Dropshipping is a popular business model and whether you are a newcomer or already own an eCommerce store, getting into dropshipping is a good way to make a profitable business. You don’t produce or store the products you sell as a drop shipper and this gives flexibility in choosing what products to sell.
The catch in dropshipping is finding profitable products that you can sell easily. For this, the essential thing is in finding the right market that would suit your business and in turn, sell products in demand and gain a target audience for your store.
Product research is vital in starting an eCommerce store and this is particularly true for dropshipping as it can save your learning curve and help make a profitable business in a relatively short time. So in this article, we will see how to find the best products for dropshipping to successfully set up a business.
Choose Your Niche
The best way to get into dropshipping is to find the right niche that would make it easy for you to affordably procure products that you can then sell at a reasonable profit margin to grow and expand your business. This is true if you are getting started, investing in a single market and focusing on growing your business within it is the smart way to get started without overstepping too early in the game.
If you already own an eCommerce store or a physical store, you could consider starting dropshipping in the same market as you have an understanding of the supply chain, demand and pricing strategies. As an established business owner, you can use your expertise and contacts to dropship products from other producers.
Or if you are a newcomer to entrepreneurship, you can think about getting into the field you either have an interest or expertise. This will make running a business both interesting and within your knowledge. Even if you find a trending niche that you are not familiar with, you might find it hard to set up a business without the required expertise or even the personal interest that can sometimes make up for it.
Make Use of Product Research Software
Using the right software and other digital tools to research your products helps you find trending products that are in demand in the market as well as gives you a competitive edge. If you are an early adopter of a niche market, you are saving on both marketing efforts and procuring the products themselves as the demand will be low as the product and the market have not reached mainstream audiences yet. Another advantage is that you are at the forefront of the niche, making it easy to become a leader in the market as well.
While tools like Google Trends are available for free to conduct gross research, you can consider using dedicated product research software. This field is so grown that there are dedicated product research tools for individual dropshipping platforms such as Amazon, Alibaba, etc.
Semrush’s Product Research Tool For Amazon is such an example. It is an excellent tool for conducting product research for dropshipping on Amazon. Read this article for a more detailed list of dropshipping product research tools and choose the right one.
Conduct Competitor and Keyword Analysis
After analyzing and deciding on the market and products to sell, the next thing to do is to study existing dropshippers to get an understanding of the metrics for creating a successful dropshipping business. To start with, you can do competitor analysis manually to get an idea but it is impractical to do it realistically to get all the data manually. Here too, tools can come to your aid. Competitor analysis tools for dropshipping are handy in tracking what products are working for your peers in the business to make an informed decision.
These tools also provide market prediction to find the next best product so you can get an edge and be among the first sellers. Similarly, you can use tools for analyzing keywords for the products you have chosen to optimize the content on your website as well as product pages to attract more visitors and improve your conversion rate.
Practical Considerations
The next thing you need to know is the practical limitations and opportunities you have while starting your dropshipping business. Often, it might be tempting to sell expensive products as they have the potential to give high profits but expensive products come with their own liabilities. For one thing, as a beginner in the business, you might find it hard to compete if established businesses sell similar products at better prices. Secondly, building a reputation is crucial which can be complicated by products that are expensive with both customer satisfaction and returns and refunds which might not be economically feasible for a new business.
Next is finding the balance between a product that is not available everywhere and the product being useful and novel enough for customers to search for it. It should also be a practically useful product which is solving customers’ issues, making it relevant and having a reasonable and regular demand in the market.
The last thing to consider is the ease of handling products. For example, bulky or fragile products have their own catch as they can be more expensive to ship and can have crash hazards. Such products are risky when you are just getting started with limited resources.
Go through Social Shopping Websites
Social shopping websites are where customers can network with each other within the eCommerce platform. You can browse through social shopping websites such as Facebook, Tiktok, Pinterest, etc to find which products are popular among customers in your target niche.
Join Public Forums For Customer Analysis
Similar to social shopping sites, public forums on websites such as Reddit and groups on Facebook can give you an idea of what is in the demand in your target market. By having a continuous presence and browsing through such forums and public groups, you can catch on to trending products and even niche products that show the potential to go big before they do so. Search for groups and communities in Reddit and other forums and you can find your next big product being discussed there.
This article shows some of the basics you need to consider while looking for the right product to sell when you are setting up your dropshipping business. Do you have a tool or method to find products? Let us know in the comments.
