A "Bestsellers" collection is one of the most clicked sections of any retail store. The problem for a new bookstore owner is obvious: you have no sales data. You have not sold anything yet, so technically nothing has "best-sold."
The solution is to recognize that "Bestsellers" on a new store does not need to mean your best sellers. It means books that are well-validated and prominently placed. Here are the strategies to build that collection credibly.
Strategy 1: Use External Bestseller Lists as Your Source
The most straightforward approach: curate from established bestseller rankings.
- New York Times Bestsellers - filter to your niche and pull relevant titles
- Amazon Best Sellers - browse your niche category and identify the top 10-20
- Publishers Weekly Bestseller List - especially useful for niche genre fiction
- Goodreads Choice Awards - excellent for any fiction niche, voted by real readers
When you build your collection this way, you can honestly call it "Bestselling [Your Niche] Books" or "Top Picks in [Niche]" - and the curation is legitimate.
Strategy 2: Rename It to Something More Accurate and Equally Compelling
"Bestsellers" is a convenient label, but not the only one that drives clicks. Consider these alternatives:
- "Our Picks" - confident and curatorial
- "Most Loved" - draws on broader social proof (Goodreads ratings, review counts)
- "Start Here" - functions as a recommendation for new visitors
- "Staff Picks" - a classic bookstore format that implies curation, not sales rank
"Staff Picks" is particularly trusted by book buyers and requires no justification beyond your genuine recommendation.
Strategy 3: BooksCloud's Bestseller Percentile Filter
When adding books individually through BooksCloud's search, you can filter by bestseller percentile - ranking books within a category by how well they sell across the distribution network. Use this to identify top-performing titles in your niche and feature them as your "bestsellers" collection. This gives you data-backed selection, even if it is market-level rather than store-specific data.
Strategy 4: Build Toward Real Data Fast
Once your store is live, watch which products get the most clicks, add-to-cart events, and purchases - even if absolute numbers are small. After 30 days, reorganize your featured collection based on that early signal. Shopify's built-in analytics show product views and sales. Use that to gradually transition your collection from "curated based on external data" to "ranked by actual performance."
One Labeling Note
If you name a collection "Bestsellers" and it contains externally-sourced bestselling titles (NYT, Amazon), this is accurate and entirely acceptable. The only thing to avoid is implying the titles are bestselling in your store specifically when you have no data to support that. The distinction matters for maintaining trust with repeat customers.