Why It’s Time to Say Goodbye to Jungle Scout and Embrace Viral Launch

In the world of e-commerce and Amazon selling, having the right tools and resources can make all the difference. Among the numerous software solutions available, Jungle Scout has been a popular choice for product research and sales optimization. However, in recent times, another platform has emerged as a strong contender in the market – Viral Launch. In this blog, we’ll explore why it’s time to bid farewell to Jungle Scout and embrace Viral Launch for your Amazon business.

1. A Comprehensive Suite of Tools

Viral Launch provides a comprehensive suite of tools that cover the entire Amazon selling process, from product discovery to market intelligence, listing optimization, and sales growth. While Jungle Scout focuses primarily on product research, Viral Launch goes above and beyond by offering a holistic set of features that cater to the diverse needs of Amazon sellers. With Viral Launch, you can save time and effort by accessing all the essential tools in one place.

2. Advanced Market Intelligence

Understanding the market landscape is crucial for success on Amazon. Viral Launch outshines Jungle Scout when it comes to market intelligence. It offers in-depth analytics and data-driven insights that enable you to make informed decisions about product selection, pricing, and demand. With Viral Launch’s accurate sales estimates, historical trends, and competitor analysis, you can confidently identify profitable opportunities and stay ahead of the competition.

3. Enhanced Listing Optimization

Optimizing your Amazon listings is key to maximizing visibility and conversions. Viral Launch provides an array of features designed to help you create compelling and SEO-friendly listings. Its Listing Builder tool offers keyword suggestions based on market data, helping you optimize your product titles, bullet points, and descriptions. Additionally, Viral Launch’s split testing feature enables you to test different variations of your listings and discover the most effective strategies to boost sales.

4. Launch and Promotion Strategies

Successfully launching and promoting your products is crucial for gaining traction on Amazon. Viral Launch offers Launch and Rank services that include an array of strategies to increase product visibility and organic rankings. From discounted giveaway promotions to keyword-targeted advertising campaigns, Viral Launch helps you build momentum and generate sales velocity, giving your products a competitive edge.

5. Exceptional Customer Support

When it comes to customer support, Viral Launch excels. Their team is known for being responsive, knowledgeable, and committed to assisting sellers throughout their Amazon journey. Whether you need help with technical issues, strategic guidance, or understanding the platform’s features, Viral Launch’s support team is there to provide prompt and effective solutions.

Conclusion

While Jungle Scout has been a reliable tool for Amazon sellers, it’s time to consider a more comprehensive and feature-rich solution. Viral Launch offers an all-in-one platform with advanced market intelligence, listing optimization tools, launch and promotion strategies, and exceptional customer support. By embracing Viral Launch, you can gain a competitive advantage, make data-driven decisions, and scale your Amazon business effectively.

Make the switch today and experience the power of Viral Launch for yourself. Your Amazon success story awaits!

Disclaimer: This blog is intended to provide information and recommendations based on available data as of its publication date. The efficiency and effectiveness of software tools can vary depending on individual preferences and requirements. It is advisable to conduct thorough research and compare different platforms before making a decision.

How to Find Products to Sell on Amazon: Advanced Amazon Product Research Strategies for Experienced Sellers

When it comes to thriving in the competitive world of eCommerce, selling on Amazon remains one of the most lucrative avenues, especially for experienced sellers. The question that every seller faces at some point or another is: How to find products to sell on Amazon?

According to Marketplace Pulse research, there are currently over 6.3 million third-party sellers on Amazon, with over 50% of them selling on Amazon in North America. This statistic highlights the fierce competition among Amazon sellers and the need for advanced product research strategies to stay ahead.

This guide will dive deep into some of the most effective and advanced Amazon product research strategies. Experienced sellers can leverage these strategies to gain the competitive edge they need to make their desired sales.

Overview of Advanced Amazon Product Research Strategies

What is advanced Amazon product research?

When it comes to selling on Amazon, there are a few secrets you need to know to succeed, and one of them is knowing how to find products to sell on Amazon. 

Product research involves all the processes used to identify profitable product opportunities. Analyzing key metrics such as market trends, demand, and competition are pivotal to this process.

According to Jim Pendergast, Senior Vice President at altLINE Sobanco, “Experienced sellers may need to dig deeper and go beyond the basic Amazon product research techniques that everyone is already using. That’s where the magic of advanced Amazon product research comes into the picture.”

Advanced Amazon product research goes beyond just scratching the surface. It involves a more in-depth approach to identifying the most profitable and less competitive product opportunities on Amazon. You can remove the guesswork from your product research using an Amazon product research tool and other techniques to analyze data, uncover hidden trends, and make data-driven decisions.

Advanced Amazon product research may require that you invest a significant amount of your time and effort. However, you can be sure that it will pay off handsomely in terms of increased sales and revenue.

Importance of advanced Amazon product research

There are many reasons why sellers on Amazon should be intensely interested in conducting product research and leveling up their strategies.

First, it lets you identify and explore potentially profitable opportunities and niches. Amazon product research can aid you in identifying gaps in the market and finding the perfect product categories – those in high demand but with low competition. This will set you apart from the crowd and help sky-rocket your sales.

Furthermore, Amazon product research can provide you with a head-start by aiding in evaluating and assessing competitors and the potential lucrativeness of a product before committing your time and money to it. This can save you money, as it can prevent you from investing in goods that won’t assist you in reaching your financial targets.

Knowing how to find products to sell on Amazon using an Amazon product research tool and advanced product research techniques can help you refine your product descriptions for search engines and improve your product’s visibility in search results. 

Once you possess a robust knowledge of the key terms clients are searching for, you can devise superior titles, descriptions, and tags for your products. This will facilitate your products to appear higher in the search results, ultimately increasing their visibility and the likelihood of generating more revenue.

Advanced Amazon product research techniques

Having recognized the significance of Amazon product research, the subsequent step entails examining the methods for executing and leveling these methods up. A few of these include the following:

Reverse Engineering:

It entails carefully scrutinizing the best-selling products in a specific market segment and disassembling their attributes, constituents, and pricing to construct a comparable or superior product.

Reverse engineering can provide you with invaluable insights into what constitutes a specific product’s success. Subsequently, you can apply this knowledge to design a product that surpasses your competitors.

Bundling:

It involves grouping related products and selling them at a reduced cost. This approach can be highly effective since it enhances the assessed value of the product and stimulates customers to purchase multiple items at once, increasing the seller’s earnings.

Keyword research:

When customers visit Amazon to explore products, they enter keywords or phrases pertaining to their desired purchase.

By conducting thorough keyword research, you can discover high-traffic search terms that can increase your product’s visibility to prospective customers. This tactic can enhance the likelihood of attracting customers to your product when they conduct a search.

Identifying and analyzing competitor products and listings:

Acquiring a comprehensive understanding of the competitive landscape and identifying effective strategies to differentiate your offerings is a crucial step. By evaluating the offerings of your competitors, you can identify opportunities to improve your existing products and establish unique selling points that set your products apart.

Finding unique or custom products to sell:

There exist numerous products that are not commonly available on Amazon or that can be personalized to meet the specific requirements of clients. If you can find such unique or bespoke products, you will achieve a competitive edge and entice niche markets that might not be adequately served by existing products.

These strategies, when applied effectively, can lead to a significant increase in sales and profits and, ultimately, success on Amazon.

However, it is noteworthy that the online shopping landscape continuously changes, and what was effective in the past may not inevitably be fruitful today. Therefore, you must remain updated on the most recent product research trends and tools, including how to find products to sell on Amazon, to facilitate expanding your business on Amazon.

Identifying and analyzing competitor products and listings

Techniques for identifying and analyzing competitor products and listings

When selling on Amazon, one of the most critical factors determining your success is how well you understand your competition. Taking time to identify and analyze your competitor’s products and listings will help you locate loopholes you can capitalize on to stand out from the crowd.

Below are some proven methods of identifying and analyzing your competitors on Amazon.

Conduct keyword research:

Look up keywords and phrases related to your product or niche on Amazon. 

Anthony Martin, Founder and CEO of Choice Mutual, adds, “Go through the top results and analyze the listings to see what your competitors are doing – what they are selling, how they are positioning their products, and the specific keywords they are targeting.”

Use Amazon’s “Customers who bought this also bought” feature:

Many sellers on Amazon still don’t know how useful this feature is in helping to identify related products that their customers are also interested in. You must analyze these products to see if your competitors offer them.

Utilize Amazon’s “Sponsored Products” ads:

These appear on Amazon’s search results page and are a great way to identify and track your competitors. Study these ads to find out what products your competitors are promoting and what keywords they are targeting.

Analyze your competitor’s product reviews:

Knowing what customers think about your competitor’s products is invaluable when selling on Amazon. Such reviews may provide detailed insights into consumers’ preferences, empowering you to utilize this data to enhance your product offerings.

Having made significant progress in recognizing your competitors, the next phase involves analyzing their product listings. Here are some crucial elements that you should pay attention to:

Product title:

In this case, it’s crucial to take a few hints from how your competitors are naming their products. Are they utilizing brief or lengthy titles? Are they integrating their brand name? Or are there any other descriptive terms they are utilizing? Answering these questions will aid you in devising your unique and appealing product title.

Product Description:

Your product description is the perfect avenue to exhibit and highlight your product’s distinctive characteristics and advantages. You can analyze the product descriptions of your competitors and explore methods to distinguish your products from theirs.

Images:

To draw the interest of potential buyers swiftly on Amazon result pages, deploying catchy images is crucial. One of the most effective techniques to accomplish this is utilizing exceptional-quality images. It is necessary to look at the images used by your competitors to present their products, compare them with yours, and ascertain if there is room for improvement.

Make an effort to identify and analyze the products and listings of your competitors. You will obtain precious insights that reveal how to find products to sell on Amazon efficiently, including what’s effective in your niche, and give you ideas for enhancing your offerings.

Finding unique or custom products to sell

Strategies for identifying and sourcing unique or custom products

Eric Mills, Owner of Lightning Card Collection, says, “As a novice seller on Amazon, it is essential to steer clear of selling products already excessively saturated with competition. This will help you to minimize the risk of being overshadowed by the already established market players.”

