The Ultimate Guide To Effective Product Research

In order to sell successfully, you need to conduct effective product research. But where do you start? In this ultimate guide, we’ll break down the process of product research into easy-to-follow steps, so that you can start finding profitable products to sell online.

What is Product Research?

As you work on developing a new product concept for market launch or enhancing an existing product to improve its performance, you’re taking a gamble. If your efforts fall short, you may face costly consequences, but if you succeed, you could enjoy a thriving product, service, or experience that delivers incredible returns on your investment. So how can you ensure you land in the latter category?

Product research is the key. It allows you to:

• Evaluate and prioritize your ideas
• Test and validate concepts
• Assess names and packaging designs
• Investigate the competition
• Determine the optimal selling price
• Measure customer satisfaction and track product-market fit post-launch
• Continuously refine the product

While the term “product research” is commonly used, it encompasses more than just tangible goods. The research process we’re discussing here can apply to physical products like smartphones, services such as cloud storage, or experiences like tours or hotel stays.

Product research works in tandem with market research, which pinpoints target customers, creates typical buyer personas, and examines purchasing habits. Together, these research methods enable you to make educated decisions about how to match consumer needs and desires with your offerings.

Why product research is important?

A brilliant and innovative idea for a product, service, or experience may seem promising, but if no one is interested in purchasing it, success is unattainable. In the best-case scenario, it becomes a fascinating curiosity, while in the worst-case, it’s a complete waste of resources. Similarly, proposing changes to an existing product or service without considering customers’ preferences may lead to more harm than good.

Product research enables you to determine if your idea resonates with potential customers. Since a product’s value is based on what people are willing to pay for it, your research process can also help you establish an appropriate price.

Product research plays a crucial role in new product development and can be conducted at various stages. It assists organizations in creating products that meet customer expectations, leading to a competitive advantage and market leadership. If your competitors are outperforming you, it’s essential to understand why, recognize any overlooked gaps, and discover emerging trends to gain a competitive edge.

A thoroughly researched product will better address customers’ needs. Product research becomes even more vital when introducing a product in a highly competitive market. Gathering customer feedback on features and attributes can significantly aid in developing a product that addresses existing market issues.

Benefits of product research

Successful product research benefits. Let’s briefly discuss the benefits of product research.

• Find user demands your product can meet: Product research improves accuracy and inventiveness. You’ll know your adjustments meet user demands.
• Know your clients’ problems: CSAT and CES ratings are wonderful techniques to uncover pain issues, but they are related to customer service and solicited.
• Successful customer service should not address product setup concerns for a successful company plan. Ask consumers what they want to see. Product research delivers behavioral data and insights for best solutions.
• Find ways to beat the competitors: Product research also gives you an advantage. Market and competitive research might reveal holes you can address with new features or products.
• Change your roadmap to meet KPIs: Product research will streamline prioritizing. You’ll know which features people prefer and which make them ponder switching to a rival.
• Optimize your backlog and schedule the most critical updates. The staff will know how to boost client satisfaction next.

How to do product research

Product research is essential for finding profitable products to sell online. Before diving into research, take time to establish the criteria for your business, which will help guide your decisions and narrow down your search.

Criteria for product research:

• Selling price: Aim for a price point of $20-$50, which leaves room for profitability, keeps manufacturing costs low, and falls within the “impulse purchase” range.
• Product size and weight: For new or inexperienced sellers, start with small and lightweight products to keep shipping costs down and simplify inventory management.
• Product simplicity: Choose products with minimal components or potential issues, especially when dealing with electronics.
• Perishable or consumable products: Be aware of expiration dates, local and federal regulations, and marketplace rules.

Six ways to discover good product ideas:

• Start with your hobbies or interests, listing products that interest you.
• Determine current trends using social media, Google Trends, and other tools.
• Search on Amazon, exploring lists like New Releases, Movers & Shakers, Most Wished For, and Gift Ideas.
• Attend wholesale trade shows to meet suppliers, manufacturers, and discover new innovations.
• Browse Alibaba or Aliexpress for unique products and top-ranking items.
• Use product research software to find high-demand, low-competition products.

In summary, using the criteria above will help you refine your product search and discover profitable items to sell online. Remember to consider your interests, current trends, online marketplaces, trade shows, and research tools to generate solid product ideas.

Best Product research tools for dropshipping

Product research plays a vital role in the success of any dropshipping business, and utilizing the right tools for product research can significantly increase your chances of discovering winning products. These winning product research tools are specifically designed to help you identify high-potential, in-demand items that will set your online store apart from the competition. As you continue reading our blog, we will delve into the best product research tools for dropshipping, arming you with essential resources to streamline your search for those exceptional, profit-generating products that customers simply can’t resist.

