How to Find Out if an Amazon Product is Seasonal

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Why Do You Need to Know?

At a particular time of the year, you’re going to have a sales rush with some products – a massive demand at a time when people feel that have to buy that item. It may be because they need to buy it as a gift, because they want it for themselves or because they need to replace it from the year prior.

The first thing people think of with seasonal products is Christmas. That final quarter of the year – October to December – is when online sales go through a massive spike, as many people have their minds on gifting. Q4 is a special time, and you’ll feel it as an Amazon seller. However, seasonal products aren’t just Christmas-based. In fact, there’s probably some sort of important calendar date (whether minor or major) each month that have products tied to them.

When you’re in the right season, seasonal products are great. When they’re not, it’s very difficult to shift them. And that’s a problem when any excess units at an Amazon fulfilment centre will mean additional fees. That’s why it’s so important to know what is and what isn’t seasonal. It’s vital that you know how to distinguish between a product that sells well in July, but doesn’t as much in November.

Examples of Seasonal Products

Your local supermarket may have a seasonal aisle, which specialises in certain things at particular points in the year. So you’ll have loads of Christmas decorations at one point, followed by Valentine’s gifts, followed by Easter eggs, followed by beach accessories, etc. (I’ve found that when there’s nothing going on, they tend to just make it a bonus baby section). Just thinking of that aisle alone will probably give you ideas of seasonal products.

Aside from the obvious, here are a few examples of product sub-categories that go through spikes at particular times of the year:

Outdoor toys – late Q2
DVD box sets – Q4
Desk organisers – Q3
Exercise equipment – late Q4/early Q1
Bakeware – Q1 and Q3 (GBBO)

How Do You Find Out If a Product is Seasonal?

There is a way that tells you whether or not a product is seasonal with complete accuracy. You may be able to guess some, but there are a few tools that ensure that you’re able to distinguish whether something is seasonal or not. The common thing between both of these tools is that they track the Best Seller Rank (Sales Rank) of that particular product over time. By looking at the Sales Rank over the course of a year (or even better, over two) you can see when the product is in demand most.

The two best methods I use for this is with Keepa’s premium subscription and with BuyBotPro, which analyses the data from Keepa.

A non-seasonal product would be one that stays around the same level throughout the year and doesn’t tend to have any difference between its sales at any particular point in the year. It wouldn’t matter whether you attempt to sell it in February or September, because people will be just as likely to buy it from you at that time.

One thing to note is that the Sales Rank will fall off completely if a product is out of stock for a period of time or if there isn’t any Buy Box on the product listing. In that case, it may be worth looking at a competitor’s product listing to see if you can spot any trends in the sales over time. It’s up to you whether you choose to sell seasonal products or not, but it’s always important to know whether or not your product is susceptible to big changes in sales velocity.