To stand out among the multitude of other Amazon sellers and draw in shoppers searching for something distinct, exclusive, or personalized, it is advisable to discover a means of distinguishing yourself. An excellent approach to achieving this is by finding unique or bespoke items to sell.

However, recognizing and procuring these unique products that can put you ahead of the competition may present a challenge. Below are some suggestions that can steer you in the right direction as you embark on your quest to discover one-of-a-kind or personalized products to sell on Amazon:

Search for handmade products:

Handmade products hold a significant spot in the hearts of numerous buyers, and these consumers are usually prepared to pay a higher price for them. Websites like Etsy, a platform for vintage and handmade items, offer a wide range of handmade products. Additionally, it’s a good idea to prioritize visiting craft fairs and exhibitions to discover artisans who produce one-of-a-kind products.

Consider private label products:

Not sure what private label products are? Don’t fret. They are products you don’t manufacture yourself but can be sold under your brand name. After receiving the product, all you have to do is customize it to your taste and make it appealing to customers. 

This strategy can be very effective, primarily when you identify a currently trending product with few customization options.

Take advantage of online marketplaces:

There are so many online marketplaces, such as DHgate, where you can find reliable suppliers specializing in custom or unique products.

You can ask these suppliers if they offer a range of customization options. Options, such as different colors, sizes, or materials, so you can be creative and bring your unique product to life.

Work with a designer:

If you have a specific idea in mind for a unique product but need to know how to put the pieces together, you can employ the services of a designer to create a custom design.

Where to find designers? Easy! You can go on sites such as Upwork and Fiverr or attend design conferences and events to network and collaborate with designers in person.

You need to be ready to explore new opportunities and put your creativity to use when trying to learn how to find products to sell on Amazon. These unique products might just be what you need to take your sales game to the next level!

Tips for finding and working with suppliers for custom products

Identifying unique source products can be overwhelming, particularly if you lack experience collaborating with suppliers. Here are some pointers to facilitate and streamline the process of discovering and engaging with manufacturers of bespoke items:

Know your product requirements:

Before commencing your search for suppliers, it is vital to carry out research. Have a distinct understanding of your product requirements, including the type of material, dimensions, and design you desire.

A clearly outlined product specification will make explaining to potential suppliers what you are looking for easier and ensure you get the exact product you want.

Check supplier credentials:

When encountering a potential supplier, look at their credentials. It’s imperative to find a supplier with substantial expertise in dealing with your category of merchandise and a favorable reputation in the industry.

Request samples:

To discover the appropriate supplier, demand samples of products from potential suppliers. This will grant you a glimpse into the quality of their work. Asking for samples should assist you in determining whether you intend to proceed and collaborate with the supplier.

Negotiate prices:

While collaborating with suppliers, it is crucial to ensure that you negotiate cost-effectively to secure the best deal. Disclose your budget and expectations transparently, and do not be reluctant to negotiate a deal that is favorable to you.

Conclusion

In the world of e-commerce, the competition is intense. Only the most seasoned sellers who implement advanced product research techniques will prosper.

Although traditional product research strategies are still utilized, they possess limitations, and sellers who exclusively rely on them are likely to miss numerous opportunities.

Performing advanced product research requires time, energy, and resources. Sellers must allocate resources to reliable tools and stay current with the most recent advancements to make more informed decisions.

By implementing the strategies detailed in this guide and continuously refining their tactics, sellers will know how to find products to sell on Amazon, maintain a competitive edge, and establish themselves for long-term success in Amazon’s marketplace.

Top 5 Profitable Amazon Product Categories: Find Your Niche Today

If you’re an Amazon seller, you already know that choosing the right product categories can make or break your sales. Some are simply more profitable than others, making it crucial to focus on those that are in high demand and offer good profit margins. In this blog post, we’ll explore the most profitable Amazon product categories and provide some insights into why they’re so successful. 

Finding profitable product categories can be a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. With tools like Viral Launch’s Product Discovery or Market Intelligence, sellers can quickly and easily identify high-potential products and categories to target. These tools use data-driven insights to help sellers make informed decisions about which products to sell and which markets to target. By leveraging Viral Launch’s expertise and resources, sellers can stay ahead of the competition and maximize their profits on Amazon.

From electronics to toys and games, we’ll cover the categories that are making the biggest impact on Amazon and provide some tips for sellers looking to capitalize on these trends. So, whether you’re just starting out or looking to expand your product offerings, read on to discover the most profitable Amazon product categories.

Top Amazon Product Categories

1. Electronics

When it comes to product categories that are consistently profitable on Amazon, electronics is certainly near the top of the list. Not only are electronics some of the most in-demand products on the platform, but they also offer sellers the potential for high profit margins. In fact, according to a recent report by Jungle Scout, the electronics category was responsible for more than $96.97 billion in sales on Amazon (US) in 2022, making it one of the top selling categories on Amazon.

Within the electronics category, there are a few specific product categories that stand out as Amazon trending products:

  • Laptops: These are a hot commodity, as remote work and online learning continue to drive demand for high-quality, portable computing devices.
  • Smartphone: People upgrade their devices seeking out the latest features and technology. 
  • Smart home technology: Devices like thermostats, security cameras, and voice assistants are increasingly popular.
  • Gaming consoles
  • Headphones
  • Home theater systems

What’s particularly appealing about selling electronics on Amazon is the potential for high profit margins. While it’s true that some electronics can be expensive to source and ship, the demand for these products can make up for the extra cost. Additionally, many electronics have a high retail value, which means that sellers can mark up their prices and still offer competitive pricing. 

Of course, it’s important to research each product category and carefully consider factors like competition and seasonality before diving in. With the right strategy, though, electronics can be a very lucrative Amazon product category.

2. Health and Personal Care

The Health and Personal Care category has emerged as a growing segment on Amazon. With the increase in health awareness among consumers, this category has seen rapid growth in recent years. The convenience of online shopping and competitive pricing offered by Amazon makes it an attractive option for customers looking to purchase health and personal care products.

Some of the best-selling health and personal care products on Amazon include:

  • Vitamins and supplements: Vitamins and supplements category has seen steady growth in recent years, with a wide range of products from various brands. 
  • Personal hygiene products: Shampoo, soap, and toothpaste, etc.
  • Medical equipment: This subcategory has seen significant growth on Amazon, with products like blood pressure monitors, thermometers, and nebulizers being among the best-selling items.

The Health and Personal Care category also has the advantage of the potential for high profit margins. Many of these products have a high markup, making it easier to generate a healthy profit margin. 

However, researching products in the health and personal care category is crucial. As these products may be FDA-regulated, they could require specific labels, disclaimers in their product descriptions, and other selling requirements. Failure to comply with these regulations can result in legal consequences, such as account suspension or even lawsuits, making it imperative for sellers to understand and follow all necessary guidelines. 

3. Home and kitchen 

It is no surprise the Home and Kitchen category is one of the most profitable given the demand for products that make our lives easier and more comfortable. According to Amazon, home and kitchen products have been among the top-selling categories for several years. This category includes a wide range of products from small kitchen appliances to furniture and home decor. In 2021, the category saw a surge in sales due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as people spent more time at home and invested in their living spaces.

Some of the best-selling home and kitchen categories on Amazon include:

  • Home appliances: Air fryers, coffee makers, and blenders have been trending products on Amazon due to their convenience and functionality.
  • Cooking utensils
  • Home decor 

Sellers can also utilize Amazon’s Best Sellers in Home & Kitchen page to keep track of the top-selling products in this category and stay ahead of the competition.

4. Beauty and Personal Care

The beauty and personal care category is one of the fastest-growing and most profitable categories on Amazon. With the rise of social media and influencer marketing, people are being ”influenced” to invest in high-quality beauty and personal care products. In fact, in 2022, beauty and personal care e-commerce sales more than doubled that of 2019.

Some of the best-selling beauty and personal care categories on Amazon include: 

  • Skincare
  • Hair care: Hair care products, such as shampoos, conditioners, and styling products, are also in high demand, especially those that address specific hair concerns such as hair loss, thinning, and damage.
  • Makeup

With the right strategy, sellers can achieve high profit margins in this category by offering unique and high-quality products that meet the needs and preferences of their target audience.

However, it should be noted that some of these products may also be FDA regulated and require more intensive research. For example, the FDA’s definition of a “medical device” is considerably vague meaning products like facial rollers and electric toothbrushes are regulated. Sellers should be aware of potential restrictions and requirements when selling products in the Beauty and Personal category. For more information on products that have been cleared by the FDA, check out Amazon’s permitted products list.

5. Toys and Games

Toys and games have always been popular on Amazon, especially during the holiday season when people are searching for gifts for their loved ones. 

The toys and games category is a diverse one, with products for children of all ages as well as adults who enjoy playing board games or building sets. The vastness and diversity of this category means more opportunity for sellers regardless of competition. According to eMarketer, the toys and hobby category on Amazon generated $33.38 billion in sales in 2022, and this number is expected to grow in the coming years.

Some of the best-selling toys and games categories on Amazon include: 

  • Action figures
  • Board games
  • Puzzles 

The potential for high profit margins in the toys and games category is significant, especially for products with a loyal fan base or popular licenses. 

Final Thoughts

We’ve covered some of the most profitable Amazon product categories including, electronics, health and personal care, home and kitchen, beauty and personal care, and toys and games. Each category has its unique characteristics and offers potential for success. 

However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. With Viral Launch’s Amazon seller software suite, sellers can further research each category with real-time data to identify profitable opportunities and stay ahead of the competition. Choosing the right product category is crucial to step in the Amazon seller journey. 

Whether you’re new to Amazon or a seasoned seller, it’s essential to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and research each category thoroughly to find the right product to sell. By doing so, you can increase your chances of success and thrive in the ever-changing world of e-commerce.

Free Amazon Chrome Extension for FBA Sellers

Discover how to build, grow and scale your Amazon business with the Market Intelligence, the best Amazon Chrome Extension for sellers.

