How is our BEST SELLER list compiled?
If you understand how – and what are the strengths and weaknesses of this list – then this will hopefully help you to make better informed buying decisions.
So to be frank, honest, open with you:
- This is our 100 hundred best sellers
- Invoiced sales from the last 13 weeks – so a red-hot new book is disadvantaged against other titles when it’s newly published. (As is any title that has been out of stock at Allsorted [sometimes because the publisher we buy from is O/S… though sometimes books simply surprise us, too] .)
- It shows what our retailers are buying from us, and not what they are selling, which is what really counts
- Our website only shows titles that we have in stock today, this is because most of our customers don’t like backorders, and usually don’t want to see what’s not available or to be disappointed when the buy products that don’t arrive. So if we are out of stock of the very bestseller today, then you won’t see it.
- The list is compiled from large and small retailers alike. Allsorted, in the grand scheme of things, is a small business. A large order from a large multiple retailer will inevitably skew the list. where we have a good number of retailers in a particular category – garden centres, gift shops, card shops, visitor attractions, department stores, zoos, and cathedrals, for example – then we are pooling sales from this category. And while all retailers are different, our best seller list of just what sells in just your category of retailer might prove to be a very powerful tool for you.
We have experimented with different time frames, narrower or broader groups of customers, and other ways of ‘slicing’ data… and have this to be generally the most helpful, even with above mentioned limitations.
If in doubt about the sales potential for you of a particular book, then please the call or email your sales representative (or our customer relations team). Our job is all about helping you match the right books to the right place.