Most popular.

is that 'Most Viewed' or 'Most Sold'?

[badass101]

If I asked you to sort your products by 'Most Popular', would you sort them by the most views on the product page, or the most sales in the basket?

[CernyM]

Amazon does it by sales, and I would probably go that route as well.

[Morgenhund]

Both--first, by sales, then, by views: "...order by sales desc, views desc".

Otherwise, if products sales are equivalent, you'll have flipping records in your top list (at least using MySQL).

[topr8]

i put in "most popular" the things I most WANT to sell!

[quiet_man]

i put in "most popular" the things I most WANT to sell!

Second that. Plus, why would you give competitors a list of your real best selling products - or even most viewed products, assuming that is an indicator of demand - so they can then target those products with price cuts, promotional campaigns or marketing activity?

[badass101]

I can see the reasons behind why you wouldn't want to put your actual bestsellers up, but wouldn't it be a better idea to have the actual *best selling* products listed first in your category listings?
At least then you're pushing items you actually know will sell, above the fold, increasing possible conversion rates.

You can push the products you *want* to sell to the customer via a 'featured' or 'spotlight' product box on that category page.

Thoughts?

[CernyM]

At least then you're pushing items you actually know will sell, above the fold, increasing possible conversion rates.

You can push the products you *want* to sell to the customer via a 'featured' or 'spotlight' product box on that category page.

Thoughts?

Very well put.

On our site, the products on our categories pages are arranged by popularity in terms of sales. We also have a specific category called "best sellers" that lists the top 10 items. On each product page, we show three additional "also recommended" items which are the top selling products bought by customers who have bought the product currently being shown.

If we have products that we "want" to sell, we'll generally push them to the clearance page. (Though, we're phasing the clearance page out and replacing it with a "new arrivals" page to make it easier for returning customers to see what has become available since their last purchase.)

[john82]

I would consider feature of products.

[Wlauzon]

Not possible on all platforms, at least out of the box, but one site I know of uses a mix - that is they weigh 2 factors

70% for most sold
30% for most viewed

highest total score = most popular. You could probably also add a 3rd one in there if you have user or product ratgings.

[moose606]

We do that on our sites, and label it "most popular widgets" based on top sellers by $$.
Works well to drive conversions.