How many of each product must you sell for algorithm to pickup and add to popular marketplace?

[Susang6]

I am assuming that one must have sold more than 19 can cooler sleeves for the algorithm to pick up the product and added to the popular can coolers.  I base my assumption on the fact that none of my products were advanced to this category in the marketplace.   

180 views sold  13 can cooler 

69 views sold 19 can cooler

Is my assumption correct?  

Just let me know what my product sales goal would be to be advanced in the marketplace.

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And I understand that POD websites use algorithms to grow their business by showing customers the products based on the stats (views and sales) because the customer is most likely to buy these products.

[CrazyMermaid · Accepted solution]

I am pretty sure that what it takes to rank varies among niches and that you are competing against what other people are selling. This probably changes over time. At least that's what I see in niches where I have several products on the front page of results. It probably isn't just total number, but how fast a product is selling. It probably also helps to have a product that has sales happening at an increasing rate. Selling 19 orders this month is different from selling 19 orders over 6 months. 

I stress that this is just my hunch, based on my view of the world using my sales. There is no way to know what Zazzle's algorithm looks like and it is different from google and all other algorithms. 

So no one can tell you the number you have to sell to rank. If others sell more they will rank ahead. Unless the marking team gives the Editor's Choice category top placement.

[Susang6]

I recall when my product was on the first page of the marketplace.  I had hundreds of sales daily.  It was a ticker tape of sales and it was so much fun.  The sales kept my product in the popular category for a long time. As soon as sales were less my product fell from popular products.  I guess the update to the algorithm is like that.

Anyway, I accepted your reply as the solution because your response was detailed and your explanation made sense. @KeegansCreation  also went into further detail and I learned more from their reply if I could I would give them the accepted solution.

[KeegansCreation]

I have to agree with CrazyMermaid that it is likely to be dynamic rather than a static number that somebody can tell you.

It also depends how a customer arrives at the department page. This was explained by a mod awhile back and I had no idea. Apparently, for SEO purposes, if a customer just drills down to a department from links on the front page or the sidebar, they are shown a very abbreviated version of what is available in that department. This is denoted by a "c" right before the product type in the address bar. But if the customer types in a search term, they get a much fuller spectrum of products. This is denoted by an "s" right before the product type in the address bar. So you could be excluded by the algorithm when the customer drills down from the front page but included if they type something into the search bar.

You can see this in action in the "popular can coolers" link you posted. Not many can coolers. Look up at the address bar. There's a "c". That's the curated version that you may not be included in. Now just hit the "search" magnifier and let it search for popular can coolers. The "c" turns into an "s". Now when you drill down to the slim seltzer style there are far more options.

[CrazyMermaid]

There are also lots of ways for a customer to find your product. So you can't just search one keyword niche. I also think Z rank and all kinds of things count towards placement. I really just keep making products and experimenting with keywords. 

[SwankyStreet]

That looks true.. but still a puzzle.. how to increase traffic on the collections / store.