In the offline retail business everything revolves around the products. And the same applies to Amazon of course – the products you sell decide wether you will be successful or not.
Millions of products are listed on the platform and Amazon’s marketplaces are steadily growing as we speak. To be able to assert yourself on the market and earn good money with Amazon FBA, you have to sell top products.
However, that is easier said than done. What is a top product anyway? And how do you find the best FBA products? Answering these questions is essential for your success on Amazon.
So if you are currently looking for products to sell on Amazon, you’ve come to the right place. In this blog post we will be covering everything about Amazon product research: We will show you how you can easily find your bestseller and give you tips from our experience when doing product research. Let’s get started.
- Best FBA Products - What Makes A Good Amazon FBA Product?
- Amazon Margin - How Is it Calculated and How High Does it Need to Be?
- How to Find Products to Sell on Amazon - Step by Step Guide
- Validate Your Product Ideas - Which Tools Work Best & How to Use Them
- Analyzing Search Queries When Using Tools to Find Top Amazon Products
- Take a Look at the Competition - What Can You Do Better?
- Conclusion on Finding the Best Product: Take Your Time and Follow a Plan
Best FBA Products – What Makes a Good Amazon Product?
Before we dive deeper into the topic we need to find out what really makes a good Amazon product so we know what to look for.
What is good or bad always depends on the context. However, there are some criteria that help you decide whether a product is suitable to be sold on Amazon:
- High demand – First a good product is high in demand and potential customers frequently search for it in the Amazon search bar.
- Low competition – In addition, a good product is not only high in demand but also with low competition. This is because there are categories that are already so flooded by “top dogs” that it makes little sense for a newcomer to enter them. But low competition doesn’t mean no competition at all! No competition is usually not a good sign either – most of the time, there is a reason why nobody is selling in this category. Maybe the legal requirements are too tricky or the products too hard to manufacture.
- Avoid seasonal products – In order to consistently achieve high sales throughout the year you should, at least in the beginning of your Amazon career, look out for products that sell regardless of the season. That being said, Christmas decorations for example are not the best choice to start out with. Use the Google Trend Report to find out when there are seasonal sales spikes so you can avoid them.
- Low weight products – Keep in mind that shipping plays an important (and sometimes very expensive) role when selling on Amazon. So you want to avoid high shipping costs that could possibly ruin your margin. Small and light products are ideal as they take up less space and can even be shipped by air freight if necessary. Look out for products that fit in a shoebox!
- Compatibility with other products – A good product can be combined with other products. Ideally, your product can become part of an entire product portfolio that attracts the same customers. This way, you have the opportunity to draw their attention to other products you’re selling or even sell a product bundle.
- No legal issues – Of course, you need to make sure the product you are selling complies with the legal requirements. You definitely don’t want to risk fines and penalties that can threaten your entire career as an Amazon seller. Especially in Europe you have to be very careful. Find out more about the legal requirements for selling on Amazon Europe here.
- High margin – Lastly you want to keep an eye on the margin. If the margin is too low, selling the product is just not worth the hassle.
Amazon Margin – What Is it, How Is it Calculated and How High Does it Need to Be?
Margin is the difference between selling price and cost. It is an indicator of whether your business is profitable or not.
The calculation goes as follows:
- Unit margin = selling price per unit – Cost of goods – Freight charges – Sales charges – FBA shipping charges.
- Margin in percent = Unit margin / selling price per unit * 100
The higher the margin, the lower the risk of going into the red due to unforeseen costs.
What Percentage Margin Should You Aim for as an Amazon Seller?
There is no general answer to the question of what percentage margin you should aim for, as this is always an individual question and several factors play a role here.
However, the margin of a single product is not so decisive if you have built up a product portfolio. Even if the margin of some products alone might be considered “loo low”, selling on Amazon still makes sense through a mixed calculation.
When people are still buying those products, you should not give up on them. For example, if some products have only 10% margin, but others 50%, it’s still good.
How to Find Products to Sell on Amazon – Step by Step Guide for Product Research
Now that you know what makes a good product on Amazon, the question is how to find such a product. And obviously, that’s the hardest part. Because if it were easy, everyone would be successfully offering numerous products on Amazon – but they are not. You can’t expect to sell a product and become rich over night. That’s just not how things work.
But what you can do is right preparation – in the form of an Amazon Product Research.
DEFINITIONWhat is Amazon Product Research?
Amazon Product Research is the whole process of finding a product idea and ensuring it has the potential to become successful on the Amazon marketplaces.
So how do you get started with your Amazon Product Research?
1. Note Down Your Interests
You want to find a product idea that you are truly passionate about. The benefit of selling a product that you are passionate about is that you probably already know all about it. You know what works best and what can be improved. This is an excellent starting point.
So take a pen and a piece of paper or notebook and note down your top 5 areas of interest.
Ask yourself questions like
- What are my hobbies?
- What am I most passionate about?
- What can’t i stop talking about?
