Sales velocity in ecommerce is the rate at which a product sells, usually expressed as units sold per day or per week over a recent window such as 7, 30, or 90 days. It tells you what is selling right now, which makes it one of the most useful signals for ranking products in a collection.
Velocity vs total sales
Total sales is a lifetime number, so it favors old catalog staples. Velocity is current demand. A product can rank first on total sales while barely selling this month, and a three-week-old product can have the highest velocity in the store while its lifetime total still looks tiny. For collection sorting, velocity usually reflects what shoppers want now, while total sales rewards history.
Which time window should you use?
Short windows (around 7 days) react quickly to trends and promotions but swing with noise (a single bulk order can vault a product to the top). Long windows (90 days) are stable but slow to notice that something stopped selling. Many merchants use 30 days as a middle ground or blend windows. The right choice tracks catalog turnover: fast fashion wants short windows, durable goods can run long ones.
How do you use velocity in merchandising?
Velocity is one of the most direct sorting signals there is: rank collections so what is selling now sits in the first rows. Two cautions apply. First, new products have zero velocity by definition, so a pure velocity sort buries every new arrival; blend in product newness to give them a fair start. Second, high velocity plus low stock means an imminent sellout, so pair velocity with inventory signals rather than promoting something that will be gone tomorrow. Our sales velocity guide goes deeper, and sell-through rate is the natural companion metric when stock depth varies widely across the catalog.
Sales velocity is a built-in Dynasort signal. Install it from the Shopify App Store or see how it works.