Why Do Experienced Sellers Care About Date First Available?

The Date First Available marks the beginning of a product's lifecycle. For a newly emerging niche (lowest-level category), this date represents the birth of that niche. An industry typically goes through four stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. By analyzing "time + BSR/price/sales," sellers can infer these stages.

For a product, understanding its Date First Available, how long it took to become a bestseller, and the time span from being a bestseller to clearing inventory and exiting the market is invaluable. This information helps in product development, stocking plans, and marketing strategies.

If you analyze a category's product samples, such as the top 100 in BSR or the top 100 in monthly sales, and look at the distribution of their Date First Available, you can identify when most leading products entered the market (the rapid growth phase). You can also determine how long it took them to dominate the category from their launch.

The distribution range of these dates reflects the lifecycle of the industry. For instance:

• If most products concentrate within three years, it indicates the category has a short lifecycle, with upgrades every three years (older products are pushed out).
• If products from 10 years ago are still in the top 100 BSR, it suggests the category has a long lifecycle.

Digging Deeper:

If you examine the launch order of a product's variations and observe the sales performance of new models (e.g., referencing the monthly growth in reviews for variants), you can gain insights into the seller's strategies. This information can be used to optimize your supply chain.

How Does SellerSprite Define Date First Available?

Given the competitive intelligence provided by the Date First Available, many sellers choose to hide it. SellerSprite determines the Date First Available by gathering:

1. The first review date for the listing (excluding variants).
2. The first detection date by Keepa (a widely recognized Amazon tracking tool).
3. The first BSR detection by Keepa.
4. The first price detection by Keepa.

Even if the listing has a "Date First Available," SellerSprite compares it with the above four data points and selects the earliest date.