Is your Amazon research process fully optimized? If you aren’t using the Market Intelligence Chrome extension from Viral Launch, your product research regimen could likely use a boost! Utilizing Viral Launch’s Amazon Chrome Extension for sellers can save you time, effort, and clicks while still providing the powerful data crucial to your business.

At any stage of selling on Amazon, performing product research stands as a constant task. While the data you value most might change, analyzing market trends and checking in on the competition is perhaps the one commonality all Amazon sellers perform, making it a distinctively important part of the selling process.

Due to the numerous data points, complexity, and tedious nature of digging into the data of individual products and segmented markets, it’s no wonder why Amazon sellers often view product research as grunt work.

The importance of product research regarding an Amazon business’s success is why we created Market Intelligence, packed with accurate sales estimates and virtually every key metric about the Amazon marketplace you could ask for. But why the Chrome Extension? It’s simple: to streamline your product research process for maximum efficiency.

What is the Market Intelligence Chrome Extension?

It’s exactly what it sounds like! The industry-leading Market Intelligence tool from Viral Launch has been a favorite for Amazon sellers for years. The Chrome extension lets you bring Market Intelligence directly to Amazon pages. Once you’ve installed the Market Intelligence Chrome extension and have an active subscription including Market Intelligence, you can skim through Amazon and pull up in-depth insights into the marketplace with the click of a button.

This tool provides real-time insights into competitors’ sales and marketing strategies, including pricing, sales volume, and keyword rankings. Armed with this information, sellers can adjust their approach to remain competitive in the marketplace.

What data can I find in the Market Intelligence Amazon Chrome Extension for sellers?

AI-powered insights and billions of Amazon data points give a seller’s advantage no other tool can provide. Access historical trends, monthly sales, monthly revenue, keyword search volume, and much more, all while browsing products on Amazon.com. You can use this data to make smart sourcing decisions, discover products that haven’t been found, and start or scale your eCommerce business.

Gain a wide-ranging comprehension of a product market in the Sellers tab.

In the Chrome extension, you’ll find five unique tabs: Sellers, Keywords, Trends, Analysis, and Calculator.

Sellers

The Sellers tab stands as the primary section of the Chrome extension, with the data points found in the standard Market Intelligence tool. When on an Amazon search results page or Product Detail Page, the extension populates information for that product that’s been tracked over time. Brand name, monthly revenue, unit margin, monthly sales, and review quantity are just a fraction of the data in this tab. Additionally, you can track products with the push of a button, which will transfer to your Viral Launch account.

Keywords

The Keywords tab integrates the search volume estimates from Keyword Research for advanced accessibility.

The Keywords tab takes information from our Keyword Research tool, showing a complete list of similar or related keywords on a search page. The most popular data point within Keywords is estimated search volume, with the most accurate estimates driven by our innovative data science. You can find the most popular keywords used to find products like the one you’re searching for, along with the average price, sales, and revenues for each keyword market.

Trends

You can find quick-hitting information about the selected market in the Trends tab. You can quickly see any price changes, the best-selling period, and annual sales trends. At the same time, a chart with years of data tracking shows peaks, valleys, and stagnation points.

While performing product research, it’s easy to make mistakes based on outdated data. As any seller knows, things change quickly. If a product generated sales and search volume in the past but is on a downward trend or has increased competition, your research can do more harm than good. The Trends tab seeks to help avoid these mistakes and help you get a better feel for the trajectory of a product or market.

Analysis

Like a great virtual assistant, the Analysis tab offers AI-generated insights into a market. You can find helpful tips, warnings, and alerts to help make you aware of issues such as seasonality, saturated markets, price declines, and more. Consider the Trends tab an extra set of eyes, offering an enhanced outlook on potential pitfalls. For example, the image below details that Amazon sells products in this market, a helpful tidbit when perusing a market.

Avoid blind spots in your product research with the AI-generated details in the Analysis tab.

Calculator

The Calculator tab lets you calculate fees and potential profit per unit sold. This feature uses industry standards from our FBA Calculator and averages to deliver a rough idea about profitability. Since costs may differ for different sellers, you can edit the numbers if you have a more precise and personalized range of costs for a more accurate approximation.

How much does the Market Intelligence Chrome Extension cost?

It’s free, sorta! Technically, the extension is free and available as an add-on to anyone in the Google Chrome browser. However, if you’re not subscribed to a Viral Launch subscription plan, you’ll quickly find the data inaccessible. Once installed and activated, you’ll be asked to sign in with your Viral Launch credentials. After doing so, you’re ready to take your research outside the Viral Launchpad.

Since the extension is free, it’s something every Viral Launch subscriber should add to their browser extensions.

Conclusion

In summary, the Viral Launch Chrome Extension is a powerful tool for e-commerce sellers looking to streamline their research for maximum efficiency and convenience. With real-time data on product sales, revenue, and profitability, the extension has certainly become a popular choice for entrepreneurs looking to succeed in the competitive world of e-commerce.

Whether you’re a seasoned seller or just getting started, the Viral Launch Chrome extension is a tool that can help you achieve your goals and grow your business on Amazon. Thus, if you haven’t already, download the Market Intelligence Amazon Chrome extension for sellers today and incorporate it into your Amazon research tool set!

Viral Launch Tool Update: Amazon Product Discovery

By popular demand, Viral Launch’s Product Discovery tool receives a handy update to refine your Amazon market research.

The most reliable, trustworthy data in the Amazon marketplace just got a little better. In Viral Launch’s Amazon Product Discovery tool for finding untapped Amazon markets, users can now manually refresh the data for the latest, most up-to-date information available in Brand and Category searches.

Previously, the data displayed within the tool for Brand and Category searches may not have been the most up-to-date timeframe, depending on the search criteria. The out-of-date data shown in those instances were often for lesser-known brands or more niche products that did not meet the necessary benchmarks to update daily, as they do in Market Intelligence and our other insightful seller tools.

Now, you can ensure you’re seeing the most comprehensive, up-to-date data with the easy push of a button. If the results displayed are more than 30 days old, simply click the “Update Analysis” button near the top right corner of your browser to queue up an update.

Upon triggering the update, Product Discovery will hunt and retrieve the data requested. Of course, once you start your Amazon research, waiting around isn’t a part of your plans. While we fetch the data, you can pin your search and come back to it at any point to check the status and keep a history of your searches.

Whenever you’re ready to come back to check the update status or see the up-to-speed results, just select the Pinned Ideas tab on the left menu, select your search type, and your full history of pinned searches will be available to peruse.

Pin your searches after refreshing to stay organized and keep track of your Amazon research.

The update is currently live, so all users with access to Product Discovery can give their brand and category research a boost. Product Discovery is available within all Viral Launch software packages. If you don’t have an active subscription, no worries! Sign up for your free trial today to join the action and take your Amazon market research to a new stratosphere.

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Find products to sell on Amazon with Product Discovery

To learn more about this new feature, contact us using the chat function or by sending an email with your request to service@viral-launch.com.

Why a Cash Flow Pinch Can Kill Your eCommerce Business

Cash flow is the backbone of any eCommerce company. It is crucial to keep cash flow moving smoothly. If it becomes too much of a pinch point, it can kill the business. Cash flow is defined by the amount of cash available to your business throughout its operations. It is usually measured every month, and the primary source of promote cash flow for eCommerce businesses comes through selling product. 

Cash flow is crucial for businesses and shows how much money passes through the operations. Yet, it is not the same as a profit. The funds received from customers are collected under the term cash flow. Businesses still need to pay for expenses like rent, labor, utilities, taxes, and other fees. Every company has a constant fluctuation of cash flow. The amount of cash received (and when) depends on supply and demand and the business’s monthly expenses. With proper data management, a company’s ever-changing cash flow can still be predictable and manageable and enable sound business decisions. 

Why Is Cash Flow Important

Cash flow is the backbone of a business, so if it fails, the company fails. A recent study from CB Insights found that a third of companies failed because they ran out of cash. One-third of businesses also fail due to an insufficient market for the product they are selling. Which then leads to a lack of cash flow. Improperly managed cash flow streams can lead to poor decision-making, a misunderstanding of how a company’s money is spent, and ultimately be the downfall of a business. 

Companies need to prioritize their cash flow to ensure that their business will stay afloat and reap more benefits from adequately managed cash flow. As businesses manage their cash flow, they pay close attention to how their money is spent and control their finances. When a company has a positive cash flow, it improves the relationships with its partners and customers and promotes brand loyalty. It can also help businesses find their strengths and weaknesses, and how best they can expand. 

What Promotes Cash Flow 

There are a few ways that businesses can promote cash flow and ensure that they will thrive. The first step in promoting cash flow is planning and forecasting. In order to spend money correctly, businesses need to know how much money will be coming in and when. With a better idea of how money flows through a business, there will be less overspending and fewer mistakes when judging how much money the company has. 

With planning comes a strategy of what businesses should spend money on and when. Companies should plan when their cash flow is coming in and the best allocation of that money. If there is a low demand for a particular product, there is no need to spend cash flow on an abundance of inventory. Companies should find what is a priority for spending and what needs the most attention. Pay close attention to what needs fixing. This will promote more cash flow and allow attention to shift to minor issues. 

Cash flow improves when companies receive money faster and hang onto it longer. Speeding up the process of obtaining cash can incentivize customers to choose a faster form of payment. Companies can hold on to money for longer by buying inventory, earning interest, and elongating the amount of time before paying expenses. This sales cycle gives control over when costs pay off and how much money is in the business at one time. 

What Challenges Cash Flow 

Many daily challenges come along with maintaining cash flow. Businesses that forecast their finances consistently can learn how to work around everyday challenges. Conversely, companies that do not find solutions to these problems end up with cash flow as a bigger pinch point, which can negatively impact the entire operation. 

Some common challenges with cash flow include delayed payments from customers. Sometimes, purchases can happen pretty quickly. Businesses may not reap the benefits of the purchase and experience a time with a shortage of cash. Less cash flow is caused by bank deposits holding money. Or if a large sum of cash flow to buy equipment or machines, leading to businesses waiting for new revenue. Companies unaware of their total cash flow, or spend their cash flow before secure income experience negative cash flow. The life of the business is then solely dependent on the speed of its recovery.

