up dramatically.

There is no such thing as a Sales Rank too high if you’re an experienced seller.

You should even be willing to sell books that have no rank (i.e. have never sold one copy on Amazon). But that doesn’t mean you should list anything for sale, indiscriminately. For books beyond a Sales Rank of 4 million, you have to apply a very specific three-part test.

Three part test for listing books with really bad Amazon Sales Ranks

Let’s say you have a book in your hand ranked 7 million. And it’s selling for $50. Should you buy it? That’s impossible to answer, since you don’t have enough information yet. You can only answer “yes,” if that book passes this three part test:

Test question #1: Is there a more recent edition?

If the answer is yes, then pass. You may decide not to dig this deep (it can require a little Amazon research). But if I see a book that has a clear “edition” displayed, I want to know if there’s a more recent edition. That’s a big clue as to whether this book will ever sell. (With better ranked books, a newer edition is not relevant).

Test question #2: Is the book on a mainstream subject?

Or are there many other titles on the same subject? If the answer is yes, then pass. What will insure a sale when a book is really poorly ranked is that customers have other option but to buy that book to get the information that’s inside. Say a book is a beginner’s guide to taking care of puppies. There’s a million books on this subject. A book on this exact topic ranked 8 million is not going to sell. Whereas, if you’re holding a book ranked 8 million on competitive whitewater rafting on a specific river in Alaska, you have a winner.

Test question #3: Is the book on an obsolete subject?

If the answer is yes, then pass. An example of this would be a book a buying guide to the best VHS players. It is simply obsolete, and that books should be avoided.

The big takeaway on selling poorly ranked books: The more niche and irreplaceable, the more likely I am to purchase a poorly ranked book.

The three Sales Rank criteria for selling books

1. Brand new Amazon seller: A Sales Rank of 1.5 million or better.
2. Moderately experienced Amazon seller: Sales Rank of 4 million or better.
3. Experienced Amazon seller: There is no such thing as a Sales Rank that is too poor to sell.

That’s the formula.

-Peter Valley

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