The Amazon Movers and Shakers List is a great way to see which products are selling really well in a 24 hour period. Read on to find out how sellers can use this to their advantage.
What is the Amazon Movers and Shakers list?
The Amazon Movers and Shakers list shows you the products which have made the biggest gains in their respective sales rank over the past 24 hours. It gets updated hourly, meaning it’s effectively a real-time overview of how Amazon shoppers are behaving right now.
You can view site-wide or narrow things down to the categories which are most relevant to your business. By doing this, you’ll see how your own offer compares to some of the best-performing businesses in eCommerce. You can either make adjustments or pat yourself on the back for matching the latest trends.
But wait, this is just the Amazon Best Sellers list, right? Isn’t that exactly the same thing?
Amazon Movers and Shakers vs Amazon Best Sellers
The difference between Amazon Movers and Shakers and Amazon Best Sellers mostly comes down to the period of time they cover. Amazon Best Sellers shows you 30 days of product performance, Amazon Movers and Shakers covers the past 24 hours.
That makes Amazon Movers and Shakers more useful for spotting which products are rising and falling in popularity, the gains they’re making in sale volume vs overall sales this month.
A product with relatively low sales might top the Movers and Shakers list even if it’s not moving nearly as many units as the top of Best Sellers. If the increase in sales is high enough over the past day, it qualifies for Movers and Shakers.
Both these lists are updated hourly, and both are useful for seeing how the products in your inventory compare to what consumers are liking right now. You can use this data to plan and expand your offer, but it’s a little more complicated than just ‘start selling whatever’s in Amazon Movers and Shakers.’
Using Amazon Movers and Shakers to make more sales
Amazon Movers and Shakers should be a regular part of your market research toolkit. Monitor it over time and make a note of any high-performing products which fit with your current inventory. It’s possible you’ll spot some quick wins which you can use to expand your product range and turn a fast profit, but keep a sensible head on your shoulders.
Resist the urge to just start selling the first thing you see at the top of the list. You’re looking for consistency, for trends you can leverage to make a lasting impact on your bottom line. Think about what a high-performing product says about customer behavior.
For example, if you spot paintbrushes and easels performing well over a week or two, it’s reasonable to assume people are getting into art. Maybe there’s a new art show on TV which has fired their imaginations.
In this case, it’s already too late to chase the trend and start selling brushes and easels yourself. But it’s a safe bet they’ll be running out of supplies sooner or later. Introduce quality paints and canvases to your inventory and get one step ahead.
That TV show example wasn’t a frivolous point either. Always be aware of the cultural context in which your customers live; when that TV show goes off the air, demand for art supplies will drop. Thankfully, by keeping an eye on Amazon Movers and Shakers you’re already in a position to capitalize on the next trend.
Optimizing products for Amazon Movers and Shakers
Once you know what customers want, and have the data to prove it, you need to get to the marketplace fast. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of other sellers in your niche are also watching Amazon Movers and Shakers to get product ideas. You need an edge.
That edge lies in the way you optimize your product listings. Use everything you know about why customers want this specific product and angle the listing towards meeting that need:
- Write your product description with the relevant big-picture context in mind, include specific keywords as well as the usual product ones
- A great image is a must, along with your usual product photography, consider shots of the product being used in the most relevant situation
- Make sure the item is listed in any and all relevant subcategories, novel product applications might make it worth listing more broadly
- Encourage and incentivize customer reviews. These boost visibility in organic search and can be used to refine your ongoing market research
Always remember that your goal isn’t to chase trends, but to set them. By building on the example of high-performing products, it’s quite possible that your own inventory could make it onto Amazon Movers and Shakers. It’s just a matter of how you leverage the data.
Developing products using consumer behavior data
Over time, you’ll be developing such a deep knowledge of consumer behavior in your niche that you might be able to anticipate trends before they happen. Link your market research to things like:
- Seasonality (you sell more flowers around Valentine’s day)
- Major events (you sell more soccer balls during the World Cup)
- Film, TV, and culture (the classic Popeye cartoons sent spinach sales in the US skyrocketing)
- Politics (tensions between markets will affect products associated with them)
Over time, you’ll learn to account for the effects of these external forces and develop a solid idea of how your niche is evolving. Being an active listener in online communities related to your niche also helps, you’re all but guaranteed to find a subreddit full of people into what you do.
From there, your research using Amazon Movers and Shakers lets you pinpoint the kind of product people might need in the immediate future and develop it. Of course, it needs to sell as well as be useful. Top-performing products of Amazon tend to share common features:
- Price. Items costing around $10-50 are ideal for maxing out profit margins
- Size. People tend to buy less bulky items on Amazon, smaller items perform well
- Weight. On average, not only are lighter products cheaper to ship, but they also generally sell better
If you’ve got a good idea of where your niche is going, create a compact product to support that trend at a reasonable price. You might just corner the market.
Final thoughts
Not only is the Amazon Movers and Shakers list a fantastic market research tool, but it’s also completely free. With attention, patience, and foresight, it can become the cornerstone of your evolving product offering. Just remember to keep a critical eye and only chase the most promising opportunities.
