Score reasoning
The Score Reasoning panel sits next to the AI brief on the product detail page. It’s a focused explanation of why the SellerScore is what it is — which sub-scores drove the composite up, which dragged it down, and how confident Claude is in the result.
This is different from the AI brief in tone:
- The AI brief is product-strategy advice (“here’s how to position this”).
- The score reasoning is score-mechanics explanation (“here’s why the composite is 72”).
In this guide:
- What the reasoning includes
- How it’s generated
- When it’s most useful
- The cache
What the reasoning includes
A typical reasoning paragraph covers:
- The headline. “This product scored 72 — driven primarily by strong demand (84) and acceptable margin (68), held back by elevated competition (54) and a flat trend.”
- The drivers. Which sub-scores moved the composite most.
- The drags. Which sub-scores held it back.
- Confidence. “Data quality is high — only the cross-platform sub-score is a placeholder, which doesn’t materially change the composite.”
- What to verify. “Worth verifying the COGS estimate before committing — your actual supplier price could move margin from 68 to 80 or to 50.”
It’s structured for scanning — you can pick out the drivers, drags, and confidence in 15 seconds.
How it’s generated
The reasoning generator gets:
- All six sub-scores and the weights used.
- The data-quality flags and warnings.
- The composite SellerScore.
- A system prompt asking for a structured “drivers / drags / confidence / verify” explanation.
Claude returns a short paragraph. Hilal stores it alongside the search snapshot.
When it’s most useful
When you need to defend a recommendation
You’re presenting research to a partner or client; the reasoning is your defensible answer to “why this product?”
When the SellerScore surprises you
A product you expected to score low scored high (or vice versa). The reasoning tells you which sub-score is the surprise driver — usually that’s where to focus your independent verification.
When data quality is mixed
The reasoning makes the data-quality story concrete. Instead of “yellow badge,” you see “demand fell back to BSR + Trends because SFR wasn’t available; that adds ±10 to the demand score’s confidence interval.” That’s actionable.
When it’s less useful
- For products with clean, dominant signals. A 90 SellerScore with all-green sub-scores doesn’t need much reasoning.
- For very low-scored products. A 25 SellerScore is usually obvious from the chip strip — no reasoning needed.
The cache
Like the AI brief, score reasoning is cached. Same 48-hour cache, same (asin, marketplace) key, same shared-across-users economics. Most popular products have reasoning already cached; niche products get reasoning on-demand (a few seconds).
Regenerating
Score reasoning regenerates whenever the product is re-searched (new search → new reasoning). If you specifically want fresh reasoning without re-searching, top-right of the reasoning panel: Regenerate (small AI call, not a search credit).