Have you decided to start your Dropshipping business but confused what products you should choose to sell, especially if you are new to Dropshipping and don’t have the funds that will allow you to invest in high-priced software tools?
The best solution you need to make a final decision on what products to launch is to spend some time on doing product research, but keep in mind that it is extremely important that your research ends with a good product-market fit to maximize sales.
To help you with your research and make your job easier we’ll help explain the following areas to help and guide you on your journey:
What makes a winning product?
Why is it essential to conduct product research?
How do you best conduct product research?
Drophippo’s Special tips to always find winning products
What makes a winning product?
Traditionally large retail stores spend huge amounts on research specialists to help them understand their customer and have large, dedicated budgets at their disposal . It’s undeniable that this way of doing business had positive results in the vast majority of cases, but it didn’t prevent in so many others from over-evaluating or under-evaluating the real value of a product.
Nowadays, thanks to technology and the internet, turning ideas into marketable products or services has become accessible and affordable to everyone no matter how small your budget is. So, what makes a marketable and winning product?
Understanding how the product you want to sell will benefit your potential customer should be at the heart of your concerns. In fact, it needs to meet at least one of the following criteria:
Having distinctive attributes: the product you choose to sell needs to attract attention with unique features.
Suggesting a product that would appeal to more potential customers.
Proposing a solution to a problem. Selling a product that solves an issue always leads to good results.
Selling a high demanded product at a cheaper price. Reducing your costs increases your chances of having a winning product.
Being easy-to-use: if the user guide of your product is complicated to understand and follow, try instructional video ads instead.
Making noticeable changes: the customer should notice the impact of using your product and see the difference its use makes, don’t be scared to explain the benefits to them.
Offering the same product as competition but with more functions.
Having actual customers’ testimonials on your sales page will strengthen your sites credibility.
Why is it essential to conduct product research?
Before publishing any product on your store, it is essential that you conduct research to answer these questions:
Does the product have chances to be successful?
What is the best strategy you can use to sell it?
Besides, proceeding to product research helps with evaluating your idea, identifying potential issues and making sure the possibilities the product offers meet your customers’ needs. In fact, it is the only way you can avoid costly mistakes and find the right process to adopt that will set you apart from competition and at the same time meet your customers needs.
How do you best conduct product research?
The first phase of your product research is a preparatory phase and it should be conducted in line with the following criteria:
Look for items that are durable and easy to ship. Avoid oversized, perishable and fragile products.
Make sure the product you think of is available in your dropshipper’s warehouse.
The price should be set in a manner that prevents your business from profitability problems and costly expenses. In other words, think of a product that is neither too cheap nor too expensive.
When it comes to the second phase, the in-depth one, the first question that comes to mind is: how to identify the best niche?
As a first step, think of having a look at Amazon and Aliexpress best-selling products, even if you’re not using the latter as a supplier as it will help you to choose the niche that is more likely to generate sales, or confirm it if it’s already saturated. Clicking on the product page will bring more information about how the item is doing as far as orders and customer reviews are concerned.
Your research can also be done straight into stores that offer items from the same niche as the one you’re thinking of on Shopify. Tap “.myshopify.com + your niche” in Google and you are redirected to your potential competitors stores.
While looking through items that are best-selling, you also identify your potential competitors and thus have access to valuable information about their offerings and how they communicate about their items. In other words, it’s possible for you to spy on them and all you need to do to get all the information you need about them is to ask Google. Even better, if you’d like to go further, you might shop secretly from their stores to know what behavior they have towards their customers after the purchase has been completed. This will also open up their email marketing to you too!
Social Media can also help you limit the choices you have and you can uncover trending products thanks to Hashtags. Use https://www.hashtagsforlikes.co/ to search for trending hashtags in the industry or niche that you’re interested in. Then you can look for posts using the hashtags you found in different social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram etc. Think also of checking out groups and pages in Facebook for insights about what interests your potential audience, focus on the ones with posts generating a lot of engagement and don’t forget to keep the hashtags you used for your research to reuse them for your marketing campaigns.
While doing your research on Instagram, look also for influencers in the niche you’re interested in and see how they market the items and how the audience is reacting to their posts.
Pinterest can also be a good place to source insights. Use keywords to search for pins and look at the comments users left about them. You’ll need to use keywords because otherwise the result of your research will only be in the interest areas you have chosen in the beginning.
Drophippo’s special tips to always find winning products
Drophippo was created by former Dropshippers who went through almost every method and apps related to product research, and here are the three tools we find to be essential that will help you to find winning products:
Google trends: Google trends is an online free tool that was created by Google to allow users to see how many times a keyword has been researched over a determined period. Dropshippers use it to evaluate a product’s evolution and see if its popularity is rising or decreasing. It is an easy-to-use tool as all you need to do is to type the search term, the name of your niche, and interpret the results that come out in the form of graphs and maps. The shape of the graphs gives you an idea about the evolution of users’ research for your chosen niche and the maps will guide you to your potential markets.
Alishark: Alishark is a great spy tool for any Dropshipper who would like to quickly find a winning product to promote, at a good price. It’s quick and easy-to-use, the data it brings is reliable and comes from different sources and the tool offers good customer support and is regularly updated. To use it, type your product idea into the search bar, then use the filter feature to adjust the results according to your criteria. You’ll need by then to track the results (likes, sales statistics, shares…) before checking details about the item, including the price, on Aliexpress page. By the end of your research, you can upload the item to your Shopify store if the results suit you.
EcomHunt: This is another tool that will help you save time you would spend on researching for winning products and will let you focus on things that matter more for your Dropshipping business. It updates all its data, including winning products, profit, links, engagements, analytics, Facebook ads etc on a daily basis and all the job is done by experts. Thanks to its features, the tool allows its users to immediately start selling items they choose on their stores.