How Payability Can Help 

Payability recognizes the difficulties that eCommerce businesses face with cash flow. The funding programs are built for eCommerce businesses that need assistance filling the gap between paying expenses and receiving revenue. eCommerce businesses no longer have to worry about the risk of cash flow with the help of Payability. To see if your company qualifies for Instant Access to your marketplace payouts, visit Payability.com and apply now.

Thank you Payability for your guest post. For more information on Payability, head to their site. To better your selling business and software tools, head to Viral Launches main page.

Amazon Search Volume Data: The Key to Product Research

Product research is everything for Amazon FBA success. But many competitors, gurus, and “experts” neglect using Amazon search volume data despite its incredible impact. Why?

No matter where you’re at in your FBA journey, conducting intensive product and market research is critical to your success. 

With each stage of the Amazon selling process, the key performance indicators (KPIs) you rely upon will change, as each phase presents unique challenges. Knowing which data points to observe and consider during any decision-making process plays a significant role in your ultimate success or failure, especially for FBA beginners.

For most sellers, search volume data doesn’t enter the equation for product research until you’re building an SEO-friendly listing or exploring pay-per-click (PPC) advertising opportunities.

But waiting until after you’ve found a product to start paying attention to search volume data may be a major mistake!

How does search volume play such an important role in the decision-making process? Easy. It’s a significant indicator of one of the most fundamental aspects of any business.

Search volume represents demand.

Outside of Amazon, businesses invest an abundance of time and money into research for demand validation.

What are people looking for? Where are they going for these items? How much inventory should we have in stock? What are interested customers willing to pay? Can I expect steady sales all year long?

With the right research tools, sellers can not only answer all of those questions but can actually reverse engineer product ideas based on years of exhaustive market data. Every metric tells a unique story, and search volume estimates tell the story of demand.

We can safely say this due to the nature of Amazon being a search engine solely for commercial purposes. Others may recommend utilizing Google search volume data for research, but there’s a huge part of the equation you’d be missing out on by not using search volume from Amazon.

Searches on Amazon are made with the intent to buy

Check out your recent search history on Google. How many of those searches were made with the intent of buying something? Chances are, not many. On the other end, it wouldn’t make much sense to search for something on Amazon without some level of interest in buying something.

So why make a business decision based on searches made with no intent to buy?

Outside of Amazon, Google Keyword Planner and AdWords are incredible tools for seeing what’s generating buzz. From that, you can increase your visibility through PPC advertising outside of Amazon. But Amazon and Google serve two entirely different purposes as search engines. 

Google organizes information and makes it universally accessible. Amazon is much more focused on commerce and making transactions as frictionless as possible for sellers and buyers.

Utilizing search volume data for Amazon instead of Google eliminates the guesswork of buyer intent. As a result, you can focus on the level of interest in your market directly from your audience.

Where can I find Amazon search volume?

Viral Launch’s search volume estimates (available with any plan with access to Keyword Research) display search volume history ranging back years to keep an eye on product seasonality.

Every product is bound to have peaks and valleys in sales. But not paying attention to seasonality is an all-too-common rookie mistake.

For example, let’s take a look at this chart for the search volume history of “kettlebell.” If you were to have looked at search volume estimates in April or May of 2020, you might believe you’ve hit a grand slam product idea.

From this graph displaying years of search volume data, we can reasonably conclude traffic for kettlebells skyrocketed as gyms closed. As a result of COVID-19, gym rats worked out more at home.

As more people receive their home workout gear and gyms re-open, searches have seen a downtick in the previous two months and will likely continue regressing to the norm. While “kettlebell” receives a significant chunk of searches, it’s a far cry from the peak outlier demand in the months after gyms started closing due to COVID-19.

Current search volume provides a zoomed-in snapshot of the moment, and historical search volume data delivers a more complete picture. Using historical search volume data allows us to increase the sample size we’re drawing from for more accurate data.

Use search volume estimates to find and validate your niche.

As more and more household brands flock to Amazon and top-selling third-party sellers continue to mature, competing with dominant products is increasingly difficult due to saturation.

By no means does this mean that highly profitable products aren’t out there, it just means the strategy for finding them has been updated to fit the current landscape of Amazon as it continues to mature as an e-commerce giant. And for aspiring sellers, it only intensifies the need for astute strategies and well-informed research.

Because of that, we recommend avoiding the oversaturated, uber-competitive markets that are difficult to compete within. While not impossible to succeed in a saturated market, more barriers to entry represent additional risk.

You can find our comprehensive deep dive into our recommended strategies for finding niches and performing product research in today’s FBA climate here.

In a nutshell, finding niches is beneficial to sellers because they have an increased likelihood of success and an opportunity to own a segment of the market as both Amazon and your brand grow.

With this strategy, you’ll want to avoid overly crowded markets while also making sure you have an audience. With Keyword Research, you can quickly ensure this by utilizing the Estimated Search Volume filter and setting your search parameters.

Utilizing the Estimated Search Volume filter in Product Discovery’s Keyword Search is an excellent way to hunt for niches.

Once you’ve narrowed down your filters to match your goals, just click Show Keywords, and you’ll be provided with a sortable list that includes estimated search volume as well as data including the average price, sales, reviews, and revenue in that keyword market. Those on annual plans will also see a Product Idea Score. This score incorporates multiple metrics into one score on a 1–5 scale for quick and easy validation.

Using your search parameters, you’ll see a full list of keywords on Amazon that meet your criteria. This allows you to evaluate some of the most important elements of product research at once. 

As you sift through the results, be sure to use market research tools such as Market Intelligence to further validate product ideas with data, estimates, and insights.

Use this powerful data to your advantage

Don’t make the mistake of overlooking search volume data in your product hunt! Without tracking current and historical search volume for a product’s seed keyword, you’re vulnerable to critical oversights in your research.

At Viral Launch, we believe the most-informed decision is the best decision. Having reliable and accurate search volume estimates in your arsenal is an essential element of making the most informed decision possible.

Don’t miss out on the valuable insights from Amazon search volume estimates! Add Keyword Research to your research plan for reliable search volume estimates and an edge over the competition!

Validate Your Product Ideas With Viral Launch’s Amazon Market Intelligence Tool

Now that you’ve got both feet on the ground as an Amazon seller, the tricky part is finding what products will put you ahead of the pack. You can look at snapshot estimates from a random collection of sourcing tools, piecing together what you hope is an accurate picture of the market and product — or you can improve your chances of sourcing only the right products by making use of the right Amazon market intelligence.

Viral Launch’s Market Intelligence tool gives you the most comprehensive access to Amazon-wide insight across billions of different data points. With it, you can make truly informed decisions and validate any product before you ever launch it.

What Real Amazon Market Intelligence Looks Like

Intelligence is nothing without data, which is what makes our Amazon Market Intelligence tool so valuable. It’s the only tool that can collect and leverage data points from across Amazon’s entire market. With the data the tool gathers for you, you can glean the kind of insight and analysis that can help you almost predict the success of any product launch. For example, the billions of data points you’ll have access to can help you assess markets and products by:

1. Name brands: See whether any big household names or Amazon itself is selling in the market. It will be easiest for you to compete against other smaller brands, so stay away from markets that are dominated by one brand or a few dominant brands.

2. Sales spreads: If a few products are claiming most of the sales in the market, it’ll be harder to claim a piece of the pie, especially as a newcomer. Look for markets where sales are spread pretty evenly between the products on the first page.

3. Competitors’ intelligence: Finding a few products dominating sales spreads isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Use the Market Intelligence tool to reverse-engineer their strategies. For example, track what keywords the dominating products use in sponsored ads and make a list of your own variations.

4. Market trends: Sales trends tell you a lot, but if you want to determine which trends are fads and which are actual depictions of the market, you’ll have to look at data from across a few years. Use market trends to avoid investing too heavily in the next fidget spinner.

5. Price margins: Even with a great product, you won’t make a profit unless you can cover Amazon’s fees and still stay price-competitive. You can research the cost of sourcing units from a site like Alibaba, then plug it into our Amazon FBA calculator.

6. Product reviews: Speaking of being competitive, you can enter the competition a lot sooner in a market where mediocre performance is the norm. Research reviews throughout the market and pay special attention to those that are generally low.

7. Product fulfillment: Finally, stay away from markets filled with FBA (fulfilled by Amazon) or AMZ (Amazon original) designations. If your products are FBA, then you can compete more effectively in markets that are mostly filled with FBM (fulfilled by merchant) products.
Data can mean the difference between entering a market and thriving in it — or sinking fast due to poor intelligence. With our Amazon Market Intelligence tool, you can make sure you end up on the thriving side every time. To learn more, sign up for a free trial today!

The Science of Search: Advanced Amazon Keyword Research Tactics

We are taking a deep dive into the foundation of every successful strategy on Amazon: keyword research.


When looking to private label a product on Amazon, it’s extremely evident that the markets are flooded. Now more than ever, it can be an incredibly difficult feat to drive sales for a new product with no reviews and no sales history. That said, there is still a (literal) wealth of opportunity in the Amazon space for savvy sellers who package a well developed strategy with their product offering.

At Viral Launch, we’ve seen one recurring fundamental reason for a product’s failure on Amazon… lack of strategy. It’s not good enough to source a product, throw up a listing, and wait for the sales, and (perhaps unfortunately) focusing on sourcing a product that’s objectively ‘different’ or ‘better’ than your competition doesn’t matter much when you’re given one image and around 100 characters to draw the attention of shoppers.

Everything on Amazon comes down to strategy, and strategy is the result of thorough research. Sourcing the right product and ensuring that it’s positioned correctly in the market is the key to driving success on Amazon. While we have recently published two lengthy posts which cover how to generate product ideas and how to launch and rank products, due to ever increasing importance, we’ll be taking a deep dive into the foundation of every successful strategy on Amazon: keyword research.

The Strategy Behind a Well Crafted Listing

It’s important to recognize that while many people think of Amazon as more of a digital store, the reality is that Amazon.com is first and foremost a search engine. For this reason, when creating a product listing, it’s important to understand that your written content must serve dual purposes.

