What To Sell Online: Choosing The Products That Will Ensure Success
One of the biggest challenges for online sellers is deciding on what to sell online. Out of millions of products available to sell, how do you determine which one to add to your assortment? Since the product is being sold online, you need it to have characteristics that allow for shipping. Shipping is a costly part of doing business, but if you’re targeting to use mail because it is the cheaper alternative to get the product to the buyer, then it needs to be something that the mail system will ship.
If you’re a niche seller, then you’ll have a better idea of products you may want to sell related to your category or specific items. If you’re an online seller who sells a variety of items, then how to find what products to sell online is a critical component of your online success.
Spending some time researching items will help you identify whether an item is worth selling or not.
Here are a few tools to use to help you find what to sell online:
Google Keyword Planner
Look at the exact keywords that people are entering into Google Search for that particular item. You can use Google’s free Keyword Research Planner to do this.
Enter your product, your website and the product category. Google will provide a report that indicates similar keywords, the average volume of search, how competitive that keyword is and the suggested bid. Taking a closer look at the competition and suggested bid give you an idea of the number of advertisers bidding on that keyword and the higher suggested bid price, the more traffic there is who search for it and could purchase.
Google Trends
Once you’ve researched the product in Google Keyword Research Planner you can also plug it into Google Trends.
This will show you the trend based on total search volume over time. You can also compare an item against other keywords so that you know what your SEO strategy should be.
Terapeak for ebay and Amazon
Has a wealth of current and historical information on what is selling and what is hot on ebay and Amazon. It is not free, but for a small monthly subscription it will provide you with a lot of different types of information. Learn more about what else it can do to help you with competitive listings HERE.
To find what products to sell online, use the Research tool. Enter the product or even a general product name, select the marketplace you want data on and run the report. There are different views you can look at to get an idea of sales, sell through, pricing, historical trends and more.
Best Seller Rank in Amazon
Scroll down to the Product Information page and you will see the Best Seller Rank. This will give you an idea of how a product sells in a particular category. The higher the rank, the more popular the item is.
Amazon Movers and Shakers
To see what’s gaining traction in sales, you can research in Amazon movers and shakers. It shows the biggest gainers in sales rank over the past 24 hours and is updated frequently.
Product Search in ebay
This sales data is purely related to ebay but will give you an indication of how an item sells. It’s pretty basic, enter the product in ebay search and select Sold Listings in the sidebar. It will also provide you the final selling price, which helps give you an idea of the demand on ebay for that item.
Alibaba
While alibaba is primarily a wholesaler, this rapidly growing sourcing site can also provide you with some product insight. There is a tool called Trade Intelligence located in the Resources section that you can enter a keyword to search for as well as the industry. The tool is free to use. It will then show you search trends for that keyword/item.
These are some suggested tools you can use when it comes to finding out what to sell online. What products you choose should also match your store and brand strategy. Use your own reports to determine if an item is successful for you by taking into account all the costs associate with that item. Give yourself a good margin and don’t forget to account for any ebay and Amazon fees.