Identifying Your Best-Selling Products

In any e-commerce store, not all products are created equal. A small number of your products—often following the 80/20 rule—will be responsible for driving the majority of your sales and your revenue.

These are your best-selling products, and they are one of your most valuable business assets.

Identifying your best-sellers is a critical business exercise. By understanding which of your products are the most popular and the most profitable, you can make smarter decisions about your inventory, your marketing, and your overall business strategy.

How to Identify Your Best-Selling Products

You need to use the analytics dashboard of your e-commerce platform (like Shopify or BigCommerce) or your Google Analytics account (with e-commerce tracking enabled).

You should look at your product performance through a few different lenses:

1. By Total Revenue

• The Metric: Which products have generated the most total revenue over a specific period (e.g., the last 90 days)?
• Why it matters: This shows you which products are having the biggest overall impact on your bottom line.

2. By Total Quantity Sold

• The Metric: Which products have sold the highest number of units?
• Why it matters: These are your most popular products. They might not have the highest price, but they are clearly resonating with a large portion of your audience.

3. By Profit Margin

• The Metric: Which of your products are the most profitable? This is not just about revenue; it's about the revenue minus the cost of the goods sold.
• Why it matters: This is a crucial analysis. You might have a product that generates a lot of revenue but has a very low profit margin, making it less valuable to your business than a slightly lower-revenue product with a very high margin.

How to Leverage Your Best-Selling Products

Once you have identified your "winner" products, you can strategically leverage them to grow your business.

1. Feature Them Prominently on Your Homepage

Your homepage is your most valuable real estate. It should feature a collection of your best-selling products to immediately show new visitors your most popular and proven items.

2. Use Them in Your Marketing and Your Ads

Your best-sellers are the products that have the broadest appeal. They are the perfect products to feature in your social media ads and your other marketing campaigns, as they are the most likely to attract a new customer.

3. Never Let Them Go Out of Stock

These products are your most reliable source of revenue. You must have a robust inventory management process for your best-sellers to ensure that you never have a "stockout." You should set a high "reorder point" for these items.

4. Use Them for Upselling and Cross-Selling

• Cross-Sell with Them: On the product page for one of your best-sellers, you should recommend related, complementary accessories.
• Upsell to Them: On the product page for a less popular item, you could have a "You Might Also Like" section that features one of your best-sellers as a more popular alternative.

5. Gather More Social Proof for Them

Because these products are so popular, they are the perfect ones to focus on for gathering customer reviews and user-generated content. This will make their product pages even more persuasive.

6. Analyze What Makes Them Successful

Why are these products your best-sellers?

• Is it their price point?
• Is it a specific feature?
• Is it the quality of their product photography?

By understanding the "why" behind their success, you can apply those learnings to your other, underperforming products, or you can use those insights to develop your next successful product.

Conclusion

Identifying your best-selling products is a fundamental and data-driven way to understand your own business better. It's about finding what truly resonates with your customers. By leveraging your top products in your marketing and by using the insights from their success to inform your strategy, you can build a more focused, more efficient, and more profitable e-commerce business.