The first purpose is to produce an attractive listing. Like an advertisement for your product, you need to ensure that you’re using persuasive language and providing a value proposition to help sell your product. If your content doesn’t make sense, doesn’t read attractively, or doesn’t adequately explain the tangible value of the product, shoppers will inevitably be inclined to choose a different product.

The second purpose of your listing is to appeal to Amazon’s search engine. Because your product is inevitably found through customer search queries, ensuring that you’re understanding the keywords that shoppers are using to find your product (and understanding how to prioritize them in your listing) is critically important for driving success. With this, diversifying your keywords as much as possible helps you to index within the results of more searches, thus widening your listing’s potential visibility.

Ultimately, a well optimized listing (a balance between keyword rich content and sales language) is the cornerstone of a successful product. If you focus too heavily on making  a persuasive appeal to your shoppers, there is a good chance that you’ll end up limiting the quantity of searches for which your product will be indexed. On the other hand, if you focus too heavily on overloading your listing with high value keywords, it may show up in more searches but it’s likely that the product’s conversion will be low. Even if you can get your listing in front of people, if it doesn’t read well, or draw people in, you’re not going to be able to maximize your sales perspective.

Great listing content is a fusion between art (sales language) and science (keyword research). The art of this equation is something that comes from understanding your product and the benefits, differentiating factors, and qualities that can persuade buyers. The science comes from market research, data analysis, and in most cases, a quality set of tools to help your pursuit.

This article will be addressing the science of keyword research.

Keyword Research

While the purpose of this article is educational and not a sales pitch, and while there are several tool suites that can be utilized to help you conduct research, this article will be referencing the Viral Launch research tools for ease of reference.

While some of this should even be done prior to sourcing a product, when beginning to analyze keyword markets, Keyword Research should be the foundational reference point for building your listing content. To start, you’ll want to search for your product’s primary keyword. This is logically the keyword that you would search if you were looking to buy a product in your market. From there, Keyword Research will populate a list of associated keywords along with key metrics such as search volume, relevancy score, etc.

This list of keywords of populated keywords contains many of the important search terms that you should seek to prioritize in your content. Because Keyword Research is algorithmic, however, you’ll need to review these results to pull out the best keywords to include.

For starters, sort your results by search volume. This should give you the most competitive keywords in your market. These are the terms being searched most heavily by shoppers and have the potential to drive a large volume of sales. That said, they’re also going to be difficult and expensive to rank for, meaning that while it’s important to include these terms in your content, you’re going to want to target some quick-win keywords as well that can help you to drive sales early on.

It’s important to note that you’ll also want to remove any ‘branded’ keywords from consideration. For instance, if you’re selling socks, keywords like ‘Nike socks’ may have high search volume, but since you’re not Nike, these keywords can’t be targeted by your content.

Once you have identified a good selection of high volume keywords, it’s important to now look for keywords with high opportunity. A high opportunity keyword is a keyword that is not included in the content of many/any competing listings. Within Keyword Research, opportunity is scored from 0-1000. Keywords with a 1000 opportunity score means that no listings on page one have this exact phrase keyword included in their content. The lower the score, the more listings include this term.

To identify high opportunity keywords, it’s recommended that you sort by opportunity score, and look for any keyword with an opportunity of 750-1000 with a search volume of at least 1000 searches per month. There are typically plenty of keywords that have high opportunity, but if no one is searching for them, there isn’t much potential to drive sales. Because each section of a listing has a character limit, it’s important to prioritize keywords that have better potential to drive sales (i.e. keywords that have search volume).

Finally, performing a quick review of high priority and high relevancy keywords will help you to catch any other terms that may have been missed. Particularly, priority is determined by assigning a score based on search volume and opportunity, meaning that it will help to show keywords that are easy to rank for while having some degree of customer audience.

It’s also recommended that you repeat this process by searching several high volume keywords within Keyword Research. Though the majority of the keywords should overlap, ensuring that you’re not missing any other valuable keywords can be helpful.

As you collect these keywords, you are able to move them over to your keyword bank, allowing you to create your listing within Listing Builder. You’re also able to copy and/or export your list to a CSV file. It’s highly recommended that you keep an organized record of your targeted keywords for reference for tracking and advertising purposes.

Competitor Intelligence

While using Keyword Research is a great way to understand your market and build a collection of high volume keywords, it’s also important to understand your product market within the context of the competition. By understanding what keywords your competitors are running ads to, driving sales through, prioritizing, and/or ignoring, you can begin to build a strategy around how to position your product within a market.

With Competitor Intelligence, you can review your competition’s keyword data and use their data to your advantage. Through keyword analysis on several market competitors, you can construct keyword lists based on a few different considerations.

Primarily, Competitor Intelligence can show you what keywords are driving sales for your competition. The tool is able to present any listings, organic ranking for each keyword, ad placements, and keyword search volume, allowing you to review and monitor the keywords that correlate to a bulk of your competitor’s sales. Through this, you can start to build a profile of the keywords that drive the most sales for listings in your market and prioritize your listing content accordingly.

Additionally, using Viral Launch’s Reverse ASIN 2.0 technology, Competitor Intelligence will also show relevant keywords for which your competitor is not indexed and/or ranked for. Comparable to opportunity score, if there is little to no search volume for these keywords, they may not be worth prioritizing. However, if your top competitors are missing a few quality keywords in their listing, it may create opportunity for you to drive sales with little competitive resistance. Especially early on in the life of your listing, understanding how to drive easy sales by capitalizing on the missed opportunities of your competition can be a useful tactic to begin building visibility, sales history, and reviews. This data has the power to help you drive sales through opportunities that your competitors don’t even know that they’re missing.

Ultimately, through viewing the keywords that your competitors are using to drive sales, as well as the overlooked keywords which have the potential to drive sales, you can ensure that you’re not missing a single opportunity!

Listing Analyzer

For Existing Product Listings:

If you have an existing product listing that you’re seeking to improve, the best strategy is to start by using Listing Analyzer. By linking your Seller Central account to your Viral Launch account, you’re able to seamlessly pull your product catalog into the Viral Launch interface.

From the Listing Analyzer tab in your Viral Launch dashboard, you can run an analysis on your product. Our software will pull metrics and keyword data from your listing, presenting you with an overview of your product in comparison to the market, along with a listing quality score. Through this tool, your listing’s images, reviews, competitiveness and copy are analyzed and you are also provided with a list of competitive and comparative products.

Additionally (and most importantly within the context of this article), Listing Analyzer will also provide you with an extensive list of keywords which are relevant to your product market. This data is relatively similar to Keyword Research (with regards to the metrics provided), however you are also able to review whether or not the keyword is being utilized in your listing.

From this list, you are able to select keywords that are relevant to your listing and move them into Keyword Manager to monitor, track, and/or incorporate into your listing.

On a final note, it’s important to make sure that you’re putting your best foot forward when it comes to optimizing your listing with the strongest keyword spread possible. That said, if you are working with an older product, particularly if it’s selling relatively well, changing your listing content can create a ‘reshuffling’ of your keywords within Amazon’s system. Because of this, you can sometimes see a short term detriment to ranking and sales as your listing is reincorporated into Amazon’s SEO structure. Therefore, while it can be beneficial in the long term to fully optimize your listing, you may need to weigh this against the potential setbacks to determine if and when to change your content. Ultimately, while this can be a good tactic for working with a new listing, altering your content becomes more complicated as your listing ages.

For a New Product Listing:

If you are beginning your keyword research prior to having an active listing on Amazon, you will want to begin your process by building out your keyword list through the use of Keyword Research and Competitor Intelligence.

Once you have a listing on Amazon, it’s advantageous to run your product listing through Listing Analyzer to further ensure that you’re maximizing your keyword/ranking potential.

While you do need an existing listing in order to run an analysis, it’s worth it to think of Listing Analyzer once your product listing is up on Amazon as a final check to verify listing quality. At this point, you can review the provided keyword data through the tool and make any final adjustments if you notice any missed terms.

Note: If you are running an analysis on a brand new listing, it’s unlikely that you will have a perfect score, as review quantity, revenue generation, etc. in comparison to the market factor in to the assessment. While you want to note these data points as a means of knowing what’s needed to maximize competitiveness for your market, early on, the best use of Listing Analyzer is to verify your keyword list and review competing and complementary products for the purpose of product targeted advertising.

Keyword Manager

Now that your keyword bank is compiled (and hopefully added to your listing), it’s time to start benefiting from your research. Keyword Manager helps you to track your keyword bank and understand how and where you’re driving sales.

Considering it’s almost impossible to go a single day without encountering the immense reach of Amazon, it’s obvious that the largest e-commerce marketplace is also an insanely saturated e-commerce marketplace. While employing thorough keyword research into your listing is a critically important element of success, it is very unlikely that you will magically appear at the top of the search results. Amazon favors products that perform and as a new product, you have to prove that you can get sales in the market in order to gain visibility. Driving sales is not always easy, especially with a new product with no reviews or sales history, but with the proper strategy around marketing and advertising, you can begin to generate sales and improve keyword ranking (thus driving organic visibility).

By utilizing Keyword Manager to track your relevant keywords, you can monitor your progress to better determine which keywords are producing the most growth, and which keywords you’re having more trouble with. You can use this data to develop a strategy to continue building momentum, and you can ensure that you’re not missing a beat by establishing notifications and hourly tracking on your most critical search terms. If your ranking fluctuates, or your ad positioning changes, you’ll be able to respond quickly and efficiently to address the situation.

While Keyword Manager isn’t explicitly a keyword research tool, it’s a great resource for helping you to fully capitalize on your keyword strategy. With the ability to review organic and sponsored positioning, prioritize by opportunity and search volume, and track your movements in your market, Keyword Manager gives you the tools you need to harvest the fruits of your (keyword research) labor.

Conclusion:

As more sellers enter the Amazon marketplace at an accelerating pace, the importance of thorough research and a deep understanding of your product market is crucial for driving success. Robust keyword research is the cornerstone of any successful strategy for launching a product on Amazon. Developing a well prioritized bank of keywords helps you to establish a wide breadth of searches through which you can gain visibility and sales, while also enabling a deeper understanding of how to use PPC and marketing to effectively grow your product.

