Today I want to show you how we go about finding products to sell on amazon.
My name is Nick (That’s me above) and i have been a full time Amazon FBA seller for over two years now.
As an amazon seller i’d say my specialist area is private label…
Finding products to sell used to be much easier, nowadays i do things very differently.
This article is going to show you how i now find products to sell on amazon…
I have two favorite methods that i still actively use, i use one more than the other but still!
BUT WAIT… I won’t just help you find any old products…
What You’ll Learn From This Article
With these methods you’ll be able to do the following:
- Find hot selling products without the need for paid software
- Find product opportunities that you can improve on to then dominate the market
As the market becomes more competitive you need to make sure you are taking every advantage available to you.
What To Sell On Amazon FBA
Before we jump into the methods, i thought it would be useful to run through some information about the types of products you could be selling.
This of course is just my opinion based on the experience I’ve had selling on the amazon platform...
** Warning – Please make sure you do your own research before jumping into any product idea **
Think About Product Safety
Sometimes a niche can look incredible, then when you dig a little bit deeper you find out about strict product safety requirements.
It’s not just Amazon you need to worry about…
If you want to sell private label products on amazon, you take on the responsibilities as the manufacturer.
Yes, even if that product is produced in a factory in the far east… You are still classed as the manufacturer…
If you decide to create a brand and sell to the general public you are taking on the responsibilities to make sure its safe for it’s intended use.
If your product doesn’t caring the relevant safety warnings and markings Amazon can close your listing and ban your account at any time…
I’ve written an article covering product packaging in a lot more detail, if you’re interested i’d suggest giving it a read after you’ve finished reading this one… (link below)
Amazon Product Packaging and Product Inserts: The Ultimate Guide
You don’t just have to worry about Amazon shutting down your account, you’ll also have the local authorities to worry about..
Which ever marketplace you decide to sell in you’ll have to ensure your product is certificated in line with their specific requirements.
It is NOT worth running the risk on…
Product safety and compliance is boring but it’s as important as your public liability insurance.
If you don’t have it and something goes wrong… You’re screwed.
If you are in doubt always consult a professional! We do for every product.
Product Size: Bigger Isn’t Always Better
The size and weight of your product will have a direct impact on the associated costs of selling.
Amazon charge a fulfillment fee based on the category, size and weight of your product.
The size and weight of the product will also make a big difference to your freight costs.
The cost of your freight is based on the size and weight of your shipment.
The bigger and heavier the product is… The more you’ll be paying in shipping costs.
This may be pretty basic stuff to some of you but i remember somebody explaining this to me when i was starting out.
A good rule of thumb for you first product is: “Can the product fit inside a shoebox?”
Less cost means less risk…
Anyway, i thought it was important to touch on this before jumping into my amazon product research methods.
Finding Products To Sell On Amazon
I was speaking to a friend of mine a few days ago, he was asking how i find products to sell on amazon fba...
Actually this was what encouraged me to write this article…
It’s much easier to explain in written form.
I like to look for products that are over-performing…
I’m talking about products with low review ratings that are generating a lot of monthly revenue for other third party sellers.
Why?
Because to me this says what’s currently on the market isn’t very good and i have the chance to improve on these products.
I also like to look at sellers that have poor product listings…
These product listings are of interest to me because i know that i can improve on them very quickly.
Your amazon product images should be considered as prime real estate…
I have an exact formula i follow for all of my amazon listings, you can watch a video on this below.
If you want to build a successful business you don’t need to reinvent the wheel…
You only need to model what is working for other people…
It’s no different when you are finding products to sell on amazon.
Now you have a couple of different options when it comes to the product research method…
Free Amazon Product Research – Cross Comparison Method
When i first started selling on the amazon platform this was the method i used.
I didn’t want to spend money on software so i’d spend hours trawling through amazon looking for sellers that were doing well.
I hope that by this point you understand amazon’s best seller rank, or BSR for short…
Basically, the lower the amazon BSR the more units this product will be selling on a daily basis.
Now, here’s some useful advice…
I like to avoid products that are in the top 100 of any category on amazon.
Why?
Because amazon publishes the top 100 best selling products for each category.
This is useful data if you have a huge company with a massive budget..
You can easily find some of the most popular products in the world very, very quickly.
You can do this for each country…
Just search “Amazon *insert locale* best selling products”
As you may no i sell within the European Amazon marketplaces.
We will be moving our product range over to the US but not just yet.
This brings me onto my cross comparison, amazon product research method…
I like to look at what seems to be popular on different marketplaces…
If you are looking for product ideas delve into the sub-categories of the other amazon marketplaces
- Germany
- United Kingdom
- U.S.A
These are the three biggest amazon marketplaces as it stands…
Look for product opportunities and then compare to see if there is a gap in the market in your chosen amazon marketplace.
