Home Video Asylum

TVs, VCRs, DVD players, Home Theater systems and more.

amazon's calculations of bestsellers are proprietary...

and they are not made public in any but vague terms. In books, they rank the top 10,000 every hour based on sales over 24 hours, but there is also historical data and some sort of predictive algorithm apparently too.

Bottom line, if you do not understand how a number is calculated, you cannot understand its importance or its meaning.

And it never seemed worth much to me to see hourly sales figures at amazon anyway. Can a $300 HD-DVD player outsell a $36 DVD player? In any given hour, of course it can. Over any real time period, very very unlikely.

That's why I always thought it is meaningless to look at amazon's bestsellers, except for a gross indicator of what a few people are buying at the current time.


This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Parts Connexion  


Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups
  • amazon's calculations of bestsellers are proprietary... - tunenut 11:43:36 12/16/07 (0)

FAQ

Post a Message!

Forgot Password?
Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
  Remember my Moniker & Password  (What's this?)    Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:
Message:   (Posts are subject to Content Rules)
Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:  Automagically notify you when someone responds.