Most Searched Products on Amazon By Category

In the U.S., more than 66% of Americans begin their shopping experience on Amazon. When they have a specific product in mind, this grows to a whopping 74%. Given Amazon’s eCommerce dominance, understanding consumer shopping trends on the platform is invaluable for both brands and retailers alike. To help, we used our eCommerce solution, Shopper Intelligence, to provide insights on the most searched and top-selling products on Amazon, across key categories. We zeroed in on searches and purchases, on-site visits, and eCommerce conversion rates.

What are the top searches on Amazon and best-selling products?

Amazon category rankings

In order to dig into the top searched items on Amazon with a strong intent to buy, we ranked the best-selling products in several key Amazon categories, based on the most unit sales during our year-long timeframe – July 2020 to June 2021.

When it comes to the top-selling categories, Grocery & Gourmet Food and Health & Household categories seem to be two of the most important ones to Americans with 2.8 billion and 1.6 billion units sold in these categories over the past year. Home & Kitchen ranked in third place with 1.5 billion units sold while Electronics ranked fourth with over 1.1 billion units sold. T

However, when sorted by revenue we see a different picture. The categories with bigger ticket items ranked first. Electronics leads the list with $80.1 billion in sales, followed by Home & Kitchen ($61.8 billion), Health & Household ($34.9 billion), and Tools & Home Improvement ($30.8 billion).

Amazon product rankings

Here’s a look at the number one most purchased product for the top Amazon categories with the most units sold. 

Below we deep dive into the top 10 products for four of the top categories on the retail giant’s marketplace, July 2020 through June 2021. To see top-selling brands and keywords, check out our other recent post.

1. Top 10 best-selling Grocery & Gourmet products on Amazon

Produce-related items dominated the Amazon best-seller list over the past year. Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods propelled the popularity of fruits and vegetables.

For a further breakdown of (less healthy) food items per subcategory check out our recent list and analysis of Amazon’s best-selling candy brands.

2. Top 10 best-selling Health & Household products on Amazon

AmazonBasics grabs three spots in the top 10 best-selling Health & Household products. It is joined by fellow white-label toilet paper brand Presto!

Vitamins and natural supplements are also popular in the category. Four of the top products including Goli Nutrition apple cider vinegar vitamins, Nature’s Bounty zinc, and two nutritional drinks, from Premier Protein and Quest Nutrition, took top spots.

To check out recent rankings of the subcategory of cleaning supplies, check out our Top Cleaning Brands article.

3. Top 10 best-selling Home & Kitchen products on Amazon

Amazon and Amazon Basics also make top-sellers in this category, with photo prints and a microfiber sheet set. According to other top rankings in the category, we see that consumers are serious about getting a good night’s rest. Six of the top 10 products related to bedding.

This includes products from Mellanni (a bed sheets maker), LiBa (a health and household store), and SafeRest (a popular mattress protector), which also made our rankings last year.

4. Top 10 best-selling Consumer Electronics products on Amazon

Electronics are one of the best-performing categories on Amazon.com. As we stated in an industry report, consumer electronics such as personal computers, cellphones, and game consoles, are responsible for 10% of Amazon’s total business, making them an important factor behind the company’s consistent growth in recent years.

So far in 2021, Apple, Samsung, and Sandisk products have been dominating the rankings. Apple’s AirPods, in fact, made up three out of the top 10 spots with AirPods-related products. Samsung and Sandisk, each take two with products primarily related to memory cards.

Only one Amazon-owned brand, Amazon Basics, makes the list, showing consumers’ preference for name brands, a pattern that is consistent with Prime Day 2021, showing that consumers spent more on individual products than in the previous year. 

For best-selling electronics in recent months, check out best-selling gadgets and the trends powering them and the State of the Consumer Electronics Industry H1, 2021.

Amazon keywords climbing the ranks

Looking at keywords that audiences were most likely to search for on Amazon.com, in terms of both organic and paid search results, here’s what we found: Over the past year, organic traffic accounts for 88–91% of search clicks, whereas paid search accounted for the rest, hovering around 10%.

When it comes to top-ranking keywords, the work-from-home motif seems to be the reigning theme. Nine of the top 20 product searches relate to working from home. Terms like “desk,” “office chair,” “laptop,” “webcam” and “monitor” take top spots. We also see terms related to personal protective equipment (PPE) like “facemask” and “n95 masks” make the ranking, even as we emerge from the pandemic.

“Yoga mat” and “dumbells” climbed up rankings as consumers took an interest in top fitness brands to get back into shape. “Crocs,” which did not rank among top product searches last year, also climbed up the list, driven by an interest in the shoe and eagerness to buy new clothes and accessories as they emerge from lockdown.

To see more on trending apparel-related search terms try out our Amazon Keyword Generator, or check out the top trending apparel keyword searches article.

Why does access to Amazon’s best sellers matter?

Amazon’s popularity and customer loyalty are attributed to its 44% market share of the U.S. eCommerce market (more than six times the amount of Walmart, their closest eCommerce competitor), as well as it’s over 150 million paid Prime members worldwide who are considered highly loyal and committed to Amazon. According to the mega-retailer, Prime members often spend more time and money browsing amazon.com than other shoppers. If you’re a brand or retailer, it’s not a question of if to sell but how to sell more through data-driven analytics and marketing.

When do people shop the most on Amazon?

Using Shopper Intelligence, we looked at product views and units sold over the past year (July 2020 – June 2021).

As we see above, the correlation between the most searched products on Amazon and unique purchases is unsurprisingly very high. Metrics for these spike during the months of Prime Day, Amazon’s annual shopping event (held in October 2020 and June 2021), and, during the December holiday season. Oct. 13 and June 21, the first days of Prime Day in 2020 and 2021, respectively, are the days with the largest number of purchases for the entire year. During these times, search intent translates to purchase decisions.

Next step: Uncover your own insights

Are you selling products on Amazon or other eCommerce marketplaces? Contact us today to learn more about Shopper Intelligence, our new eCommerce platform that helps retailers and CPG brands optimize their marketplace search strategy and understand shopper behavior on Amazon.

Soon, your products can be among the most searched items on Amazon.

by Emily Hunt

Market Research & eCommerce Specialist

Emily writes about digital retail, CPG, travel, and consumer finance, with a background in business development and marketing.