BuyBotPro’s Competition Analysis feature delivers a lot of data, but how do sellers decide if the number of sellers makes a listing uncompetitive or not?

In the example above, on the face of it, is a listing that some sellers might instantly assume is going to be difficult to be competitive if they listed stock on it. There are 86 Prime sellers (FBA) and 39 MF, or FBM, sellers to compete with, a total of 125 which will often feel like too many for sellers to consider selling on.

The seller numbers need to be analysed alongside other complementary BuyBotPro data to build a bigger picture of a listing.

In this particular listing, reviewing the Estimated Sales Calculator is very revealing. The Competition Analysis displays the stock levels of the ten sellers eligible for the Buy Box, with the total shown at the bottom.

This listing has a total of 74 in stock across those ten sellers, which is less than a days’ worth of estimated sales. This is likely to result in several of the FBA sellers dropping off the listing. Yes, some may replenish, but the likelihood is that many will not.

This is underlined in the Offers & Reviews Chart. It reveals a big jump in sellers at the end of March, suggesting that this product was put on sale by a major retailer and Online Arbitrage sellers jumped to purchase it.

Expanding the chart to view 365 Days shows that this is not likely to be a regular occurrence as it is by far the single biggest jump in sellers across the year. This increases the likelihood of sellers dropping off the listing when they sell out, making this ASIN a good candidate for a medium-term investment.

There is already a steady downward trend in the number of sellers after only a couple of weeks, so the indications are good that a lot of the sellers are short-term holders of stock.

As the Competition Analysis – and Buy Box Analysis – also shows, Amazon will also share the Buy Box. Currently a third-party seller holds the Buy Box, so Amazon don’t dominate the sales, which allows other sellers to sell their stock – and drop off the listing when they sell out.

The same principles can be used to analyse listings with fewer sellers.

Make sure these key points are taken into consideration:

There will be listings that do prove to have too many sellers active on it for some sellers, but each seller needs to consider how quickly they need that item to sell. For small items that take little storage space, or lower cost items that don’t hold up a lot of capital, a high number of sellers may not be an obstacle if the right conditions are met.

So, how many sellers is too many? This will be different for different sellers, but using the seller data in BuyBotPro delivers a clearer picture of what the seller activity is and is likely to be in future.