Best Selling isn’t always Best

America's best-selling car isn't what you might think...

I’ve never understood the allure that a “Best Selling” product had on buyers. What does best-selling indicate to the consumer and why do marketers use it so often? Let’s take the SUV for example. The Ford Explorer has been one of America’s best-selling SUV’s for over 10 years now, but until (very) recently, it boasted some of the worst reliability/quality ratings in its category. Yet, Ford and its dealer network still use best-selling as a value proposition in its marketing and advertising and consumers buy into it. They buy into the belief that best-selling equals best-SUV.

I don’t mean to pick on Ford, all automakers use this trick to sell more cars. In fact, it’s not just automakers. Books go on best-seller lists along with video games and vitamins and we use those lists to make decisions on what to buy. Think about this: the book with the highest sales volume suggest that it’s the best book. Buy it, read it. Why would you buy anything less than a best-seller?

This gets to the heart of American marketing and consumerism. Marketers know that people want the best for the cheapest. Best selling doesn’t suggest quality, value or reliability, only accessibility (pricing) to the largest market.

For small businesses and consultants, it’s tempting sometimes to go for the volume. You want more clients, more customer and ultimately more business. However, I tend to think more like Lamborghini: hand build only a few hundred Murciélago’s every year and never build a best-seller.