Routers are necessary components of any modern home. They're the conduit, the lifeblood, of our precious Wi-Fi and internet access. Since a sizable portion of the American workforce is now stuck at home working on their dinky laptops, having a reliable and strong router is just as important as commuting into the office on time.
So it makes sense that routers are hot commodities on Amazon ($AMZN) in both the Electronics and Computers & Accessories categories.
At one point in February, there were only 10 routers in the best-sellers list. Now there are up to 27 on any given day, and the average price of routers has gone up. If you bought a router on March 20th, as compared to the low price point seen on January 31st, you paid 76% more on average. Sorry.
The above chart shows the best ranking routers over the last few months— two models from Google ($GOOG), one from TP-Link Technologies ($PRIVATE:TP-LINK), and one from Netgear Inc. ($NTGR). There are so many different types of routers, with so many different permutations and iterations, it can be impossible to know what quality of router you're really buying. Most Amazon users seem to have settled on these four. That has to count for something.
About the Data:
Thinknum tracks companies using the information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales.