How to Do Product Research: Top 10 Strategies for 2021
Do you want to sell on Amazon or start another e-commerce business but have no idea what to sell?
On Amazon, you can build a sustainable online business and reap the rewards for years to come.
In fact, nearly 74% of Amazon sellers earn more than $1k a month and 39% more than $10k. Only 14% of sellers don't make any profits yet (2019).
But, if you want to become a successful Amazon seller, you need the right product.
Over 2.1 million active sellers are on Amazon (July 2020), and countless niches are oversaturated. If you enter a niche with thousands of competitors, the chances are high that you're going to fail.
However, using the strategies I'll show you in this post, you'll be able to find the right types of products with high demand and low competition.
In this post, you'll learn the best product research tactics for 2021.
Let's jump right in.
The Basic Product Research Strategy
A brilliant Amazon product research strategy is the so-called ABC Strategy.
Enter one single letter into Amazon's search bar and see what Amazon suggests to you. For example, type in the letter "C":
Amazon suggests "can opener". Type it into the search bar to take a closer look at it:
You can see that there are several different types of can openers. Now, you've two options:
- Analyze all these products with Jungle Scout's Extension (product research tool)
- Go even further and enter another letter
Let's enter another letter, for example, "R":
As you can see, there are lots of results. However, you need to find the winning products. You have to type in every single letter from A-Z and then analyze all these keyword niches with Jungle Scout's Extension.
Here's how to do that:
1. Get Jungle Scout's Extension with a 20% discount.
2. Type in a keyword, e. g. "can opener rust-resistant".
3. Analyze the keyword niche with Jungle Scout's Extension.
Finally, I would not recommend going for this niche. As you can see, Jungle Scout tells you that the competition is very tough.
The Advanced Product Research Strategy
If you're serious about selling on Amazon, you have to do more market research to get new product ideas and finally find profitable products.
This product research strategy works via keyword research, and you will need Helium 10 to go through the process. There's no other Amazon product research tool with such great functionality.
Here's how it works:
Take this 50% discount to try Helium 10 for one month. You can also sign up for free, but you'll then have a limited number of uses. However, if you're just starting, the free plan is definitely worth it.
When you're signed up, log in, open Helium 10 Black Box, and select "Keywords":
Then, open "ADVANCED FILTERS":
Now, type in the parameters to find the products you're looking for. I highly recommend you read this post on what to sell on Amazon to understand what kind of products you've to search for. In fact, you need to enter parameters that indicate high demand and low competition.
Helium 10 analyzes the entire Amazon marketplace to find products with exactly those parameters that you're looking for.
Next, go through the results and sort out all keywords that refer to a big brand. When people are searching for Adidas sneakers, they want to buy ADIDAS sneakers. They don't want to buy YOUR sneakers.
Go through the list again and put all potential products on your watchlist. The first product I saw was this lock picking practice set:
There're only 36 results and the keyword has a search volume of 621. Let's check this keyword with Helium 10 XRay.
As you can see, all products in this niche have a solid revenue and a low review count.
But you shouldn't stop here. You need to run all products of this niche through Helium 10 Cerebro.
Cerebro is a tool that shows you all the keywords a product is ranking for. This is super useful because you'll know exactly from which keywords a product generates sales. In fact, you only need to check out these keywords to decide whether you can compete or not.
There's a TON of useful data:
- Search Volume
- Sponsored ASINs
- Competing Products
- CPR 8-Day Giveaways
I would say that this niche is not super bad, but not great either. There are a few not-so-competitive keywords with decent search volume. But if you're just starting, this niche is too hard to beat.
The Offline Product Research Strategy
You don't always have to do product research online to find successful products.
Sometimes, you get the best product ideas by analyzing existing products and thinking of ways to improve them.
Here are some great places to get new product ideas:
- Exhibitions
- DIY stores
- Retail stores
- Galleries
- Second-hand shops
- Supermarkets
- Furniture stores
- Fashion stores
The Normal Product Research Strategy
Instead of setting parameters for keywords and then searching for products related to those keywords, you can directly search for products.
Here's how it works:
Take this 50% discount to try Helium 10 for one month or sign up for free. If you sign up for free, you'll have limited uses. However, it's enough if you're just starting.
After you've registered, head over to Black Box:
Then, set all parameters to find the products you're looking for. Remember that you should read our guide to what to sell on Amazon to understand what parameters you should set.
As already mentioned, it's all about high demand and low competition. Don't enter a niche where thousands of sellers selling the same thing.
Sort out
Next, go through the list and sort out all results that refer to a big brand. Put all potential products on your watchlist.
Check competition
By now, you should have tons of products on your watchlist. But you don't know the two most important things:
- How many competitors are there?
- Which keywords generate sales?
So what you have to do is to run all keywords through Helium 10 Cerebro.
