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Jungle Scout Opportunity Score

What if you could find out whether the product you were thinking of making or importing would be a boom or a bust? Before you spend hundreds (or thousands) of dollars on sourcing, wouldn’t it be good to know with reasonable certainty that your investment would be a moneymaker?

The Jungle Scout Opportunity Score is like a crystal ball that predicts the success an item will have on the Amazon marketplace. It is an algorithm that compiles sales and product performance data from a group of products and tells you how successful you can expect to be if you supply a similar item.

In particular, the algorithm looks at the following:

• Demand: Number of units sold
• Competition: How many sellers are offering the same type of item and how many reviews the products have received
• Quality: How well the sellers are doing at presenting their offering

For each product category, Jungle Scout will provide a score ranging from 1 to 10. The higher the score, the higher your chance for success.

How to Interpret the Opportunity Score

While a score of 1 might be an obvious sign to steer clear, what does an Opportunity Score of 4 mean? There’s a gray area in the middle, so Jungle Scout gives some guidelines about how to interpret the scores.

1-3: A score of 3 or below indicates that the opportunity is virtually non-existent. Either there is not enough demand for selling this item to be worth your while, or the competition is too high. You’ll be able to decipher the exact reason by looking at the rest of the data fields.

Sometimes you’ll see low scores like this when Amazon is the main supplier of a brand or item. As an FBA seller, competing directly against Amazon is almost always a losing battle, so be on the lookout for this red flag.

4-5: A score of 4 to 5 indicates the product has potential, but it’s not a definitive yes or no. To get a better idea, try using alternate search terms for the same category to see if the score changes. We also recommend repeating the search daily, weekly, or monthly to see if the score varies based on seasonal fluctuations in demand.

6-10: A score in this range is favorable, but as you can imagine, there’s a vast difference between a 6 and a 10. Opportunity Scores of 10 are rare, so if you see a 9 or 10, you could have a hit on your hands.

Scores of 6, 7, and 8 are also promising, but we would still suggest doing some more digging. We recommend being extra cautious with an Opportunity Score of 6 because it doesn’t show a lot of strength. We do suggest adding any niche with a score ranging from 6 to 10 to your Product Tracker and watching the rating to see if it goes up or down over the next 30 days.

How to Use the Opportunity Score Feature in Jungle Scout

Jungle Scout’s interface is intuitive and easy to use, but we’ll walk you through the process of finding the Opportunity Score so you don’t have to try to figure it out on your own.

The Opportunity Score can be found in the Jungle Scout Chrome extension as well as in the Niche Hunter, which is part of Jungle Scout’s web application.We’ll explain how to find the Opportunity Score in both places.

How to Find the Jungle Scout Opportunity Score in the Chrome Extension

1. Enter a product type in the Amazon search bar. Examples could include throw pillows, iPhone cases, dog beds, etc.
2. Open the Jungle Scout Chrome extension. It will immediately begin populating data about the niche.
3. You’ll see an Opportunity Score along with other valuable data, including average monthly sales, sales rank, price, number of reviews, whether the item is fulfilled by Amazon or the merchant, and more.
4. You can customize your view to show the data you’re most interested in seeing. There is a menu section at the top left of the extension’s window that will allow you to select the columns that are displayed on your screen. You can view the brand, price, sales estimates, listing quality scores, product dimensions and weight, the number of sellers, a net profit calculator, the seller type, and more.

How to Find the Jungle Scout Opportunity Score in the Web Application

1. Open Jungle Scout’s Niche Hunter.
2. Select the appropriate filters to ensure that only product categories with high Opportunity Scores are shown. You can choose the range of Opportunity Scores you’d like to see, and you can also filter your results based on sales volume, competition, listing quality, price, and more.
3. A list of niches will appear on your screen, and you can open each one individually to see more details, including pictures of the products, ASINs, and estimated monthly revenue. There is also the option to customize your view and see even more fields of data if you’d like.
4. You will also be able to see niche data, including the opportunity score.
5. We recommend adding all of the products from the niche you’re evaluating into the Product Tracker so that you can monitor their performance over time and have even more actionable data to help you make a decision.

Using the Chrome Extension and the Web Application Together

There’s a reason that Jungle Scout bundles the Chrome extension and the web application for a discount. While each tool is powerful on its own, they work even better when you use both of them together.

To speed up the process of finding products with high Opportunity Scores, we recommend starting with the Niche Hunter in the web app. Use the filters to get a list of niches that have Opportunity Scores that meet your requirements. Then go to Amazon and use the Chrome extension to get more details directly in the Amazon interface.

The reason we recommend this method is that if you use the Chrome extension by itself, you will have to check each niche manually to find out the Opportunity Score. With the Niche Hunter, you’ll have a ready-made list of products that have an Opportunity Score that is at or above your threshold.

What the Opportunity Score Won’t Tell You

Jungle Scout’s Opportunity Score provides a quick and data-rich estimate of your success, but as an AI-driven algorithm, it’s not going to tell you everything. You still need to evaluate your individual situation and business model to gauge whether an item or niche will be profitable.

Here are some things you won’t learn from the Opportunity Score:

Your profit margin – Only you know what your product costs are and how much it will cost you to ship your items to Amazon (assuming you are selling via FBA). However, you can use the Jungle Scout web application to enter your costs, and you’ll get an estimation of what your overall profit per unit will be.

Patents, restricted products, gated categories– Sellers often learn the hard way that they can’t move a particular item. Before importing or sourcing a product, make sure you’re able to sell it. Amazon restricts sellers from offering products that can pose a risk to its reputation as well as those that the manufacturer is trying to protect from competition.

You can request approval for these restricted categories:

• Automotive
• Collectibles
• Fine art and jewelry (including watches)
• Grocery and gourmet food
• Major appliances
• Video, DVD, Blu-Ray

Some brands are also restricted, including MAC Cosmetics, Adidas, Apple, Levi’s, and Bose, but you can request approval from the manufacturer to sell these brands on Amazon.

Before you source items from protected categories, make sure you get approval to sell them first. The Opportunity Score doesn’t specify whether the category is restricted, so this is something you’ll have to verify outside of the extension.

Conclusion

The Opportunity Score is a helpful piece of knowledge for new and experienced entrepreneurs alike. If you’re a new or aspiring Amazon seller, this data will give you some context and provide you with direction on where to begin your journey.

If you’re already a pro, then use the Opportunity Score to test your assumptions or find new products in a niche that is already profitable for you.