Selling products on Amazon and succeeding in this venture requires you to go for product categories and items that empty your inventory in no time. In order to make sales, you should always be careful when choosing products to sell. This is why knowing how to find products to sell on Amazon is a crucial skill.
Amazon has over 400 million products. As a result, beginners and experienced sellers might find it a bit difficult to flourish in this market and also to decide the best niche market to venture into.
Fortunately, this guide will provide you with Amazon product research tips and guide you on selecting the right Amazon product to sell.
Is it Profitable to Sell on Amazon?
First and foremost, if you're still undecided about becoming an Amazon seller and expanding your ecommerce product, here are the facts. In 2021, Amazon made over $469 billion in revenue, with third-party merchants accounting for more than half of these sales.
Whether you're a newbie to online retail or a well-established company looking to expand its portfolio by selling products on Amazon, selling your products on Amazon is definitely profitable.
However, it's crucial to ensure that your market analysis and product research are data-driven. If you don't dig deep enough into your market research or examine a product's long-term value (LTV), you could end up with a large amount of obsolete or worthless stock.
Features of Profitable Products to Sell on Amazon
1. High Demand
The demand for a product is crucial when finding a product to sell on Amazon. Therefore, find products with high demand, ideally, at least 300 monthly sales, which equate to ten sales every day, which is a reasonable standard.
2. Low Seasonality
Look for products that can be sold all year and not only during some seasons. You can use a Google Trend report to spot seasonal sales surges that you should avoid. On the other hand, products that people need on a daily really do well on Amazon.
3. Low Competition
You want to look for things that aren't being sold by a bunch of other people. This will make climbing to the top of the rankings much easier.
4. Retail Price of Between $10 – $70
You want to sell things that aren't so cheap that you can't make a profit off of them but also aren't so expensive that would make customers would flee. This pricing range ($10 – $70) is said to be the best.
If you charge more than $70, your conversion rate (the ratio of individuals who view your product and decide to buy it) decreases.
5. Fewer reviews
Amazon's search algorithm heavily relies on customer feedback. It will be difficult to stand out if the top items in a niche all have thousands of reviews. Look for niches with a top seller review count of less than 200.
6. Easy to Manufacture
When it comes to manufacturing, you don't want to have any issues with quality control. If it is at all possible, stay away from glass, electronics, and extremely delicate products.
7. Smaller Items
Larger items tend to cost more to transport. They also take up more shelf space which means you'll be charged extra for storage. So, if you're trying to reduce the storage and shipping costs, consider selling smaller products. Smaller items are also much easier to transport by air and won't be very expensive.
How to Find Products to Sell on Amazon
1. Demand and Competition Test
When finding products to sell on Amazon, you need to know how many of them can be sold in a month or year. Therefore, you should find a product with sales spread throughout a good number of sellers. In addition, the product should have sufficient demand, where top sellers can sell an average of 10 units per day.
a). Trends
When selling on Amazon, researching trending subjects can help you narrow down your options to the things that will sell quickly. There are a bunch of methods one can use to find the trends in the market.
i). Google Trends
Google Trends is a common product research technique that you can use to narrow down the best Amazon products to sell. Checking the most recent Google Trends will give you a product idea of the best-selling products and top sellers in a variety of product categories. In addition, it highlights the most popular products, and noting these will help you pick a product that sells.
ii). Amazon Trend Report
Amazon provides a page that lists all of the current trending products on their site. This is an excellent resource for vendors who want to see what's popular right now.
Go to the Amazon trend report page, scroll to the bottom to find the trending products for a specific product category then you can make a list of items that match your needs.
At this time of writing, sports gear and fitness products are trending on Amazon, so that is what is primarily displayed on the site. However, this might change throughout the year, and just like the best sellers list, the trend report is based on recent activity.
iii). Pinterest
This is a social media platform that allows users to pin images that they like, and sometimes they can be viewed by everyone. So, if you search for a product category or a product you're interested in, click on them and find the statistics of the item.
Ideally, the more pins you can find on an item, the more it is trending online. This is also one of the ways of getting private label product ideas to sell online. Furthermore, if you find something that is trending on Pinterest and not available on Amazon, it could be a great opportunity to venture in.
b). Reviews
If you have identified a product category or have a selection of products, take a close look at reviews for some additional insight. Consider the number of reviews first. A product with hundreds or thousands of existing reviews is typically indicative of an over-saturated market, whereas one with none can indicate a lack of demand.
Amazon product reviews could also disclose a great deal of information on market gaps, with many customers going into great depth about a product's advantages and disadvantages, as well as where it falls short. Make the most of this free information about your target customer's pain points, learn from other vendors' mistakes, and strive to provide a product that outperforms the competition.
2. Amazon's Best Selling Products
Amazon's Best Sellers page also offers sellers a multitude of consumer-based data to help them make informed decisions about what to sell on Amazon. Take some time to look through the Best Sellers section to discover a detailed list of products ranked from one to one hundred.
Best Sellers lists are based purely on sales volume, so you can see what people are buying the most in broad categories as well as more narrow sub-categories and niches.
You can take your product research even further by using Amazon's proprietary Best Sellers Rank (BSR) algorithm. So, to help the sellers know where a product ranks in terms of sales, every product is given a value depending on the volume of products in that category. While BSR isn't a perfect estimator of your product's sales potential, it's a good place to start.
This is especially true when estimating how many sales you're likely to earn every day and deciding whether it's a strong choice to add.
3. Keyword Research
Assessing which keywords generate the most searches online is one of the quickest ways to figure out what customers want. But, first, you need to do comprehensive keyword research taking into account both Google and Amazon's search volumes. There are several ways to do this.
a). Amazon
You can do some keyword research on Amazon simply by typing a product name into the search bar. You will see a list of keyword variations that customers are likely to use to find that product – all ranked by the search volume.
b). Jungle Scout
Jungle Scout is an all-in-one platform that makes it easy to find products to sell on Amazon. It features an opportunity find that helps people get an understanding of the search volume for specific products.
You also get to see the emerging sales opportunities as well as the level of competition available for a variety of niches. Fortunately, there is also a Google Chrome extension that allows you to browse different profitable products to sell online, the nature of the competition and search volume.
c). Ahrefs
Ahrefs is another popular tool for keyword research, with SEO professionals and agencies all around the world using it to get relevant keyword targeting opportunities and analyze competition domains.
You may customize your keyword searches to assess shopping results uncover keyword prospects with relatively low competition but strong demand.
Find Low Competition Keywords
To be able to drive traffic to the product you're selling on Amazon, consider getting low competition keywords. However, you should first identify the low competition keywords are before using them to find products to sell on Amazon. Fortunately, tools like Ahrefs and Google Keyword Planner can help you do that.
4. Find Private Label Products to Sell on Amazon.
One of the best parts of combining private label selling and Amazon FBA is that you can deal with profitable products, put your own perspective on them, and then let Amazon handle the rest.
Reinventing the wheel and creating your own product is a bad idea. However, you may take a well-selling product with private labels and improve it before reintroducing it to the market. Once you start selling private label products, you want to be able to get to the existing demand immediately before competing against the other sellers.
5. Use Retail Arbitrage to Source Amazon Products.
For retail arbitrage, you buy substantially discounted retail products and resale them on Amazon. It may appear straightforward, but executing it correctly and profitably requires some effort. When it comes to finding discounted items in local stores and connecting them to big sellers on Amazon, retail arbitrage merchants are professionals.
The key is to know what's selling well and for how much. However, you should also be aware of the expense of selling that item on Amazon. If you're not careful, Amazon seller fees can eat up to 15% of your selling price, and shipping costs can eat into your profit margins.
Fortunately, there are software and tools available to assist you in finding profitable goods. For example, the retail arbitrage seller's secret weapon is using Amazon pricing applications that allow you to scan UPC codes and compare them to Amazon product listings.
These applications provide lots of data to help you price your products, like the average selling price, shipping expenses, storage fees, and profits of a private label product.
6. Find Direct-Source Products on Amazon.
Direct sourcing is one of the cost-effective methods on how to find products to sell on Amazon. It allows you to buy things directly from the producer. This way, you can buy things that a company already makes and are much less expensive than wholesale prices.
You can also get custom goods or branded items to ensure you have product ideas that stand out from the competition. You can choose to work with the same seller if you like their product line and services. Order large quantities to save money or collaborate with them to make your own products.
Direct sourcing, like wholesale product sourcing, involves keeping a close check on product costs, inventory levels, and reorder amounts. Therefore, most direct-source sellers need inventory management software that connects with their Amazon Seller and FBA accounts, as well as any back-end facilities.
Using direct-source suppliers to find things to sell on Amazon has several advantages, including higher profitability and the ability to create really unique products. The main disadvantages are the greater upfront costs associated with larger orders and the possibility for significant losses if products do not sell.
7. Check Out Other Marketplaces
Amazon is not the only eCommerce business, and there is plenty of other online business that people go shopping from. Some are wholesale suppliers, while others only focus on the retail market. Here are some you should watch out for.
a). See What eBay Products Sell
Another great way you can find the best products on your Amazon product reach is to watch out for what is selling on eBay. Fortunately, you can use Watchcount.com to find the best-selling products on eBay.
WatchCount allows you to view the most popular eBay items in real-time. It features reports of votes by items when items are added to their watch list. It shows the number of watchers, the ranking, and unique search abilities. You can narrow down the list of potential items to sell and ensure you're targeting the most popular things on Amazon.
b). Find White Label Products on Alibaba
If you're looking to sell white label products, you should first find the types of white label products. Then, once you find your product ideas, you can search them on Alibaba. This way, you can find white label products that sell on Amazon.
8. Avoid Big Brands
Avoid categories that cater to huge brands when you're narrowing in on a certain area of products for selling on Amazon. If you're entering the market to compete against huge companies selling on Amazon, you're wasting resources.
For small and new businesses, you want to compete only with other small businesses selling items similar to yours. As a result, you get a better chance of standing out from the competitors and selling products faster.
9. Consider Selling Custom Print-on-Demand Products on Amazon
POD (Print-On-Demand) products are drop-ship items that are custom manufactured when a consumer places an order. From acquiring and keeping all accessible supplies to printing and distributing items as they're ordered, POD suppliers do it all for you.
This is a newer method of finding profitable things to sell on Amazon. It provides an exciting opportunity to establish your own brand, even on a low budget. All POD sellers do is come up with attractive designs and catchy slogans then promote them to Amazon-approved POS dealers.
For POD Amazon product sourcing, you'll need an Amazon-approved POD seller account as well as artwork that may be printed on tee shirts, mugs, pillows, etc.
10. Reverse Engineer Top Industry Amazon Affiliate Publishers
Figure out where and how the big players and hot sellers are driving traffic on Amazon. This helps focus your efforts on things that are likely to sell. Big companies have large marketing and analytics teams in place, and so, to prevent wasting time on things that don't sell, make the most from their research. Here are the steps you should follow;
- Determine the major publishers in your preferred industry
- Enter their URLs into Ahrefs site explorer.
- Discover how many links they are sending to Amazon by sorting the related domains.
- Investigate the links further by checking out the anchor text.
You should also think about what seasons a specific product sells best. Avoid putting too much effort into things that only sell at certain times of the year.
Other Tips on Finding Products to Sell on Amazon
- Keep an open mind
- Don't focus on what you like but consider what you're passionate about.
- Consider selling custom print-on-demand products on Amazon.
- Find wholesale products to sell on Amazon.
- Sell Handmade Goods on Amazon. Many Amazon Handmade sellers are online sellers looking to expand their income by tapping into Amazon's vast audience.
- Beware of shipping fees and product costs.
- Source items that are small, light, and durable.
Best Products to Sell on Amazon
Here are some of the best selling product categories on Amazon;
- Apparel and Accessories
- Cosmetics
- Electronics
- Hair Care
- Health
- Home and Garden
- Home Decor
- Kids and Toys
- Nutrition
- Pet products
- Skin Care
- Supplements
How Does a Beginner Start Selling Items On Amazon?
Once you find the best product ideas from the product research, you did above, you need to set up an Amazon seller account to get started. Setting up this account is simple, and new sellers can follow the steps below;
- Go to the Amazon services page
- Click on Sign up
- Choose whether you want to join as a professional or as an individual. For professionals, you need to pay $39.99 per month as well as other selling fees. However, Amazon charges $0.99 per sale for individuals in the Amazon marketplace.
- Fill in the information required, and once your account has been validated, you can add your products to start selling.
When it comes to becoming Amazon sellers, the most tedious part is not signing up for an Amazon seller account. The difficult part is conducting product research and coming up with product ideas that have high demand and will do well in Amazon Business.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on Selling Products on Amazon
1. Can I dropship on Amazon?
Yes and no. While Amazon allows drop shipping, there are many rules that come with this type of selling. Some of these rules may include;
- Take responsibility for all customer returns
- Follow all the Amazon seller terms
- Identify yourself as the seller on all product packaging
- Don't mention any third-party shippers on the packaging.
If you want to delegate lots of Amazon sellers' responsibilities to another person, sign up for Amazon FBA. The Amazon FBA business model allows you to keep your products at Amazon fulfillment centers, where the Amazon team will select, pack, and ship the product to customers.
2. Does Amazon give you products to sell?
Amazon won't provide you with items for you. Instead, they provide fulfillment by Amazon program where you need to send the products to one of the Amazon fulfillment centers. Customers will buy the products from you, but Amazon will ship them.
3. What is the most frequently bought item on Amazon?
Amazon has lots of trending items some of which may vary depending on the season. Currently, here are some of the best selling items and product categories on Amazon;
- Electronics
- Gift cards
- Books
- Home and Kitchen
- Camera and Photography
- Video Games
- Beauty and Personal Care