I also like to use these websites to look for product ideas…
- AliExpress – Best Sellers
- Ebay – Again look for trending products in different locales
- Wish – Another hive of golden product ideas
It’s quite simple, look for product ideas and then cross compare on your chosen marketplace 🙂
Let’s move onto my favorite method of finding products to sell on amazon.
My #1 Amazon Product Research Method
This is the method i use to find products that are over performing…
And by this i mean products with low review levels and high monthly sales.
As mentioned earlier i like these products for the opportunity they present.
If a lot of people are buying these products and that must mean that they don’t have a better product option available to them…
AHEM…
That’s where i step in as a seller.
Here is a full tutorial to show you how i find these products, step by step…
When i first started out in the amazon game, i wasn’t interested in paying for software…
As i became more experienced i realized that my time was my most valuable asset, and there are things software can do that i can’t manually.
This is the software i now use to do pretty much all of my product research.
As you’ll see in the video, they do have a free plan so you can try it out and see if you like the feel of it.
I have used jungle scout a fair bit in the past but I’ve found that helium 10 seems to be a better fit for me.
They offer a full suite of amazon seller tools, i rely on them heavily when it comes to keyword research.
In the video above i use their tool blackbox, their developers tell me that the software runs through a database of over 450,000,000 products…
It’s funny you can actually find more products using black box than you can on amazon…
Why?
Well… helium 10 includes products that are archived and hidden from the amazon platform, this to me makes the tool VERY valuable.
So yer, i’m a pretty big fan of the software.
In my experience their data has always been pretty accurate.
I could talk about their tools all day…
But don’t worry i won’t.
If you are interested i have written a review detailing how i use each of their seller tools (I’ll leave a link below)
Read More: Helium 10 Review
If you do want to take out one of their paid plans you can use one of my codes to save yourself some money.
EBOSS10 – 10% Off For Life
EBOSS50 – 50% Off The First Month Only
If you think you can do what you need to do with the software quickly, i’d get one month half price then cancel once complete 🙂
I will also mention, if you do use one of my codes i will make a commission at no extra cost to you (this is how we run the blog and YouTube channel).
I hope you can see that finding products to sell on amazon doesn’t have to be difficult…
You just need to take the time to learn how to do it.
Before you go, i do want to share a little bit more useful information with you (i know i’m nice aren’t i).
Qualify Your Chosen Product
When i found out about the following technique it changed the way i looked at product opportunities on amazon…
I’m hoping you’ll find it just as useful as i did…
So… you’ve found a product opportunity, but how can you now improve on it?
Don’t worry i’m going to show you.
First things first, we need to find out exactly what people don’t like about the product.
Then we can work out what we can do to improve on it…
I’ll carry on with the example from the above YouTube video (the lovely brown doormat).
We want to analyse the 1, 2 and 3 star reviews on this product…
As the product only has 62 reviews, it may be worth finding a few competing listings that are selling the same type of door mat.
The more data the better!
For this example we will just look at this individual listing…
You have a few different options when it comes to this.
I use a free chrome extension to do this, it allows me to quickly pull the data and analyse everything with a few clicks.
You can of course go through the reviews manually and record the common pain points, alternatively you could have a VA do this for you.
Like i said earlier, time is the most valuable commodity so i’d encourage you to take advantage of the technology you have available to you.
With a couple of clicks the data i’m looking for is made available to me…
As a third party amazon seller, this information can be gold dust…
You can see that a lot of the complaints revolve around the item being too small.
And there you have it….
The most common reoccurring pain point on this particular product is that it’s too small.
With this information you can improve the future customer’s experience…
If i was thinking about selling this product, i’d order a sample of a few of my competitor’s products…
I’d look at the difference in sizing and see if i could find an example of a doormat that people seemed to be happier with.
I’d analyse the positive and negative reviews on the best example door mat before i started speaking to suppliers.
I’d then find a supplier that could provide me with the size i’d want (Slightly bigger, better quality if possible).
Then i’d launch my superior product and i’d be sure to show off the dimensions of the product in my marketing images…
I might even create a comparison image to show the difference in size between my product and my competitors…
Wait a minute… maybe i should start selling doormats…
Anyway…
There you have it, that’s how i go about finding products to sell on amazon…
I hope this article helps you improve your amazon product research strategy.
If you are interested in reading about another of my favorite product research strategies click here.
If you’ve got any questions, leave a comment below and i’ll get back to you ASAP!
More soon,
Nick
eBusiness Boss
