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Track Amazon Best Sellers ranks with Python

Amazon Best Sellers lists change through the day, and a product entering the top 100 of a category is an early signal for sellers and brand managers. Amazon shows only the current list.

arcadium/amazon-products reads ranked lists (Best Sellers, New Releases, Movers & Shakers) per category. Saving one snapshot a day gives you the history Amazon does not keep.

Cost of this example on the Apify Free plan: 100 × $0.00531 = $0.531 ($0.288 on the Apify Gold plan and higher), plus $0.001 per GB of memory when the run starts.

Open Amazon Product & Best Sellers Scraper on the Apify StoreActor overview

What you need

Step 1: Run it in the Apify Store (no code)

  1. Open arcadium/amazon-products on the Apify Store and sign in (a free Apify account works).
  2. Clear Search terms and enter the category path in Categories (Best Sellers, New Releases, Movers & Shakers), for example kitchen.
  3. Keep Ranked lists on Best Sellers and set Max ranks per list to 100.
  4. Set Amazon store to US (or another store).
  5. Optional: set a maximum cost per run in the run options as a hard cap.
  6. Click Start. Rows appear in the Output tab; export them as JSON, CSV or Excel.

The same input as JSON (paste it in the JSON tab of the input form):

{
  "categories": [
    "kitchen"
  ],
  "listTypes": [
    "bestsellers"
  ],
  "maxResultsPerList": 100,
  "marketplace": "US"
}

Step 2: Call it over the Apify API

One HTTP call runs the actor and returns its rows. It suits runs up to about five minutes; for longer runs start the run asynchronously and read the dataset when it finishes.

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/arcadium~amazon-products/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"categories":["kitchen"],"listTypes":["bestsellers"],"maxResultsPerList":100,"marketplace":"US"}'

Step 3: Run it from Python

With apify-client 3.x, call() returns a Run object: read the dataset id as run.default_dataset_id (older examples use run["defaultDatasetId"], which no longer works).

# pip install "apify-client>=3"
import csv, datetime, glob, os

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient(os.environ["APIFY_TOKEN"])
run = client.actor("arcadium/amazon-products").call(run_input={
    "categories": ["kitchen"], "listTypes": ["bestsellers"],
    "maxResultsPerList": 100, "marketplace": "US",
})
rows = [r for r in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items()  # apify-client 3.x
        if r.get("rowType") == "bestseller"]

today = datetime.date.today().isoformat()
keys = ["rank", "asin", "title", "price", "rating", "ratingCount", "url"]
previous = sorted(glob.glob("bestsellers-kitchen-*.csv"))
with open(f"bestsellers-kitchen-{today}.csv", "w", newline="") as f:
    w = csv.DictWriter(f, fieldnames=keys, extrasaction="ignore")
    w.writeheader()
    w.writerows(rows)

if previous:
    with open(previous[-1]) as f:
        before = {r["asin"]: int(r["rank"]) for r in csv.DictReader(f)}
    for r in rows:
        if r["asin"] not in before:
            print("new in top 100:", r["rank"], r["asin"], r["title"][:70])

Step 4: Run it from JavaScript

// npm install apify-client
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('arcadium/amazon-products').call({
  "categories": [
    "kitchen"
  ],
  "listTypes": [
    "bestsellers"
  ],
  "maxResultsPerList": 100,
  "marketplace": "US"
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Step 5: Ask an AI assistant (MCP)

Apify’s hosted MCP server turns the actor into one tool. Add it to Claude, Cursor, VS Code or any MCP client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=arcadium/amazon-products",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer <APIFY_TOKEN>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Then ask, for example:

Use arcadium/amazon-products to read the top 50 Amazon.com Best Sellers in the kitchen category. Group them by product type and give the price range of each group.

More clients and the local setup on the MCP page.

Run it every day

Run the script from cron, or schedule the input as an Apify task and fetch its last run with GET https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/arcadium~amazon-products/runs/last/dataset/items?status=SUCCEEDED. For the fastest movers, add movers-and-shakers to Ranked lists: those rows carry rankChangePercent.

Output fields

Every row has a rowType; filter on it first. Failed inputs come back as free rows with a code and message. The fields this tutorial uses, from the actor’s dataset schema:

FieldWhat it holds
rowTypeKind of row. Filter on this first. 'searchResult': one search result card (charged as search-result). 'bestseller': one entry of a Best Sellers, New Releases, Movers & Shakers, Most Wished For or Gift Ideas list (charged as bestseller). 'product': one light product row with Buy Box and offers (charged as product). 'error': an input that gave no data; see code and message (free).
listTypeList rows: bestsellers, new-releases, movers-and-shakers, most-wished-for or most-gifted.
categoryList rows: category path as in the list URL, e.g. 'electronics/172541'; empty for the all-departments list.
rankList rows: rank in the list (1 = top).
asinAmazon product id (10 letters and digits), e.g. B0DCH8VDXF.
titleProduct title as the store shows it. Null on rank-only list entries (detailsComplete false).
priceSearch and list rows: price shown on the card, as a number in the store's currency (e.g. 19.99). Null when the card shows no price (unavailable, variants only).
ratingAverage star rating, 0 to 5, e.g. 4.5. Null when the product has no ratings.
ratingCountNumber of ratings (global ratings on product rows).
urlCanonical product link https://www.amazon.<store>/dp/<ASIN>.

All fields: Amazon Product & Best Sellers Scraper guide.

Cost per run

Pay per event: you pay for the rows delivered, at the actor’s live Apify price on 2026-11-01. Error, coverage and summary rows are free.

WhatRowsPrice per row (Free plan)Subtotal
Best Sellers row: 1 category, top 100100$0.00531$0.531

Cost of this example on the Apify Free plan: 100 × $0.00531 = $0.531 ($0.288 on the Apify Gold plan and higher), plus $0.001 per GB of memory when the run starts. Higher Apify plans pay less per row. The Store page always has the current price.

Limitations

Links