Sudden price increase led to more sales, coincidence or validation?

Hi everyone,

Looking for some experienced input on a pricing situation with one of my Amazon FBA listings.

I won’t mention the product name, but it’s in Kitchen & Dining. I’ve been selling this ASIN for about 1 year now.

Important background:

• For almost the entire year, the highest price I’ve ever sold at was $16.95
• My competitors are generally priced between $16 to $25
• I had my price set at $15.95 up until Jan 5

Timeline:

From Dec 30 to Jan 2, sales were almost dead, despite ads running and getting clicks. Before that, I was doing around 1 to 2 units per day. During those quiet days, ads were active but conversion just wasn’t happening.

On Jan 6, my lower price ended automatically and the listing reverted to $22.95. On the same day, my ad budget $5

Results on Jan 6:

• 47 clicks
• 5 ad orders
• 3 organic orders
• 8 total orders
• CPC around $0.30
• Total sales around $155
• 1 of those was a Business order at $17.95

What’s confusing me:
Conventional advice is to increase price gradually, but in my case the price jumped directly from $15.95 to $22.95 and sales actually increased, even though historically I never sold above $16.95.

Questions for the community:

1. Does this look like real price validation or just a short spike or luck?
2. Would you recommend holding $22.95 for a few days to let data stabilize, or stepping price down and laddering back up?
3. Any risks with keeping a much higher price immediately after such a jump?

Would really appreciate thoughts from sellers who’ve dealt with price elasticity and post-holiday demand shifts.

Thanks.