Ensuring that you have the broadest range of keywords possible, and knowing how all of your keywords interact with the market informs you on how and where to drive sales and ranking. Through adequate keyword research, you can understand where your competition drives sales, which keywords generate the most sales for your market, and which keywords you can most easily gain ranking traction for.

The importance of performing your due diligence when performing keyword research cannot be overstated. Implementation of this process will ensure that you’re well positioned to take on the competition and achieve success with your business. To learn more about how to successfully launch and rank products, check out our blog post here.

Amazon Product Research: The Amazon Seller’s Guide

As an Amazon seller, you know that product research and selection is by far the most important decision you will make. The product that you decide to sell is the largest determinant of success or failure for your Amazon business as a whole. The wrong product sets you up for failure from the very beginning, while the right product allows for incredible money-making opportunities.

In recent years, selling on Amazon became increasingly competitive and difficult, and because of that, finding the “right” product has also become more difficult. There are more sellers who are using more sophisticated software and marketing dollars, allowing them to extract the best opportunities and bully their way to a great sales volume!

In such a competitive landscape, the question becomes, “Where is the opportunity for me to succeed?” And, “What is the probability for that success?”

Here at Viral Launch, we’ve been honored to help thousands of sellers build successful Amazon businesses over the years. This experience has provided deep insights into the tactics of super successful Amazon sellers, and it helps us stay ahead of the trends.

Despite the increased competition, we’ve put together this in-depth guide to walk you through a new Amazon product research strategy. This process will significantly improve your probability of sourcing money-making products every single time.

Unlike a typical guide to Amazon product research, this new approach will change the game, helping you to identify profitable product ideas while circumventing your competition.

All the data we’ve collected points to this being THE most comprehensive Amazon product research and selection method available!

Phase 1: Define Your Perfect Amazon Product

In order to find “the perfect product” you have to know what the perfect product actually looks like.

Imagine being asked to find your mom’s friend Howard in New York City’s Central Park during peak summer time, but you have no idea what he looks like and have never been given any details about his appearance (height, age, hair color, etc.). If you don’t know what you’re looking for, “he” is hard to find.

Understanding what makes the perfect product for you is the foundation to product research, so we want make sure we get this step right!

Step #1: Know Your Budget

It’s pretty easy to talk to a manufacturer, or page through Alibaba, and get a feel for how much a shipment of product will cost. That said, understanding your necessary budget for completely sourcing a product is quite a bit more complicated. You will incur regular fees such as your Seller Central subscription, fulfillment and referral fees, and logistical costs (importing and shipping to Amazon), one time fees for things like packaging design, professional photos, and trademarking, and finally, fluctuating costs for things like advertising, promotion, and review generation. If you’re looking to source your first product, there will also be general business related costs as well.

Understanding these fees is crucial to building a successful Amazon business, or any business for that matter. Logging, predicting, and planning for these costs will help you to have a better sense of your potential margins, profit, and growth.

So how do you apply this to sourcing a new product?

You need to know what you can afford. Amazon is an almost limitless sea of products. You need to look at your budget and figure out what you can afford to source, what quantity you can afford to source, and how much capital you will have to reorder before you start seeing any cash flow.

If you can only afford to order 100 units of a product, but it can easily sell over 1,000 units in a month, it’s probably not the right product for you. If it’s going to cost you $15 per unit to source a product that sells for an average of $20, it’s probably not the right product for you. If ordering a first shipment is going to totally absorb your budget, you’re either going to need more capital or a different product.

Understanding your budget is a crucial first step to finding a successful product.

Step #2: Know Your Revenue Goals

It’s all too common for a new seller to look at Amazon as a ‘get rich quick’ venture. Heck, there are thousands of videos, social media posts, and gurus talking about how they made $1 million a month on Amazon and how you can too if you just buy their course, software, or subscribe to their email list!

The truth is, people DO rapidly find unbelievable success on Amazon…but people DO also win the lottery. Starting a business can be a gamble, and you are assuming risk. But unlike the lottery, you have the ability to play smart.

One of the most important ways to do this is to set realistic revenue goals. The three main variables that determine your potential revenue are budget, sales quantity, and selling price.

When looking at the relationship between budget and revenue, it’s somewhat analogous to an investment portfolio. When investing, you typically find that more capital produces higher gains (assuming that the market doesn’t collapse). You can invest aggressively, with increased risk but increased potential reward, or you can invest in safer options, which are lower risk but have smaller rapid growth potential. In either case (unless you hit it big last year with cryptocurrency), if you’re investing $5,000, you’re not going to (quickly) turn it into $1 million.

The same can be said with Amazon. There is absolutely a risk vs. reward correlation, but you’re not going to quickly hit $1 million in revenue from a $5,000 investment. Amazon can be an outlet to quickly build a successful business, but it’s not magic. When establishing your goals for revenue, aligning your expectations with your budget is an important consideration.

With regards to sales quantity, a market research tool (like Market Intelligence) gives you the ability to understand the potential for a product, but you cannot do much to influence it. For example, if your top competitors are selling around 500 units per month, it’s unrealistic to think that you can sell 1,000 units per month. Markets can be influenced by seasonal cycles and social trends, and you can employ marketing tactics to increase awareness. However, when setting a revenue goal, it’s important to know that your potential is dictated by the market demand.

On the other hand, you do have some control over price (though not as much as you might think). When sourcing a private label product, you can technically sell your product for any price that you’d like. That said, your price should be limited (if not dictated) by the competition.

Think about this from the perspective of a shopper. If you’re looking to buy a mousepad on Amazon, are you more likely to buy one for $5 or $20? The $20 pad might be a bit fancier, but all you’re probably looking for is a basic black mousepad for your desk.

So as a seller, you can create any price for your item but a shopper can also choose any alternative. A higher-than-average market price can limit your potential sales quantity, therefore limiting your potential revenue.

Returning to the concept of setting a revenue goal, it’s important to look at the prices and sales quantities in your market. If you’re looking to generate $20k in monthly revenue and you’re selling your product for $20, you need to be able to sell 1,000 units/month. This is definitely doable in some markets, but if the top sellers in your market are moving around 500 units per month and/or if the average selling price in your market is $10, you may need to set a more realistic goal or look for a new product.

But, as Amazon becomes more competitive, it’s becoming more important to not put all of your eggs in one basket. Diversity (much like a stock portfolio) can be the key to success in e-commerce.

Say you can’t realistically hit your revenue goal with one product. Maybe you can do it with two.

As markets get more crowded, review quantities increase, and prices decrease, looking for several smaller, promising opportunities can prove to be more beneficial than looking for that one gold-mine product.

Step #3: Understanding Micro-Niches

Now that we’ve covered your budgeting and goals, it’s time to understand how to find the right product for you.

Amazon has changed a lot over the last few years. Competition, and Amazon’s dominance over e-commerce, has increased. In the past, the strategy was to find a market/niche to sell in, such as bed sheets. Now, because of the depth of competition, focusing on these broad markets can spell doom for a new product. While it’s true that the largest search volume remains in these broad markets, the depth of competition and a product’s ability to convert make it incredibly costly to market and difficult to succeed.

Instead, finding a product should now be about looking for micro-niches. A micro-niche is a market within a market… one with more specificity. For instance, instead of sourcing a set of bed sheets, you should look at sourcing something like flannel sheets. This market may not have the same depth of search volume, but shoppers will still be searching with this keyword, and you’ll be able to filter out a lot of competition. Additionally, because the niche is more specific, your product is more likely to consistently convert.

As Amazon grows, there is a bigger pie to be shared among markets. As competition on Amazon grows, each markets’ piece of the pie gets shared between more products. With that logic in mind, the concept of micro-niches can be employed to find easier to reach pieces of the growing pie while avoiding a lot of markets that are being fought over.

Phase 2: Find Hot Micro-Niches

So how do you find these micro-niches that provide opportunity within more specific markets?

We’ve added a new feature to our product finder, Product Discovery, to make your Amazon product research easier than ever. This tool allows you to input what kind of product you’re looking for with filters, which will result in identifying product markets that match your specific criteria.

Within Product Discovery’s Keyword Search function, we’ve included a new filter called ‘Keyword Contains’. This feature allows you to search using a main keyword to help identify profitable micro-niches within a specific market.

To illustrate the use of this feature, let’s walk through how to quickly and efficiently identify micro-niches within the Product Discovery.

Assuming that I don’t have a large budget to work with, I want to look for something that I can source for a low cost. While you can definitely use a product-oriented keyword (like ‘bed sheets’) to find micro-niches, I’m deciding to base my search on a low cost material: paper.

While selecting specific categories is typically my first filter, in this instance (because I don’t necessarily know what I’m looking for) I’m going to leave my categories open. To conduct this search, I’ll add a few filters, and Product Discovery will show me markets that match what I’m looking for. (And remember, this is simply an example. Feel free to personalize your filters. The more you change, the more unique your results will be).

I’m starting by adding the keyword ‘paper’ to the Keyword Contains field, inputting a minimum monthly revenue of $5000 (to meet my revenue goals), and a maximum review quantity of 100 (to avoid markets that are highly competitive).

One important thing to note is that I’m not providing data for all of the filters. The more specific you are with filters, the more restrictions are placed on your results. I like to start my searches with a few important metrics, then if needed, I’ll start adding additional parameters.

That said, when searching for micro-niches, it’s also important to make sure that there is an audience of people searching for your product (or, existing demand). I might be trying to avoid the heavily competitive markets, but if I’m sourcing a product that no one is looking for, I’m not going to be successful. For this reason, I’m also going to click on the Advanced Filters menu and add a minimum exact search volume of 3,000. This means that I only want to see keywords that 3,000 or more people are searching for each month.

Once I click Show Keywords, my results appear. Each result is a product idea, along with market average metrics, and they all match my inputs. I then filter my search based on star rating to see the best ideas first. The star rating is a 1-5 scale, which is Viral Launch’s initial indicator of the product idea’s potential. This rating is generated programmatically and should be used as a first-check, but it’s crucial for you to dig into the data further and decide if the product is right for your business. Note: The Product Idea Score is only available on annual plans.

