Introducing the Market Demand Scorer
Introducing the Market Demand Scorer
Available from v0.1.53
The Market Demand Scorer is a new scoring sub-module that distils what the review data is actually telling you about a product's demand into a single, actionable number — plus a written explanation of how that number was reached.
The Problem It Solves
Raw review counts and star averages are noisy signals in isolation. A product with 500 reviews from three years ago may look more attractive than one with 40 reviews from last month — even though the latter is clearly gaining momentum now. Equally, a high star average built on a handful of reviews is far less reliable than a modestly-rated product with hundreds of data points behind it.
The Market Demand Scorer normalises and combines these signals so that the ranked dashboard reflects genuine, current demand rather than historical volume alone.
How the Score Is Calculated
The scorer combines four signals into a single 1–10 score:
| Signal | What it measures | Scaling |
|---|---|---|
| Review volume | Total number of reviews scraped for the product | Logarithmic — prevents a handful of reviews from scoring as zero demand |
| Review recency | How recently reviews were posted | Decay-weighted — reviews in the last 90 days carry more weight than reviews older than 12 months |
| Average star rating | Mean star rating across all reviews | Linear contribution to composite |
| Sentiment ratio | Positive reviews ÷ total reviews (derived from sentiment analysis) | Linear contribution to composite |
Logarithmic Volume Scaling
Applying a log scale to review volume means the difference between 0 and 10 reviews is treated as more significant than the difference between 200 and 210 reviews — which better matches real-world intuition about early traction versus established products.
Recency Weighting
Recent reviews are a stronger signal of active market interest. The scorer applies a decay function so that the most recent 90 days are weighted most heavily, with influence tapering off for older reviews. A product that was popular two years ago but has gone quiet will score lower than a newer product picking up momentum.
Written Explanation
Every product dossier now includes a plain-English explanation stored alongside the numeric score. This tells you why a product received its demand rating — for example, whether the score was boosted by recent review activity, held back by a poor sentiment ratio, or limited by low review volume despite strong ratings.
This explanation is visible in the product drill-down view and is ready to be copied directly into a dossier or briefing.
Where It Appears
- Ranked dashboard — the market demand score is one of the inputs to the composite opportunity score used to sort all discovered products.
- Product dossier drill-down — the full score breakdown and written explanation are displayed in the demand section of each product's dossier.
Relationship to Other Scores
The market demand score is one of four scored dimensions in the product dossier:
- Replicability — how easy is this to build with our stack?
- Market demand (this scorer) — is there evidence that people want this?
- Revenue potential — what pricing tier and market size does this sit in?
- Competitive gaps — what do negative reviews reveal about unmet needs?
All four feed into the composite opportunity score used to rank products on the dashboard.