3 Takeaways from Amazon Pet Supplies Best Sellers

Ahead of the publication of our Amazon FastMovers reports for March 2016, we take a close look at the best sellers on Amazon.com for Pet Supplies, and share a few takeaways about the category’s relative volatility, top brands, and program eligibility.

Pet Supplies FastMovers Stability

Pet Supplies has remained a stable category

Back in October 2015, we looked at the volatility in Pet Supplies—a measure of products’ average tenure among the best sellers. Pet Supplies was ranked the #1 category for having the highest average tenure on the FastMovers list. The average Pet Supplies FastMover stayed on the Pet Supplies FastMovers list for 28 days.

Since then, Pet Supplies FastMovers have been slightly more volatile, but still remain relatively stable. For each month, the average Pet Supplies FastMover stayed on our FastMovers list for at least 20 days, suggesting that brands that earn top positions within the category have a reasonable chance of maintaining their strong foothold.

Source: Profitero

Top Brands in Pet Categories on Amazon.com in March 2016

Source: Profitero

There are several noteworthy observations regarding the leading brands in pet categories:

• Greenies is the leading brand for pet treats categories.
  Greenies accounted for 15 products in Dog Treats and 15 FastMovers in Cat Treats. Also, Greenies FastMovers in Dog Treats, on average, had 4,766 reviews, compared to 1,760 for Dog Treats FastMovers overall. Reviews have a chicken-and-egg dynamic; best sellers tend to get more reviews, and products with more reviews have a higher probability of becoming best sellers. We published more on how brands can get value from ratings and reviews here.
• All top brands showed high average star ratings.
  The top brand in all 4 categories showed an average of at least 4.6 stars for their FastMovers.
• Hill’s Science Diet just had 2 images, lower than top brands in other categories.
  While Hill’s Science Diet had a lower average image count compared to the average Dog Food FastMovers (2 v. 4), Hill’s Science Diet still ranked the #1 brand in Dog Food. Primary product images are critical to products’ discoverability on search result and category pages.

Pet Supplies Program Eligibility (Prime, Subscribe and Save)

Pet food categories are more popular for Prime

Looking at the Program eligibility for the top 100 FastMovers, it is clear that more FastMovers from pet food categories are eligible for Prime than pet treats categories. 94% of Dog Food FastMovers were eligible for Prime and 93% of Cat Food FastMovers were eligible for Prime.

Source: Profitero

Pet treats categories (top 10 FastMovers only) are the most popular for Subscribe and Save

When comparing the top 100 FastMovers in each category, Dog Food still has the highest Subscribe and Save program eligibility.

However, when we look at the Subscribe and Save eligibility within the top 10 FastMovers of each category, pet treats categories had higher eligibility than pet food categories. 90% of the top 10 Cat Treats FastMovers were eligible for Subscribe and Save, compared to just 30% of the top 10 Cat Food FastMovers.

Source: Profitero

In summary:

• Pet Supplies continues to be a stable FastMovers category, with relatively low turnover among the best-selling brands and products.
• For all Pet Supplies categories, top brands have a high average star rating—at least 4.6 out of 5 stars.
• Finally, pet food and pet treats categories showed different program eligibility patterns, with pet food categories overall being more popular for Prime, and the top 10 FastMovers in pet treats categories being more popular for Subscribe and Save.

Check out our monthly FastMovers reports for more insights about Amazon best sellers.