Wintraits Scan Index

What it is and how to read it

• What it measures. From 0 to 100, how close a listing is to today's best sellers in its category. Each trait that sets them apart adds more the more it separates them from the rest.
• How to read it. The blue band is where the middle half of best sellers falls; the grey one, the rest. If your number falls in the blue band, your listing already looks like the best sellers'.
• What it is not. A probability of sales. It describes what today's best sellers have: add a trait only if it is true of your product.

Your listing falls in one of three zones: the best sellers', the rest's, or in between. The check tells you which one and which traits add the most points in your category.

How it is calculated

1. Weight of each trait.Every listing trait we measure counts, not only the ones we publish. Each one weighs the difference in points between best sellers and the rest: if 70% of best sellers and 40% of the rest have it, it weighs about 30. Among best sellers, what the top ones have counts more: no. 1 weighs twice as much as no. 3 and more than four times as much as no. 20.
2. Clear and doubtful differences.The more likely a difference is to be chance, the less it weighs: a clear one counts almost in full and a doubtful one, almost nothing. What the rest has more often than best sellers does not subtract: we never ask you to remove anything that is true of your product.
3. Traits with a number.For images and title and description length, half the weight is for passing the cut and the other half depends on where your number falls among best sellers: the highest gets all of it; the median, half.
4. Your points.What your listing's traits add up to, divided by the sum of the weights of those we could read, times 100.
5. Your number.Your points against those of the most complete best-seller listing today, which is 100. Only the best reaches 100; the rest fall below.
6. What can't be read doesn't count.If a trait can't be read from your listing (video, if you paste only the text), it neither adds nor subtracts. At least 3 traits must be read; with fewer we give no index.
7. Bands, out of sample.We score every listing in the sample split into two fixed halves: each half with the weights measured in the other, so best sellers aren't inflated by their own data. The band is the middle half of each group (25% to 75%), with the same traits we read from your listing.
8. The verdict.“Best sellers' zone” if you reach their band and pass the rest's, or reach their median; “rest's zone” if you stay within the rest's band, or don't pass its median; “in between” otherwise.
9. Updated every month.Every month we measure each category's best sellers again and recompute the weights, the bands and the 100 with them. Every number carries the date of its data; if more than 45 days go by without an update, we say so.

Full methodology · Scan publication rules

Where best-seller listings stand out the most

Categories sorted by the gap between the best sellers' median and the rest's. With a large gap, top listings have traits that lower ones rarely have. With a small one, they look alike: what sets best sellers apart lies mostly outside the listing.

Bands: middle half of each group (25% to 75%), calculated out of sample. Gap: points between the two medians. Each category has its own traits, so the number is not comparable across categories; the gap is.