From there, I quickly pin five different products that looked interesting to me, and I will analyze each one more thoroughly. Moving over to my pinned ideas page, I have isolated ‘white paper bags’, ‘parchment paper sheets’, ‘white wrapping paper’, ‘gold paper plates’, and ‘crinkle cut paper shred’.

Note: Your pins are unique to search type. For this reason, I will click on the ‘Keywords’ tab within the Pinned Ideas menu.

All of these markets have an average of less than 100 reviews, which indicates a relatively low barrier to entry for a new product. Three of the five have a typical sales trend, which implies that sales have remained relatively constant month over month. Average selling prices are relatively low, which can sometimes be of concern, but assuming that manufacturing and shipping costs are low, my product may still have a healthy margin. These markets also look promising from a revenue perspective, ranging from $7k-$22k per month.

Phase 3: Validate Your Product Ideas

Now that I have decided on a broad market that I’m interested in and have found a few micro-niches to hone in on, it’s time to do a deep dive and identify which products I may want to look into sourcing. I am going to use Market Intelligence, our in-depth Amazon product research tool, to further investigate my potential products.

Step #1: Logical Processing

When deciding on a product to source, your first step after compiling a list of ideas should be to think about them critically. There are a few key questions that you can ask (and answer) based solely on your own intuition. This can be especially important when looking for a micro-niche.

The very concept of a micro-niche focuses on a specific product characteristic in order to circumvent the more competitive primary market. That said, it’s critically important to make sure that people are actually searching within your micro-niche.

You can use a tool like Keyword Research to view the search volume for your keyword, but at a more basic level, putting yourself in a customer’s shoes and asking whether or not you would use this phrase to search for your product can be an indicator as well.

When thinking about your product idea, do any brands come to mind? This can be an important question. If a product market has strong brand awareness (or brand loyalty), it’s going to make it harder to penetrate the market. If you can name some brands, it doesn’t automatically invalidate the idea, but it is something to consider.

For instance, if you’re buying a stapler, you’re likely aware of Swingline, but as long as a stapler staples, has decent reviews, and a low price, chances are most buyers aren’t going to be brand loyal (unless they’re fans of Office Space).

Alternatively, other markets have stronger brand association and loyalty. Even if it’s a dollar or two cheaper, Harvey’s Homemade Toothpaste is going to be fighting a really tough uphill battle against Crest and Colgate. It might be an amazing product and a better value but because most consumers have (hopefully) seen and used a few name brands of toothpaste for most of their lives, it’ll be almost impossible for Harvey to muscle his way to the top of the market.

While I won’t go into all of the possible questions that you could ask in this phase, a few others are:

  1. Do I feel like I can price this product to be competitive and have a wide enough profit margin?
  2. Do I think I can make enough profit per unit for this product to be worth selling?
  3. Am I chasing a fad (where demand may decline before I can get my product to market)?
  4. Am I too passionate or not passionate enough about this product?
  5. Is my intuition telling me anything about this product or market? If so, what will I need to research to reassure myself?

In the Amazon space, some sellers rely heavily on their own gut instinct or personal passions when sourcing. This can sometimes work and it’s important to believe in your product, but other times, if you source something you’re too passionate about, you’re more likely to spend more to improve or customize your product (cutting into your margins) and/or throw good money after bad (by entering a competitive,  expensive, or nonexistent market). Other sellers can alternatively get lost in the data, which can lead to lost time, missed opportunities, and a never ending quest for perfection.

I recommend trying to work somewhere in the middle. Use data to hunt out advantageous markets, use your brain to think critically about them, and return to the data to test the products that made the cut.

Step #2: Sales to Review Ratio

First, you want to check out what the sales to review ratio looks like for your pinned products. The sales to review ratio is a measure of how quickly you will be able to compete, as a new seller, in any given market. This is calculated by taking the average monthly sales among top sellers divided by the average number of reviews. If a market has a high sales to review ratio, it means that sales are, on average, much higher than reviews. This signifies that a new product has lots of opportunity to gather reviews, plus there is a low review threshold to reach before shoppers consider that product as a viable option among the other options in the market. Because reviews provide consumer confidence through social proof, and because reviews are not easy to acquire, identifying a market where you won’t need to gather as many initial reviews to become competitive can play to your advantage.

Thinking about this concept logically, certain markets are more review dependent than others. If you’re buying a pair of bluetooth headphones on Amazon, reviews are going to be crucial to your purchasing decision. You want to see opinions on audio quality, battery life, durability, etc. On the other hand, if you’re buying something like wrapping paper, unless the reviews are horrible, you’re probably not going to be as concerned with them. At the end of the day, it’s a roll of printed paper. As long as it meets the stated dimensions and it doesn’t spontaneously combust, it should work to wrap a gift.

Looking at my pinned ideas, the average market-wide sales to review ratio ranges from 16 to 32. This means that on average, products in these markets are generating that number of sales per month for each review. All of these rates are relatively high, which is a good sign. Alternatively, if I’m looking at markets that are generating only 2 sales per review, that might be concerning for me as I’m trying to enter the market.

In the interest of due diligence however, I don’t want to stop there. I’m also going to want to view sales to review ratios on a product-by-product basis within Market Intelligence.

It’s important to note that some noticeable factors can contribute to the sales to review ratio when reviewing at the product level. Whether good or bad, this information can help you to better understand your market.

Here’s the data for ‘crinkle cut paper shred’:

Looking at the individual sales to review ratios for this market, I’m seeing some optimistic information.

Starting with the product highlighted in yellow, the sales to review ratio is below average for the market. That said, looking at the date that the product was listed, I can see that it has been selling for a few years. Because of this, I’m seeing that this product has a higher than average review quantity. It’s actually selling relatively well for the market, however because the price point is above average, there’s a good chance that it’s limiting sales potential.

Checking out the product highlighted in red, I’m seeing a super high sales to review ratio. It’s a newer product with 2 reviews but it’s selling really well. A high sales to review ratio does make sense when a product is newer, if it sells well. For me, this is promising because it provides evidence that I can sell well without having to gather a large quantity of reviews.

While the listing dates in this market prove the contrary, higher sales to review ratios can be a sign of a newer market, which is something to also keep in mind. If you’re looking at sky-high ratios in a newer market, by the time you have a product sourced, those products may have accumulated more reviews, making the landscape more competitive.

Finally, looking at the product highlighted in blue, it has a pretty high sales to review ratio. Looking into this more, I can see that the product has been listed for a little over a year, and despite only having 13 reviews, it’s selling really well for the market. It’s price is relatively low, providing a potential explanation as to why it’s selling well. That said, it’s not the cheapest option.

This product is one to review more specifically. Because it’s not the cheapest option, and because it doesn’t have a wealth of reviews, it may be worth reviewing other aspects that may contribute to this product’s success. Is there a color preference? Is it a larger size? These variables may help inform sourcing decisions.

As a brief comparison, here is the data for ‘bluetooth headphones’:

As you can see, the sales to review ratio in this market is incredibly low. The massive review quantities in comparison to sales would make this market exceptionally difficult to compete within.

Step #3: Sales Depth

It’s important to also observe how sales are divided within the micro-niche. If only 2-3 products are generating 90% of the sales, it’s going to be difficult for you to capture a reasonable share of the market. If sales are relatively divided across the first page (and maybe even the first few pages), it means that you don’t necessarily need to rely on hitting one of the top spots to hit the mark on revenue. It’s much safer to bet that you can rank in the top 10 or top 15. While you obviously want to have the best product in the market, I suggest shooting for the moon, while being okay with hitting the market average.

Using my ‘crinkle cut paper shred’ example, but this time reviewing the sales column, I can see that sales are pretty evenly dispersed throughout the page. This means that even if I’m unable to push to one of the top rankings, I would still have the ability to generate a decent volume of sales.

By comparison, here is another market with a poor depth of sales:

As seen here, there are a few products generating thousands of sales while others are selling in the single digits. In this instance, I know that it’s going to be difficult to compete with the few top sellers.

There are a few different reasons for a poor depth of sales in a market.

It could be that a single brand (or a few brands) dominate the market. This is most common when searching a branded keyword, such as ‘Nike sweatshirt’, but you can also encounter it with non branded keywords with strong brand awareness/loyalty, such as ‘cotton swabs’, where Q-Tip and Johnson & Johnson vastly outsell much of the competition.

This can also happen within private label dominated markets if a handful of sellers have a disproportionately high review count, a much lower price, or a more established product.

Additionally (as is the case in example above), you may not be viewing the primary keyword for a market. This is typically evident if you see large volume sellers in lower positions. If a keyword has a lower search volume, a product with far fewer sales may rank better. This is because it’s able to drive more sales through this specific keyword. However, when looking at a related keyword with higher traffic, the products with high sales volume likely rank better. An example of this would be looking at a keyword like ‘lavender bath bombs’, when the primary keyword is ‘bath bombs’. The keyword ‘lavender bath bombs’ only gets a few hundred searches per month, yet some of the results are selling thousands of units. By comparison, the keyword ‘bath bombs’ receives around 230,000 searches per month.

Step #4: Price & Margin Check

This can be a bit more tricky, but the next step is to try to get a feel for what margins you can expect. You want to look at average prices in the market and compare that to any sort of sourcing estimates you may have found. Market Intelligence can be used to get a rough idea of the profit margin for a product, but it’s definitely important to compare this to any real numbers that you’re able to obtain (quotes for manufacturing, logistics, etc.).

It’s also important to understand Amazon’s FBA and referral fees. FBA fees are based on shipping and storage costs. A referral fee is the cut that Amazon takes for each sale made and is a fixed percentage based on category. Amazon provides a breakdown of their FBA pricing tiers and referral fees by category on Amazon Seller Central.

If you’re looking for more information on calculating FBA fees, we have a blog post that walks through the process in more detail: How to Calculate Your Amazon FBA Fees and Projected Revenue. Additionally, within Market Intelligence, you’re able to view our estimated unit margin for a specific product by clicking on the the orange Unit Margin metric.

As you begin to fill in some of your own costs, Market Intelligence also includes a Cost Calculator to help you determine you own potential margin.

