Research Tips for Finding Products to Sell Online | Everyone thinks that starting an eCommerce business these days is quick and simple enough because so many of the previous barriers to entry, such as costly website tech, are a thing of the past. However, building a store that does well isn’t as easy as it might seem.
One of the first things you need to do is find products that will generate consumer demand, lead to sales, and give you enough profits to make ends meet and keep growing your business. Discovering favorable inventory items comes down to excellent research and utilizing multiple ways of finding impressive goods.
Check Out Social Media Hashtags and Social Curation Sites
Discover trending products and categories by searching posts on social media sites and curation platforms such as Pinterest. Use hashtags to locate specific types of products or those for a set industry or customer niche. You can find all sorts of inspiration on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and the like as you input different search terms.
Look out for posts on social media with lots of engagement through likes, comments, and shares, too, as this helps you discover significant consumer interest. Plus, take note of not just the product or category ideas you come up with but the hashtags you use to find them, too. If you stock such goods in the future, use these same hashtags for online marketing purposes.
Look into Keywords and Trends
Google can be your best friend when locating potential stock items. Research keywords on the search engine’s Adwords tool to get an idea of the popularity of different terms. This can help lead you to new product ideas. In particular, though, spend time looking at Google Trends. This analysis tool will help you validate demand stability for different product categories and types and in various world regions.
It helps users notice market growth or decline so you can tell if a product you’re thinking of stocking is likely to keep selling in the coming year(s) or not. Research trends from years back to see how interest has grown over time, stayed flat, or decreased. If it has been up and down a lot, this indicates significant fluctuation in consumer interest, which could also be a problem. Keep in mind, too, that a sudden massive spike in numbers doesn’t mean that popularity will stay up. It’s more helpful to find areas where there’s a stable growth trend.
Also, keep an eye on consumer trend publications that will give you insights into new products and industries you might not have otherwise thought about. For example, one free, popular platform is Trend Hunter. It covers trends across various sectors, including fashion, luxury, beauty, and culture.
Learn from Your Customers
Don’t shy away from learning from your current customers, too. No matter the size of your database, picking up trends, interests, pain points, values, and the like from your clientele is one of the best ways to understand what could work for your specific target market. You might send an email to your customers asking for their feedback on some product ideas or have them vote in a poll. You could ask questions on social media, too.
Plus, it pays to utilize a quality website heatmap tool that shows you exactly how shoppers move about on your site. You can see which page they land on, the search terms they enter, and which pages and parts of pages they look at and spend the most time on. Notice how they go from one product listing to another and where they seem to lose interest or get frustrated and choose to click away without adding items to their cart or completing transactions.
This information can guide you in seeing which product areas to focus on and which ones might not be worthwhile moving forward.
Pore Over Amazon and Other Marketplaces
Large, reputable marketplaces such as Amazon, Alibaba, and eBay can be wonderful resources for product research. Study their categories and subcategories to get ideas of the types of goods people sell, and you might come up with new lines to add to your inventory. Learn about the bestselling products in each category to see which ones are most popular.
You can also read customer reviews on these marketplaces to gather data. Notice, in particular, negative reviews and complaints and rave reviews, as these will show you people’s pain points and the benefits they’re loving, which indicate ways for you to satisfy shoppers with your range.
Other tips for researching products include checking out your competitors’ ranges, both online and in brick and mortar stores, reading niche forums, and attending events such as trade shows. This due diligence may sound like a lot of work, and it is, but it can make all the difference to your online sales results.
Negosentro | Research Tips for Finding Products to Sell Online
