Search result count, also known as the number of relevant products, is often used by many sellers to reflect the level of market supply, indicating the competitiveness among businesses. Generally, a higher number of products implies fiercer competition.
Let's start with some observed conclusions:
1. When searching for a keyword under the "ALL" category, such as "ipad holder," the number of results on the first page may vary significantly from those on the second or third page. For instance, it could jump from 1000 to 5000 or from 70,000 to 100,000. This greatly diminishes the reference value of result counts.
2. Related products may not necessarily be the ones represented by the keyword. For example, when searching for "iphone charger," the results may include a large number of "iphone charger cable" listings. Additionally, some products are dynamically related, such as when users search for a Sony headphone and also compare it with a Bose headphone, leading to Bose headphones appearing in the search results for Sony.
3. Filtering search results by category can significantly enhance the reference value of result counts, especially when the result count is within 1000.
4. The products listed in search results may belong to various categories due to their characteristics, advantages, and usage scenarios. For example, we shouldn't assume that "ipad stand" is strictly an electronic category product.
5. Even within a specified category, the sum of products in all its subcategories may still not match the number of products in the parent category.
6. Different user IPs (locations) can result in varying search result counts and product placements, especially for the US site and large items.
Since 2018, Amazon has gradually concealed specific product counts and only provided vague figures such as "10,000+." From the second half of 2019, in order to optimize logistics efficiency, Amazon prioritized displaying products closest to users based on local FBA warehouses (different IP addresses correspond to different regions), leading to varying product counts in different regions. Additionally, based on user profiles, Amazon provides more personalized product displays. These factors have made product counts increasingly symbolic.
Product counts are only valuable for core, precise keywords. For example, the product count for "iphone x case" holds some reference value (40,000), while the count for "iphone case" is less significant (100,000, less precise), and "x iphone case" holds even less reference value (40,000, less core).
Product counts cannot fully reflect market competition. For example, around 2010, there were thousands of brands producing counterfeit phones, with entry barriers as low as a few million RMB. However, today, there are only around 10 mainstream phone brands with entry barriers at the billion RMB level, leading to even fiercer competition.
An indicator that can reflect market competition is the monopoly index (competition from suppliers), such as the sales ratio between the top 10 and top 100 products in a specific market (refer to Seller Sprite's Market Research - Listing Concentration).
Below are examples with screenshots.
In this screenshot from Seller Sprite's Keyword Mining, a search for "tablet stand" brings up keywords such as "ipad stand" (which also includes "ipad holder"), belonging to the same sub-market and having similar search volumes.
However, there's a significant difference in result counts, with "tablet" having 80,000 and "ipad stand" only 10,000, possibly because "tablet" is broader than "ipad" (ipad being just one type of tablet).
But you'll notice that the search results on the first and third pages for "tablet stand" have a significant difference, especially for "ipad stand."
Let's examine "tablet stand" and the left-hand categories (23 primary categories), then look at sports, outdoors, and toy categories.
Doesn't it seem like this type of tablet holder is more suitable for these categories, avoiding mainstream 3C competition?
Now, let's compare "ipad stand" in the sports, outdoors, and toy categories.
Doesn't this type of ipad holder seem to match these categories more? Sellers have put in quite some effort. Competing in the electronics category would really be suicidal.
Let's focus again on the toy category for "ipad stand," where we've opened all other subcategories and counted the number of products.
But we find it still doesn't match the primary "toys" category (528), although the product count for the secondary subcategories is much closer.
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