Best Seller List Calculation Choice - QTY, Value, Number of Orders

[Truska]

The ability to select how your Best Seller List is calculated

Currently it is done based on the Number or Orders for a product seemingly

Would be good to be able to do it by:

• Qty of product sold and maybe even by
• Value of product sold.

as well as by Number of Orders.

A simple select option could be offered on Marketing | Best Seller page to allow you to select the method of calculation you require.

There are three methods suggested above - anyone got any others?

[Mike Hughes]

I guess to my mind the quantity sold is probably the 'right' metric as it pretty much translates into the statement; "We've sold more of these than any other product." Surely, the idea is to give customers confidence in buying those items. Something along the lines of "if all these other people are buying this it must be good" kind of thing.

The 'number of orders' metric sounds odd. Are you sure that's what it is currently? i.e. if there's one order for 10,000 of something that it only counts as a single order in the metric?

There are various other metrics you could add, like 'best selling' over a period of time such as 'this week' or 'last 30 days', etc but then it's getting more complicated.

I would be interested in some options along the line of 'in this section'. This way customers could see the best selling 'widget', or best selling 'gizmo' etc to help them choose.

Mike

[leehack]

Mike, if one individual product is sold to 100 customers, or one customer buys 100 of that product, which do you think it the best seller from a customer (not yours) point of view?

PS - date parameters already possible.

Surely, the idea is to give customers confidence in buying those items. Something along the lines of "if all these other people are buying this it must be good" kind of thing.

The 'number of orders' metric sounds odd.

These points argue against each other surely?

[Truska]

Agree with the question but not the answer as a one size fits all.
Yes I can see some businesses wanting it that way and other the other way hence the option to choose.

In my case the current way is really is NOT what we want - ant the end of the day it is how we market we are dealing with here and not what is 100% true in accordance with one opinion. If that was the case why have the ability to choose and lock your best sellers...... that certainly open up to Not True Best Sellers under and method of calculation.

[leehack]

I fully agree with you needing to be able to choose, but you're very wrong on saying what I have said is not true. We're relaying to a customer our most popular products, not our highest quantities bought. Number of customers buying is far more a better marker on top sellers than quantity sold.

With your idea, products sold usually in more than one would totally eclipse products equally as popular, think tins of cat food versus gateaux in a supermarket. Gateaux could never qualify in a best sellers list using your idea. How can any marketing list be restricted to what could be a very small number of products that could ever actually qualify.

[Truska]

Bottom line I think we need more flexibility is needed but my point is there is no right and wrong here. I am certainly not saying you are wrong but I am also saying, under many conditions I am right, as you are under many others.

This debate could rage for ever and just waste loads of everyone's time so let's not go there.

Easy solution - lets have the flexibility to choose what is right for us - the customer and user....

The End !!!!!

[leehack]

The requirement for more flexibility is totally right, I fully agree. There is not a single product or company in the world though that should not relay their most popular products by the number of separate sales instead of the overall quantity sold. You're focusing on what 'you' think, it's not about you, it's about customers and what 'they' want to know. But even then with customer retention as something we all want to do, any company would rather (if we use my example) gain 100 extra customers instead of 1.

B2B sales are different, i'm talking retail sales here.

[Truska]

Well at least we agree on something. Flexibility....

On the other point - lets agree to disagree gracefully and maybe see what other people think.....

You must also note (and this is a separate argument) that we can call the "Best Sellers" list anything we want including for example "Products we have sold most of" !!! yes a little outside the mark I grant you but......

I repeat bottom line - lets have the ability to do what we believe we want and what we believe our customers want - which will I have no doubt be different from business to business.....

I will watch this thread with interest....

[leehack]

You must also note (and this is a separate argument) that we can call the "Best Sellers" list anything we want including for example "Products we have sold most of" !!! yes a little outside the mark I grant you but......

It's a good point and again i agree, in fact we have a well known user who advocates adding clearance items into best selling lists as the best way to clear those items, which is ironically kind of funny and sad all at the same time.

[Duncan Rounding]

If I was a customer I think I would want to know how many customers had purchased a similar product rather than simply the number of products sold. The figures can easily be distorted by one sale of a larger quantity of one item. The same is true with reviews - I wouldn't want reviews weighted by the number of products in an order.

It might be an idea to expose the variables (totals) used so you can then do what you want in the design in local php.

[Mike Hughes]

Mike, if one individual product is sold to 100 customers, or one customer buys 100 of that product, which do you think it the best seller from a customer (not yours) point of view?

Good point Lee.

But then it all depends on whether the confidence statement is:

"We sell more of these than anything else"

or

"More customer buy this than anything else"

In general though I agree. The second is more meaningful to the customer (even if not what I tend to think 'best seller' means).

Mike

[Darren B]

Im going along the lines of the number sold / brought by number of customers route on this one. i agree that for retail this would give a better indication or more correct indication

[leehack]

In general though I agree. The second is more meaningful to the customer (even if not what I tend to think 'best seller' means).

I agree with you there, customers will be thinking of 'most people bought', whereas retailer is thinking of 'most products sold'. Those two can be radically different as we can see. I think the parameters mentioned in the other thread - 'by customer count' or 'by quantity count', would be perfect. I'd say that the customer count serviced most of retail requirements and quantity most of B2B requirements as a rule.

[brucet]

All good suggestions and duly noted - thanks.

[Truska]

Great - look forward to seeing some form of "flexibility" in v11 or v12 then - maybe.......