profitero - 6 holiday insights from amazon's best-selling products

6 Holiday Insights From Amazon’s Best-Selling Products

January 2015

US online holiday sales were up

6.8% and

reached $101.9 Billion

Source: NRF January 2015

Profitero analyzed data from our new Amazon FastMovers reports to identify Amazon’s best-selling products across 6 categories this holiday season.

1. Electronics

In December 2014, Amazon's share of the Electronics FastMovers 100 grew from 24% to 34%, driven largely by Fire tablets.

• Amazon gained an incremental 8 new fire tablets on the best sellers list – 3 of which were kids’ editions.

• Despite the influx of Amazon products, the average price of Amazon products on the Electronics best sellers list was virtually unchanged at $132 in December and $134 in November.

• Given that Amazon’s own products have no third-party sellers and are always Prime-eligible, electronics manufacturers need a strategy to compete.

Amazon Electronics Best Sellers

2. Health & Personal Care

As holiday gifting reached its peak, fitness wristbands, electric toothbrushes, and electric groomers topped the charts for Health & Personal Care’s December 2014 FastMovers list.

• Of the 10 products gaining the most spots on the best sellers list in December 2014, 4 were Fitbit fitness wristbands, 3 were electric groomers, and 2 were electric toothbrushes.

• Gifting for these particular products appeared to pick up in December; in November 2014, only a single electric toothbrush and no fitness wristbands or electric groomers made the top climber list.

• With the increasing popularity of wearable technology, manufacturers and retailers should take note of these highly desirable products that grew in popularity later in the holiday season.

Health & Personal Care

3. Toys &Games

Toys & Games became the most dynamically-priced category in December 2014, with 9 additional price changes per product across sellers compared to November.

Toys & Games

• As sellers competed for last-minute holiday shoppers, the Toys & Games category saw an average of 20 price changes per product (prices were collected daily).

• Although 66% of categories were more price-volatile in December 2014 than in November 2014, the average number of price changes across all categories was just 10 in December.

• Lego continues to be one of the most popular toy brands, with 9 products featuring in our FastMovers Toys 100 for December.

Average number of price changesby category

4. Clothing

Seasonal and holiday items accounted for 23 of our FastMovers 100 Clothing products in December 2014.

• As the weather turned colder, the FastMovers 100 list for Clothing quickly shifted to cold-weather items. There were 39 new arrivals in Clothing including pyjamas, scarves, gloves and ‘Ugly’ Christmas sweaters.

• Among the FastMovers 100 list, there were 9 scarves, 6 gloves (including 4 with touchscreen compatibility), 4 slippers, 3 pyjamas and 1 Ugly sweater.

• Despite the low star rating of the Ugly sweater (3.6), it was the 5th top climber in the Clothing category, an indication of the popular trend of Ugly sweater themed parties.

Clothing

5. Grocery & GourmetFood

16 FastMovers 100 products in Grocery & Gourmet Food included "gift" in the product title.

• 16 products in Grocery & Gourmet Food included "gift" in their product titles, with an average price of $30.

• Of these “gift” products, 14 were new entrants in December, and, interestingly, 10 of the 16 gift items were sold directly by Amazon.

• Sellers should be sure to include “gift” in the product title of popular, giftableitems in the holiday season to get the most visibility with holiday shoppers.

Grocery & Gourmet Food

6. Beauty

There were 4x the number of fragrance products in December 2014 compared to November on the FastMovers100 Beauty list.

• According to the FastMovers 100 list in December 2014, 12 products referenced either "parfum" or "toilette" in the product titles, compared to 3 products in November 2014. Of these best-selling fragrance products, half were for men.

• Perfume brands Dolce & Gabbanaand Calvin Klein were among the top 7 brands by number of items and grew their share of the FastMovers100 in December.

• The average item in Beauty had 18 price changes, making Beauty the 3rd most price-volatile category.

Beauty

Summary

• eCommerce continues to be the fastest-growing retail channel, with Amazon driving online sales.

• Retailers and manufacturers alike can use trends in pricing, product attributes, and product ratings from Amazon’s Best Sellers pages in order to fine-tune their own retail strategies in 2015.

• For the full results and analysis, subscribe to Profitero’sAmazon FastMovers reports for free monthly updates on best sellers across 12 Amazon product categories in the US and UK.

About Amazon FastMovers

In each country, Amazon updates its 100 best-selling products in each category hourly. Profitero monitors these best sellers list in the US (more than 4.9 million products) and the UK (more than 2.1 million products) daily and analyzes products’ performance over specific time periods to produce a cumulative ranking of best-selling products.

Use the Amazon FastMovers reports to

- Identify strong-selling new products in your category, including launches from competitors

- Benchmark high-performing products’ pricing, pack configuration, ratings & reviews, and other attributes

- Gauge the importance of participating in Amazon programs such as Subscribe & Save and Prime

Sign up for your complimentary Amazon FastMovers reports at:

http://blog.profitero.com/amazon-fast-movers