Typically, I like to review the lower prices on page one. If I’m able to turn a profit while pricing on the low end of my competition, I know that I have some flexibility to adapt to market changes. If I can’t afford to source for a competitive price, I may want to avoid this particular market.

Step #5: Check Tips, Warnings, and Alerts

On the VL Analysis tab of Market Intelligence, you’re able to view some quick tips, warnings, and alerts that you may have otherwise missed. This can help to clue you into seasonality, sales depth, review concerns, etc. and can help provide a quick overview of any market conditions that may be of concern.

Step #6: Seasonality

Some sellers choose to steer clear of seasonal markets, while others welcome the influx of cash during peak seasons. Either way, seasonality is something that you want to be aware of when sourcing a product and purchasing inventory. By clicking on the Market Trends tab on Market Intelligence, you’re able to see how a product has sold over the course of a year.

If you’re looking for a seasonal product and you find one that is selling well in winter, you may want to look to source this product in summer/early fall in order to capitalize on the peak selling season. If you’ve missed the seasonal window for the year, it might be worth sourcing a small quantity to start generating a few sales and reviews, or you may want to keep it in your back pocket until next year while keeping a longer term eye on the market.

When looking at a market like ‘Christmas decorations’, you can see that the market is highly seasonal:

Alternatively, while there are always going to be fluctuations in a market, when looking at a market like ‘toothpaste’, the sales spikes are much less dramatic:

As mentioned previously, just because a product is seasonal does not mean that it’s not viable. Sellers can make a killing on seasonal products and only need to be focused on them for a few months out of the year.

The important thing is to understand that sales and demand will not be consistent throughout the year. One of the most common mistakes we’ve seen is a seller deciding to source a product based on statistics obtained during a peak season. Without appreciating the ebb and flow of demand, sellers commonly over order inventory, or financially plan for a high sales volume, only to get stuck holding a large quantity of product.

Step #7: Identify Main Keywords

It’s unlikely that a single search term is driving all of the sales for products in a micro-niche (or any niche for that matter). Typically there are at least 4 or 5 decent keywords that may be viable selling opportunities for a given product.

To start, check out keywords that other products are using in their title. If you’re looking at ‘white paper bags’ for instance, you might also want to check out keywords like ‘paper bags’, ‘white craft bags’, ‘large white paper bags’, and ‘white gift bags’. A sure-fire way to make sure you’re not missing any of your main keywords is to use a tool like Keyword Research, which programmatically identifies all main, related keywords for you.

When using Keyword Research, particularly for micro-niches, I like to first sort by priority score, which will show me the most closely related keywords while factoring in search volume:

One of the most helpful, and perhaps underutilized features of Keyword Research is the ability to add keywords to a bank to create your listing’s copy. This will help you to insure that you’re indexing for as many search terms as possible and casting the widest net to capture your customers. Listing Builder, a feature within Keyword Research, can help you construct your listing and maximize the potential audience for your market.

Proper keyword research can sometimes clue you into an even more advantageous market, but more importantly, you should analyze other main keywords in your market to better understand your micro-niche as a whole. While tedious, it’s valuable to repeat the previous validation steps on several main keywords to fully comprehend your product market and competition.

Without reviewing your broader market, it’s possible to miss crucial data that may help you avoid mistakes. One of the more frequent mistakes we encounter is assuming that a specific keyword is the main sales driver for your product market. If you don’t fully understand your market, you could see a keyword that looks non-competitive with a high return, only to realize that sales are being driven through a much more competitive term.

Let’s apply this to my product ideas:

Thinking critically about my pinned ‘paper’ ideas, I’m going to whittle down a few options.

While I was really intrigued by the low reviews and high sales for ‘crinkle cut paper shred’, with an average selling price of $11 per unit, I think I might avoid this market. I know that in order to be competitive, I’m going to want to be able to price on the lower end, meaning that I’d probably be looking at a selling price of around $8-10. Even if I can source affordably, shipping, fees, and storage are likely going to eat up a lot of my potential profit margin.

Next, I’m going to weed out the ‘parchment paper sheets’. The overall numbers aren’t bad but looking at Market Intelligence, I’m noticing some larger names like Reynolds. While Reynolds is providing some steep competition, I’m honestly surprised by how evenly the sales are spread.

That said, I’m also starting to think about manufacturing. Parchment paper typically involves more robust (and likely more expensive) packaging. Typically, it would be packaged as a roll, in a box, with a metal cutting edge. This will also add weight which will increase the cost of logistics. Since average selling price isn’t too high here either, every penny counts.

Finally, and while it may still be a decent idea, I’m going to filter out ‘white paper bags’ as well. This is mainly because I’m not overly confident in how many sales this specific keyword generates. There is a lot of variety on size, intended use, and even features (handles, gloss coating, etc.). This means that it will be hard to determine whether the keyword ‘white paper bags’ is a primary keyword for my market and it will be hard to determine which product features will make me more competitive. In comparison to many products, this is a relatively minor point, and while you should definitely perform quality control inspections when sourcing a product, I’m also a little concerned about glue quality and weight capacity. Compared to wrapping paper or paper plates, I’m seeing slightly more potential for returns and negative reviews which could limit my potential for success.

For the sake of keeping this brief (as brief as possible), I’m going to focus on the white wrapping paper.

Looking at Market Intelligence, price points are relatively high, sales are pretty well dispersed, and the product is relatively simple.

While there is a bit of seasonality to the market, there’s still an overall average of around 500+ sales per month and sales don’t totally drop off outside of peak season. The best selling month isn’t until November, but this will give me a bit of time to source and list my product and work on accumulating reviews.

There are also no warnings or alerts for the market, which is another positive sign.

In comparison, with the ‘gold paper plates,’ one of my major concerns is the diversity of product offerings. On page one, I saw everything from gold plastic utensils to gold and pink plates, different shapes, sizes, and patterns. This will make it harder to isolate the features that buyers prefer and would likely result in lower conversion rates.

Fortunately for my bottom line, it appears that plain white paper rolls sell best. Provided I can offer a comparable size and length as the top competition, while pricing my product at around $15 per unit, this should be a pretty viable option.

White wrapping paper receives around 7,000 searches per month, meaning that it has an audience searching for this product. For products on page one, there is an average sales quantity of 810.46 units/month with an average revenue of $17,665.04 meaning that it definitely has the potential to hit my revenue goals.

The average review count for page one listings is 55.15, however there are several products with fewer reviews that still sell well (implying that, while I will ideally want to generate as many reviews as possible, it’s not necessarily crucial to have as many reviews as my lead competition to be successful). As long as I’m able to generate 10-20 reviews with a rating of around 4.5 stars, it should give me a healthy foundation for driving sales.

It’s important to note that I am running this analysis shortly after Christmas so numbers are likely to be inflated. That said, based on the annual sales trends, I can still expect a decent potential year-round. This means that I should be looking to ramp up my inventory and marketing in time for Q4, but I should still have decent selling opportunity when my inventory hits Amazon. This ebb and flow of the market may actually be ideal for me, as I can source the product now and begin generating sales and reviews with the goal of positioning my listing to capitalize on Q4.

At this stage, white wrapping paper appears to be a solid product idea, and I was able to find this micro-niche within about 10 minutes of research on Product Discovery.

Phase 4: Source Your Product

Once you’ve identified a product (or products) that you’re interested in selling, it’s time to find a manufacturer.

You can go to trade shows, take a trip to China, or contact a sourcing agent, but the quickest and most cost-effective way (and where most sellers end up finding a supplier) is typically using Alibaba. Alibaba is essentially the e-commerce platform for e-commerce businesses; the Amazon for Amazon sellers. This database of manufacturers helps align you with suppliers that will able to actually produce your products.

Looking at my micro-niche for white wrapping paper, I was quickly able to find several suppliers with a simple search:

You may have to experiment with keywords and search around a bit, but you can find virtually anything on Alibaba. And, suppliers are typically willing to negotiate and manufacture to your specifications.

From here, I would select a around 5 suppliers who look to be reputable and reach out to them inquiring about samples. I won’t delve too deep into the sourcing process here, but I’ll want to compare pricing, product quality, and adaptability of the supplier as well as timeliness, communication, and the overall pleasantness of the conversation. Keep in mind that if all goes well, I’m looking to build a long-term business relationship with this supplier.

When looking for a product within a micro-niche, it’s important to consider the competition when making a sourcing decision. With my white wrapping paper, I’ll want to see if there are any discernible features that sell better than others. What sizes, thickness, potential patterns, etc. are ideal for capturing my market and gathering high quality reviews? Returning to Market Intelligence, I can review products that sell well in the market and take note of any shared traits.

This will help me to understand whether I need to order a few different sizes, or whether I should source rolls or sheets. I can also see if offering a patterned paper improves my sales potential, or if there is a certain thickness that buyers seem to prefer. Obviously, this has to be reviewed with attention paid to other variables such as price and review count, but understanding what your customers want will help you to source a product that fits your demand.

Using another example, let’s say I settled on white paper bags as my micro-niche. Through this lens, I would want to check to see if bags with handles and/or gloss coats sell better. I’d also want to check what quantities (how many bags in a package), and what dimensions sell best. Using this information, I can source a product that conforms to, and capitalizes on, the majority of the micro-niche demand.

Summary

As the Amazon landscape continues to grow and change, it’s important that your strategy does as well. The days of sourcing a gold-mine product that generate hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars is all but gone; but the opportunity to be successful on Amazon remains strong.

Rather than looking for one big, broad product market, fueled by a small handful of high-volume search terms, it’s now more advantageous to look small and think big.

As competition grows, Amazon’s dominance over e-commerce grows as well. While established sellers have the benefit of experience, sales history, massive review quantities, and large investments, the continued growth in sales creates more depth to the market and creates opportunities in more specific micro-niches.

These days, it’s no easy task to quickly drive a product to a monthly revenue of $50,000. Instead, it’s more advantageous to use micro-niches to drive 3-4 more specific products to a monthly revenue of $5,000-$15,000 each, allowing you to strategically grow your business.

The secret to success on Amazon in its current stage is to think smarter, dig deeper into research, source with specificity, and diversify your offering.

Get started with your Amazon product research with Product Discovery today!

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