For example, your YouTube search history, books you’ve read recently, or topics that come up again and again in conversations with friends can lead you in the right direction.
2. Research Product Ideas
In the next step, you can research product ideas for those areas of interest. Find 5 products per area of interest and write them down as well.
Focus primarily on small and light products to avoid huge costs for shipping.
When doing the product research, you can get inspiration as follows:
- Browse through Amazon – Amazon itself is amazing for your product research. Just browse through the marketplace and note down what sticks out our interests you the most.
- Check out online stores – Online stores are also a great source of inspiration. Topic-specific online stores are particularly suitable here, as they usually offer a bigger variety of products and are easier to browse through than Amazon.
3. Validate Your Product Idea
In the last step you need to do a product validation. That means you need to make sure that the products you narrowed down to have enough search volume and will generate enough revenue.
Because a product alone that you find interesting won’t generate any sale.
Read on to find out how an Amazon Product Validation works.
Validate Your Product Ideas to Find the Top Products to Sell on Amazon
So how does the validation process work and what kind of tools are helpful here?
Finding the Best FBA Products with Tools – Helium 10 Xray for the Validation of Your Product Idea
Of course you don’t necessarily need tools to validate your products. But we definitely recommend using one as it will make the process a whole lot easier and more convenient.
We recommend the Chrome browser extension Helium 10 Xray. It gives you a nice overview of the sales and revenue of competitors of that given product.
How Does the Chrome Browser Extension Helium 10 Xray Work?
In order to use Helium 10 Xray, you will need to create an account first (1). It is free of charge for up to 50 search queries.
In case this won’t be enough for you, you can update your account to the pro version.
Once you have created an account, you will need to download the Chrome browser extension Helium 10 Xray (2).
After the installation, you will find the tool in your Google Chrome bar.
If you now enter a search term in the search bar on Amazon, click on the Google Chrome Browser Extension and then on “Xray – Amazon Product Research”.
After that, the results of your search query will appear, which you can then analyze to validate your product idea.
Browse through the first three pages of the results and check the sales.
- How many sales do your competitors have each month?
- How are the sales distributed amongst the various sellers?
Read on to find out what you can learn from the results!
Here’s What You Should Keep in Mind When Using Tools and Analyzing Search Queries
When using tools for validation, here’s what you should keep in mind when analyzing the results:
- Flat sales distribution – A niche makes sense for you especially if the sales are evenly distributed. So when you check the first three pages and everyone has roughly the same number of sales, that’s great! In this case, you have a good chance of “playing along” and it’s very unlikely you won’t at least have a few sales too.
- Sufficient sales potential – In addition, there should be enough sales potential, i.e. your competitors should make an average of at least 2000 to 3000 dollars in sales per month with the product.
- Avoid the “brand dominance trap” – Important: Do not use tools for niches that are dominated by only one manufacturer. Here, the results can be distorted because Amazon customers may not search for the product but directly for the brand. So keep that mind.
Important NoteTools can only give a rough estimate!
Tools only provide an initial indication of whether a product idea is good. They only measure sales rank, inventory and other factors and can therefore only provide a rough estimate of the figures.
Tools should only be used for the validation of products you already have in your mind anyway, without offering absolute certainty for a successful sale on Amazon.
On the other hand, if you already have a clear vision, don’t let bad numbers discourage you. Because even if the numbers might look bad at first, a separate market can emerge for you if you don’t give up. In addition, you have the opportunity to build your own market through content marketing or other strategies too.
So don’t only focus on the numbers.
Take a Closer Look at the Competition: What Are they Doing and What Can You Do Better?
Before you decide to go for a product it is essential to have a closer look at what the competition in that niche is doing.
- How many reviews do they get? – Amazon reviews can be an important factor when evaluating the competition. You don’t want to start selling in a category, where the top sellers have a crazy amount of reviews – in this case, it’s most likely a very competitive category.
- Check out your competition in the Best Seller Ranking – You should definitely also check out the Amazon Best Seller Ranking (BSR). Amazon sorts every product that has ever been sold over the platform with its BSR hierarchy. An item with BSR 1 is currently the product with the highest amount of sales in this category. So the BSR shows you exactly what the top products are. Are you able to beat them? What can you do to be better than them?
Reduce the competition and stand out from it by offering a truly unique product that nobody else is offering. Focus on your product listing!
Conclusion on Finding Top Products To Sell On Amazon: Take Your Time and Follow a Plan
A good product is one of the most important parts of the Amazon FBA journey. In this regard, there are several criteria that need to be taken into account.
Note down your interests, research product ideas and validate the product ideas with tools like Helium 10 Xray to get the best results.
If you follow the steps, you will soon find your top product.
Last but not least: Don’t make that one mistake that so many other sellers have made before: Don’t wait too long to get started. Just do it, even if you feel like you are not 100 % ready yet. You probably never will be. So instead of preparing and overthinking everything, just learn as you go, step-by-step.
Go check out our Guide on how to find the best sourcing agent here →
