What is momentum?
Momentum is a measure of whether a product’s demand is accelerating, steady or fading relative to its own recent baseline — not relative to the catalogue average. A product going from five to ten views an hour has momentum, even though ten is a small number in absolute terms.
How is momentum measured?
Recent activity is compared against the product’s own baseline across views, add-to-bags and purchases, with a recent window set against a longer baseline window for each. The result is expressed as a ratio: a 2× momentum means the product is running at twice its normal rate.
Why baseline-relative instead of absolute?
Absolute volume would always favour the products that are already biggest and would miss genuinely emerging demand. A niche product going from five to ten views an hour is truly surging; a steady best-seller holding at a hundred views an hour has high attention but no momentum. Measuring against each product’s own baseline is what lets “trending” mean something for the long tail, not just the head.
What does momentum drive?
Momentum produces the underlying signal behind trending messaging, and a sharp jump in momentum can raise a demand spike event in the live feed.