6 Tips on How to Kickstart Your Amazon FBA Product Research
Anyone who wants to be successful on Amazon must continually focus on adding new products to their assortment. However, this often leads many sellers to the same questions: What should you pay attention to when researching products for FBA? And why is Amazon FBA product research so important? To find product ideas that do not become slow sellers but rather long-term bestsellers, good Amazon FBA product research is essential. Therefore, you should pay attention to certain criteria, such as sales potential, during your research. But more on that later.
To assist you with your next research and product selection, we have researched the best tips and compiled them in this guide.
Tip 1: How to Find Inspiration
Actually, you can find inspiration everywhere. What sounds so easy is, in reality, quite difficult to implement. Finding product ideas at the push of a button is unfortunately not that simple. Therefore, you can help yourself along the way.
Go into town and take a look at what the many novelty shops like Nanu Nana, Tedi, etc. are currently offering. And for those who prefer to search right at their workplace: Check out online platforms like Wish or Alibaba for inspiration. The homepages are full of items that can inspire you during your product search or that you can immediately add to your product portfolio.
Attention: Inspiration is not everything! When selecting products, also ensure that the items you are interested in will be profitable in the long term. You will learn how to do this in the next tips! Additionally, you can also utilize Amazon itself as part of your product research. The online giant automatically ranks offered products based on sales figures. Such rankings exist for every category.
Simply click on the “Bestsellers” field on the homepage just below the search bar. On the left, you will now find a list of all categories. By clicking on the corresponding category, you will access the associated bestseller rank. In the “Health & Personal Care” category, the Braun hair clipper was leading in March 2020, closely followed by Hakle toilet paper, which is not surprising given the COVID-19 pandemic.
Here you can see another advantage: Because based on the bestseller rank, you can already gauge the sales potential during your product search.
Tip 2: How to Read the Amazon Sales Rank
The so-called Amazon Bestseller Rank (or BSR for short) describes how well a product sells compared to other items in the same category. If a product is listed in multiple categories, it has as many sales ranks as there are categories. For example, the Braun hair clipper not only holds rank 1 in the “Health & Personal Care” product category but also in the “Hair Clippers” category.
It is therefore sold more frequently compared to all other products in both categories. You can find the sales rank in the product description under the label “Bestseller Rank:”
But why should you be interested in the bestseller rank during your Amazon FBA product research?
On one hand, as mentioned above, it helps to find inspiration.
On the other hand, and this is even more important, you can estimate the sales potential and thus the demand for the product based on it.
The Amazon sales rank is updated hourly according to Amazon’s information and is therefore always current. You can identify trends and estimate demand based on it. If a product has a good rank, ideally of course rank 1, it means that the product sells relatively well and the demand is correspondingly high.
If you have found a potential item for Amazon FBA during your product research that you would like to add to your portfolio, you can search for the same or a comparable product. If you are selling branded goods, you should search for the same product. This can be done, for example, using the ASIN. However, if you are selling products under your own private label, you need to look for similar ones. Now you can read the Amazon sales rank to get an idea of the sales situation.
However, there is a disadvantage when reading the Amazon sales rank: while you can see that a product has a relatively high or low sales volume, you need more precise numbers for your calculations. Therefore, you should also analyze the Amazon FBA sales figures. You will learn how to do this in the next tip:
Tip 3: How to Analyze Amazon Sales Figures
Unfortunately, hardly anyone will provide you with an analysis of their sales figures. But this is exactly what you need to find products during your FBA product research that will be profitable in the long term in terms of your margin.
The 999 Method – a simple trick
Click on the product and add it to your cart. Then increase the order quantity to 999. Typically, you will then be shown that the seller only has x pieces in stock.
You repeat this process daily for a period of time, for example, one month. During this time, you note the respective stock levels. This way, you can estimate how many units are sold per day. Unfortunately, this method does not always work, as sellers can set a maximum order quantity, which will be displayed to you when you exceed it.
Those who find this too time-consuming or who would like to delegate this part of the Amazon FBA product research can also rely on smart tools. Essentially, they work in a similar way.
With the Sales Radar from ShopDoc, you can spy on other products based on their ASINs, keywords, or seller IDs. It provides you with sales figures, prices, and revenues. Additionally, you receive average values for all found products during the search, which help in calculating your own sales.
