Before Doing Product Research You Should:
Finding a product to sell on Amazon is one of the biggest challenges that you’ll face on your journey to becoming an Amazon FBA seller. But whilst finding a product can be difficult, if you break the process down into different stages, you’ll feel far less overwhelmed. You’ll realize that there are actually hundreds of 1000s of product opportunities out there, just waiting to be found and then sold on Amazon.
Now breaking the process up into different stages is exactly how I do my product research. Since I first started selling in 2018, I’ve discovered source and then launched over 25 different products. This method does work to stop Amazon FBA product research giving you a long and drawn out headache that only makes you want to give up i recommend that you break the process down into separate steps, with each step done on a different day.
Assess Sales Demand
The first step is discovering product ideas that have enough demand on Amazon to make them worth your while selling selling a product that already has demand on Amazon is essential when it comes to being successful as a seller on Amazon even if you think that you’ve got the best idea for a product if people aren’t already buying or searching for that product on Amazon, then not going to sell getting emotional about a product and assuming that it’ll sell because you think it’s a great idea. That is a common mistake that a lot of beginners make.
Whilst a product that you thought of might sell really well on other websites such as a Kickstarter or your own Shopify store, this is not the right strategy if you want to achieve success on Amazon. That’s because when people go on to Amazon, they normally have a product in mind already that they’re looking to buy and just haven’t decided who they want to buy it from yet.
The easiest way to discover Amazon FBA products that already have demand is with specially made product research tools from companies such as Helium 10. Helium 10 offers a tool called Black Box, which is essentially a search engine just like Google, but instead of searching the internet, it’ll search Amazon’s huge product database based on different criteria that you’ve set. That criteria could be things like how much the product is making, how many reviews it has, how heavy it is, and so on.
Now, the great thing about a tool like this is that it only takes a minute or two of setting filters to get given lots and lots of product ideas that you can look into further. In order to access and use Helium 10’s Black Box tool head to Helium10.com. Create an login to your account, and then select a black box from the drop down menu. You’ll then be shown different filters that you can apply to narrow down the huge selection of products that are available on Amazon with the most common filters that you’ll be using, including the category, the price point and sales demand.
When specifying the sales demand that you want your product to have, avoid making the mistake of thinking that just because you put in a crazy high number that you’re going to be able to make that amount in sales to one of the biggest contributors to success on Amazon is being able to stay in stock at all times.
If you can only afford to invest in 1000 pounds worth of stock to start off with. There’s no point looking at the top selling products that are making sellers £100,000 a month because you’re never going to be able to afford the capital required to stay in stock. Instead what you need to do is understand the level of sales demand that you’re going to be able to keep up and afford. To do that, take your investment size that you want to put into stock and then multiply it by fine. For example, if you have £2000 to invest into stock, multiply it by five to get to £10,000, and that is the figure that you’ll want to then put in into your sales demand filter.
Once you’ve applied your filters and you’ve hit the search button on black box, you’ll be shown lots of product ideas that have existing demand from shoppers on Amazon. You should work through that list methodically for each product that you’d like the look of. After reviewing the listing and the niche in more detail, make a note of it or add it to your favorites list on Helium 10 with the aim of getting to at least 10 different product ideas before you move on to the next step for the product research process, which is making sure that the products that you found are profitable when you sell them.
Verify Profitability
Selling an Amazon FBA product that you’ve made is an amazing feeling, but that feeling will quickly disappear if the product that you’re selling never makes the profit. These days it’s super easy to verify the profitability of any product that you want to sell with the help of Helium 10’s free Chrome extension and a quick check of the cost price on a site such as Alibaba. Once you’ve verified that a product that you like the look of has sales demand, all you need to do is click into a competitor’s listing and load up the profit calculator. It’s in Helium 10 Chrome extension menu most of the inputs that you need to complete are actually automatically filled out on your behalf, which includes the products manufacturing cost.
It’s important to note that the figure that Helium 10 uses here in 99.9% of cases, it’s not going to be accurate. It needs to be checked and then changed. The easiest way of doing that is to head to alibaba.com Search for the product that you’re considering selling and then take the average of the price points that come up on the page. Of course, as soon as you’re serious about selling the product that you’ve just come across, you’ll need to contact the supplier for an accurate quote and then recalculate your profit but at this stage, we’re just trying to understand whether the product is likely to make enough profit or not.
Being 100% accurate isn’t necessary. Once you’ve got your manufacturing cost estimate, plug it into the Union 10 calculator set VAT to 0% if you’re based in the UK and you’re done. If you see a profit margin of more than 30% then you can move on to the next stage of product research. If you see something that’s lower than 30%, then it’s probably not going to make enough profit once you factor in ADS.
So either move on to your next product idea or if you are really desperate to sell the product that you found, start contacting suppliers for a more accurate cost estimate and then see if you can get it over that 30% hurdle rate.
As an aside, if you’re looking for an accountant to help you with your Amazon FBA business, check out Osome who are a digital accountancy firm specializes in accounting for people looking to sell with Amazon FBA. If you use this link to sign up, you’ll get 100 pound discount and a free strategy call where you can ask any accounting questions that you might have.
Assess Differentiation Opportunities
The final step that you need to follow when you’re doing your product research is to assess the number of opportunities that allow you to stand out from all of your competition making customers want to buy from you instead of them.
This is probably the most challenging part of research, but it does get easier the more practice you can put in. When practicing this part myself, I always find lots of inspiration on ways to improve by looking through my competitors listings and assessing the quality of the images and the text and then judging whether I think I can do a better job. There are so many listings on Amazon that are poorly written and look awful, but because there’s no better option for customers, they still sell.
So if you take a look at listings and see examples that are poor and not compelling, then that is certainly one area that you can look to improve upon in order for you to stand out. Another option of looking to differentiate is looking through customer reviews of your competitors. When you do that, have a look at what is being complained about.
Rather than spending lots of time doing this manually, you can simply use the reviews Insights tool, which is a part of the Helium 10 Chrome extension, To use it load up a competitor’s listing, run the tool that sits within your Helium 10 Chrome extension filter for one to three star reviews, and then go through each of them and try to understand what it is that customers aren’t liking and whether you’re able to fix those problems or implement their suggestions in order to improve upon the product.
Once you’ve assessed your competitors’ listings for their quality, you can now check with your for improvement points and run through any other methods that you can think of to help you with differentiation. If you’re still feeling confident about the opportunity at hand, then congratulations because you’ve found a product that has the features and meets the minimum criteria of being a successful one.
So if you’re doing your product research and you’re finding it too overwhelming to persist with, make it easier for yourself by breaking it down into the three steps that I’ve run through today – sales demand, profitability and an opportunity for you to differentiate. If the product that you found meets those three criteria, then it has all of the key ingredients to be a killer Amazon FBA product and you can have the confidence to start selling.
If you want to know more about my Amazon FBA journey as a seller and as a mentor, read my blog post on My 5-Year Journey with Amazon FBA: What The Gurus Don’t Tell You.
If you want to learn how you can create an Amazon FBA business yourself, then check out my free training where I’ll teach you everything you need to launch your first product on Amazon and scale to $5,000+ in monthly profit.
Or if you’re ready to begin your journey and want to start with the best chances of success, apply to become a member of HonestFBA’s training programme where you’ll receive guidance & support from our team of 7-figure Amazon FBA seller experts whenever you need it.
