Are you “at your wits’ end” finding products for your ecommerce store?
If yes, relax!
Finding profitable products for your ecommerce store isn’t wheels within wheels if you know what you’re doing.
What do you do?
It’s simple: know what products to sell, and where to find such products. Also, keep three things in mind; the product’s demand, profit margin, and competitiveness.
Not to worry. This article features a step-by-step guide on how to choose profitable products to sell in your online store.
To find products for your ecommerce store:
- Identify Products Within Your Niche
- Conduct Market Research
- Visit Product Review Sites for Intel
- Check Profit Margin
- Know Your Competitors
- Look for Trending Products
- Consider Problem-Solving Products
- Use Popular Marketplaces to Find Products
Let’s dig deeper here!
1. Identify Products Within Your Niche
To find products for your ecommerce store, identify products within your niche. That way, you are able to meet your target audience’s felt needs.
Generally, products sell more when they are niche-specific.
Note that market competition is high. Listing generic products in your store leaves you drowning in the competition.
Consider niche criteria such as demographic, sex, age, religion, etc. when finding suitable products for your customers.
Besides checking the criteria, you also want to make sure the products aren’t short in supply.
Bottom line: Keep a specific audience in mind and research products around your target market.
2. Conduct Market Research
To find profitable products for your online store, conduct market research.
Find out what kind of products people are looking for within your niche.
For instance, if you’re selling baby wear, find out what demographic has the highest demand for the products. Tools such as Google Trend and Ubersuggest could come in handy.
Aside from market trends, keep an eye on market news to know what’s up.
Also, know your rivals. A peek into your rivals’ performances won’t hurt. Right?
See reviews that customers leave on your competitors’ stores, and glance into these very stores to learn about everything from product types to categorization, and pricing.
Make sure you gather enough intel to see what works for you.
3. Visit Product Review Sites for Intel
To find products for your ecommerce store, visit product review sites to gather enough intel.
It’s one of the easiest ways to choose reliable products with good profit margins.
See what people are saying about a product—the good, the bad, and the ugly. You want to make sure you’re choosing products with high consumer satisfaction.
After all, most customers make purchases based on people’s opinions about the product.
Watch out for spammy customer reviews, especially from misleading manufacturers. Certain brand reviews become spammy when there’s not a single rating under 4 stars.
Use sites such as Consumer Reports, Amazon Customer Reviews, and Google Customer Reviews, to know what customers say about the product.
4. Check Profit Margin
To choose well-paid products for your ecommerce store, keep in mind the profit margin for each product. You definitely don’t want to sell more and earn less.
A good profit margin varies by industry. Generally, a poor profit margin is around %5, an average net profit margin goes around %10, and a high margin stays around %20. Again, this varies by industry.
How do you calculate a profit margin? Get the total sales over a period of time, minus total expenses, and divide it by total revenue.
For instance, if your store generates $5,000 in sales over a three-month period and you have $2,000 in operational expenses, your net profit becomes $5,000- $3,000.
To get your net percentage margin: Divide your net profit by your total sales multiplied by 100. That is $3,000 / $5,000 x 100 = 60% profit margin.
5. Know Your Competitors
To find suitable products for your online store and make lots of money, know your competitors.
That way, you identify and build on your competitors’ weaknesses and strengths.
You also get to find out your rivals’ business models as well as unresolved customer issues so you can position your brand right in the spot…leveraging their loopholes.
Take a peek into your rivals’ customer reviews. That won’t hurt your eyes!
See reviews that customers leave on your competitors’ stores, and glance into these very stores to learn about everything from product types to categorization, and pricing.
Make sure you gather enough intel to see what works for you.
6. Look for Trending Products
To curate profitable products for your ecommerce store, look for trending products within your niche. Brian Tracy would say, “Be prepared to ride the cycles of trend.”
Trending products give you these signals: high demand, and high-profit margin.
You definitely want to choose products that are in demand. Products like that keep you in steady cash flow.
Watch out for rivalry. Products like that are highly competitive. After all, you’re not the only one spotting the goldmine.
Again, conduct market research, and use Google trends to zero in on your search.
7. Consider Problem-Solving Products
To find money-making products for your ecommerce store, consider items that solve customers’ needs.
You may be thinking, “Aren’t all products existing to solve needs?” Of course, they do. But not all products are relevant to your target audience.
Find out exactly what your niche-audience are looking for and provide solutions to their needs through your products.
For instance, if you have problems related to a specific demographic within your niche, say dandruff, you’d definitely want to pick anti-dandruff-related products.
But you’ve got to also do things right; make sure they are profitable.
8. Use Popular Marketplaces to Find Products
To pick profitable products for your ecommerce store, leverage popular marketplaces.
Start first by identifying top ecommerce marketplaces to hinge on. Consider platforms like Amazon, eBay, Shopify, etc.
You could also explore niche marketplaces like Etsy, etc.—depending on what you sell.
Keep these critical factors in mind when browsing marketplaces: Product description, the number of orders the product receives, customer rating, and reviews.
Consider digging in deeper by using tools like JungleScout.com to identify top-selling products, alongside popular sellers. The tool also helps you filter products by category, sales, price, and other important factors.
That way, you blow the lid off your search and spot top-performing products in categories within your niche.
Recap
Finding profitable products for your ecommerce store isn’t a tall order if you know what you are doing. Identify products within your niche and conduct market research.
Visit product review sites for intel, it’s one of the easiest ways to get reliable products with good profit margins.
Know your competitors and look for trending products as they keep you in steady cash flow.
Consider problem-solving products that are relevant to your niche and use popular marketplaces to find products.
Good luck!