Tip 4: How to Analyze Your Competition
Since we’re already on the topic of spying on the competition…
When you sell on Amazon, you will also be competing with other sellers. You are not the only seller in the entire area, as was the case in our grandparents’ time when people only shopped at the local corner store.
When you introduce a new product, you first need to increase its visibility. This is achieved through sales figures. If Braun and Philips are your competitors, you can calculate for yourself how often customers click on your product, which may not even have a review yet.
Large brands should therefore not be among your competitors.
It is therefore important that you keep an eye on your competition for Amazon FBA items during product research and only enter markets where you have realistic chances of competing and achieving a profitable margin.
Tip 5: Serve a Niche
It makes sense for some of your products to serve the same niche, so when selecting new items, choose those that also fit into this niche. On one hand, this allows you to leverage cross-selling, meaning you can offer customers additional products after they have purchased one from you. For example, if you sell wedding invitation cards, you can also offer thank-you cards. This is likely to lead to an improvement in your sales.
Customers will be pleased if both cards are in the same design. This way, you can not only offer unique product bundles but also encourage repeat purchases. In the case of wedding cards, customers can first buy the invitations from you. After the wedding, they will look for thank-you cards and will find them with you again. Since they had a good experience during their first purchase in your shop, they have built trust in you and will buy from you again.
Additionally, this allows you to become an expert in this niche.
Especially in more specialized areas like aquaristics, it is advantageous to have in-depth knowledge that you can apply in product descriptions and customer communication. You can find a suitable niche through your own experiences. Perhaps you have previously worked in a pet store in the aquaristics department. It makes sense to leverage your expertise in this niche with your online shop. This means that for your Amazon product research, you should look for products in this category.
However, this does not mean that you should focus solely on a single niche during your Amazon FBA product research. This would also mean that you are completely at the mercy of market fluctuations and cannot compensate for a potential drop in demand with products from another niche.
Tip 6: Adhere to Additional Criteria for Good Products
What actually makes a good product? Of course, it should be in demand and have sales potential. But that’s far from all.
A good product is small and lightweight, as this minimizes shipping and storage fees. It makes sense to consider the fees for Amazon FBA during product research, as fees increase with weight and size. With the current increase in FBA fees, this becomes even more relevant, as large and heavy products are more affected than small and lightweight ones. Products weighing up to a maximum of one kilogram are recommended. Therefore, keep FBA regulations in mind during your product research.
Since we’re already on the topic of shipping: The products should ideally not be fragile or sensitive, as they are exposed to various potential “dangers” during all delivery processes. A smartphone case is not significantly affected if the package falls. However, a porcelain vase is much more vulnerable. If products break on their way to the customer, a return is unavoidable, which adds to your costs, as you will need to replace the product and invest in good customer support to make the understandably upset customer happy again.
In general, it is advisable to focus on goods that are less likely to be returned during your Amazon FBA product research, as this can help you save costs. While there are many returns in the fashion sector, your chances of having a low return rate are better in the health and personal care category.
Additionally, products should be inexpensive to purchase. After all, you also want a piece of the profit pie. The purchase price should be a maximum of ¼ of the selling price. Because in addition to the costs for the item itself, there are also costs for storage, packaging, and possibly customs duties. The more expensive your products are to purchase, the more likely it is that your margin will decrease. For your pricing calculations, you can also rely on smart repricers for Amazon. Here, you can simply enter the purchase price and a desired margin. The algorithm calculates the additional costs and determines a profitable final price for you.
With a low purchase price, you can also set a low selling price, which in turn encourages impulse purchases. Especially in the price range of €15 to €50, many purchases occur on Amazon.
To avoid being exposed to strong fluctuations in demand, you should focus on products that are not seasonal.
The hair clipper from Tip 1 is suitable for this, as hair is cut in every season. Flower seeds, on the other hand, have only a very short period during which they are subject to high demand. Depending on the seeds, sales are influenced by the season, with most being primarily in demand in spring when the gardening season finally begins.
Lastly, one question: Why is good Amazon FBA product research important at all?
The answer is quite simple: You do not want to add products to your portfolio that simply do not yield profits or may even lead to losses. There can be various reasons for this: Perhaps there is no demand for the product. Alternatively, the competition or the costs for shipping and delivery may simply be too high.
That is precisely why it is essential to pay attention to all possible difficulties during your Amazon FBA product research that could disrupt your sales later on.
Image credits in the order of the images: © WrightStudio – stock.adobe.com / Screenshots @ Amazon