A small number of ranking products means low competition. A high number of ranking products means high competition.
You should also use CPR-8-Day Giveaways to determine the competition level. CPR-8-Day Giveaways is a Helium 10 score that shows you how many sales you have to make within 8 days to land on the first Amazon SERP for a given keyword.
Here's a vacuum stealer that I ran through Cerebro:
Now, let's check if these keywords are competitive:
The first keywords are highly competitive. But when you go deeper, you can see that there're lots of keywords with less competition and still decent search volume:
The Easy One
We all know that Amazon suggests similar products to you based on your behavior (e. g. what you buy or what you type into the search bar):
The easiest product research strategy is to check out all these suggestions and click through the product listings.
It's just that simple.
But don't forget to check all relevant metrics like monthly revenue, profit margin, or seasonality with product research tools like Jungle Scout or Helium 10.
If you go for this strategy, you will find lots of trash. However, if you do extensive research, you will definitely discover some high-potential products.
A Simple Hack
If you want to apply this strategy, you'll need Jungle Scout's Extension. You can get it here for $19.
Then, here's what you've to do:
Head over to Amazon and search for a product. You can check out the bestseller list or use the ABC strategy, whatever.
For example, let's choose this rack set here:
Then, identify the most important keyword. In this case, it's rack set.
Put the keyword into the search bar and press "search".
Now, open Jungle Scout's Chrome Extension and start the Keyword Cloud:
Keyword Cloud shows you all the keywords related to the main keyword, that people are also searching for.
What you've to do is to choose another keyword that sounds interesting to you:
Type this keyword into the search bar again and repeat the whole process until you find a very specific product. Let's type in "wood":
Amazon suggests me "wooden dish rack and drainboard set". There are only 398 search results which is okay:
However, Jungle Scout tells me not to go for this product because it's highly competitive:
Don't forget to validate your product idea.
With this strategy, you can discover hundreds of product ideas.
Remember that it's most important to analyze sales-relevant data. You should also use Jungle Scout's Product Tracker to analyze demand fluctuations. This allows you to find out whether a product sells stable throughout the year or not.
Keyword Product Research
This strategy works based on the same principle as the last one.
First, you've to pick a particular product as a basis. Then, run this product through Helium 10 Cerebro. The tool shows you all the important keywords that this product is ranking for on Amazon.
Make a list of all these keywords and run them through Helium 10 Magnet (Magnet shows you ALL keywords related to one single main keyword).
What you will get is a massive list of keywords.
This strategy is almost the same as the last one, however, you will get ten times more keyword ideas. Accordingly, you can check ten times more niches with an Amazon seller tool.
Use AliExpress
This is also a strategy to get new product ideas, but it's essential to validate them with Helium 10 or Jungle Scout.
Unfortunately, AliExpress doesn't have a page for the best-selling products. However, you can still find out which products are popular. You've to select a category and sort the list by "Orders" to see only the best-selling products.
AliExpress is also a great place to get awesome ideas for product development.
Check Out These Sites...
There are lots of Amazon entrepreneurs offering their products to potential customers on customer review sites for a massive discount.
In most cases, these are fairly new products.
So you can head over to one of these 26 Amazon Review Sites and search for trending products there.
Out-of-the-Box Strategy
This strategy is more suited for advanced sellers or sellers who have more budget to launch their business.
Why?
Because out-of-the-box means selling products, that most sellers can't sell. These products are often oversize-products, have striking colors, and have a higher price point than others.
The main advantage is that there are fewer sellers for these products, because "everyone" on Amazon sells cheap products. Most new sellers don't have the budget.
When we analyzed the number of products by price range, we found interesting results:
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For advanced sellers and sellers with a high budget, the out-of-the-box strategy might be a great chance.
Here are some things to consider when searching for out-of-the-box products:
- High priced products: If you're going for high-priced products, you may face less competition.
- Eye-catching shapes/colors: Fewer sellers provide eye-catching colors and shapes.
- Over-size products: These products cost much more than standard-size products and also shipping is much more expensive.
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However, if you don't have a high budget, try to stay away from out-of-the-box products.
At the end of the day, you will need money to promote your product. If you can't promote it, you will not be able to make your first sales.
Conclusion
Here's a summary of all the product research strategies:
- Basic Product Research Strategy - Everybody should use this strategy
- Advanced Product Research Strategy - The best strategy
- Offline Product Research Strategy - Great for inspiration
- Normal Product Research Strategy - 2nd best strategy
- Easy Strategy - You should do this all the time
- The Simple Hack - 3rd best strategy
- Keyword Product Research - Great to get lots of ideas
- AliExpress - You should try it
- Review Sites - You should also try it
- Out-of-the-Box Strategy - The best strategy for advanced sellers