Sell The Trend

Sell The Trend is a relatively new product research tool that offers a range of features designed to help you discover trending products for your e-commerce store. Additionally, Sell The Trend has launched its own dropshipping e-commerce platform called “SHOPS,” which is free for early adopters.

Key features of Sell The Trend:

• The Nexus: This powerful tool uses an AI algorithm to identify trending products across popular e-commerce stores. It provides essential data points, such as the number of Shopify and AliExpress stores selling the product, product cost, selling price, profit margin, and more.
• Explorers: This feature allows you to find trending products from Amazon, AliExpress, Facebook, and Shopify stores, similar to what you get with The Nexus.
• Video ad creator: Sell The Trend offers a simple video creator that lets you generate Facebook video ads using AliExpress product images.
• Facebook audience builder: This tool offers ideas for building audiences for your targeting. You can choose from pre-selected categories and refine your audience from there.
• Engagement rating calculator: This feature evaluates influencers to determine if they’re a good fit for promoting your products. It assesses metrics for both Instagram and Twitter.
• Training: Sell The Trend provides training videos on how to best utilize each tool, as well as tips and tricks for identifying the best items to sell.

Helium 10

Helium 10 is a comprehensive set of tools designed to help Amazon sellers find profitable products, create high-ranking listings, track keyword rankings, and analyze competition. It caters to both beginners and experienced sellers, aiming to build strong, scalable Amazon FBA businesses. Helium 10 offers a wealth of features to assist Amazon sellers in building successful e-commerce businesses.

Key features of Helium 10:

• Product Research Tools: Quickly find profitable products.
• Helium 10 Chrome Extension Tools: Analyze products, research competition, and estimate profitability.
• Keyword Research Tools: Rank higher in searches and outperform competitors.
• Listing Optimization Tools: Craft high-quality, converting listings.
• Operations Tools: Automate tasks and receive reminders for efficient business management.
• Analytics Tools: Make informed decisions based on accurate data.
• Marketing Tools: Stay ahead with targeted traffic and powerful ad campaigns.

Ecomhunt

Ecomhunt is a platform that curates winning products for your e-commerce business daily, saving you time and money by helping you avoid selecting the wrong products. The platform analyzes successful products, providing paying members with early access before making them available to free members a few days later.

Key features of Ecomhunt:

• Product images and descriptions
• Profit, RRP (Recommended Retail Price), costs, and margins
• Saturation inspector
• Analytics
• Facebook advertising ideas and current ads
• Social media engagement ideas
• Buyer reviews
• Targeting and audience ideas

Ecomhunt also offers a range of educational resources, including training guides, webinars, blogs, Ecomhunt University, and a thriving Facebook group. The platform provides an online chat feature, allowing users to connect with others in the same industry for support and advice. In summary, Ecomhunt is a well-researched tool and an excellent platform for dropshipping businesses, providing valuable insights and resources to help you succeed in the competitive e-commerce landscape.

Minea

Minea is an all-in-one dropshipping product research tool essential for every dropshipper’s toolbox, thanks to its numerous features and comprehensive capabilities. What sets Minea apart from other product search tools is its ability to collect ads from multiple social networks, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest. This results in the largest database among product search tools, with over 14 million ads analyzed.

Each day, Minea offers a selection of the top 10 winning products in the market. This selection is based on the characteristics of winning products as well as their statistics across various online stores and marketplaces.

Key features of Minea

Here’s a brief overview of the data you can obtain on each ad found on Minea:

• The ad media (Photo, Carousel, Video, etc.)
• The ad text
• The ad link
• The store link
• The AliExpress product search link
• Social engagement (Likes, Shares, Comments, etc.)
• The target country of the advertiser
• The audience (Gender, Age, Demographics, etc.)
• Other ads from the same store

Moreover, Minea stands out with its influencer marketing analysis feature, which allows you to analyze:

• Product placements
• Dropshipping or e-commerce brands
• Influencers
• Competitors’ stores

In conclusion, Minea is a powerful suite of tools that provides extensive information on the products you want to launch. The more information you have about a product, the better equipped you are to assess its profitability and make informed decisions for your dropshipping business.

Niche Scraper

Niche Scraper is a valuable SaaS (Software as a Service) tool that assists dropshippers in finding winning products to sell on their e-commerce stores, whether on Shopify, WooCommerce, or other platforms. Niche Scraper is a comprehensive solution for dropshippers looking to find winning products, gather valuable market insights, and create engaging advertising content for their e-commerce stores.

Key features of Niche Scraper

Product Scraper:

This feature allows you to discover trendy and best-selling products on Shopify stores and AliExpress. It provides essential data such as sales trends over the last 7 days, sales difficulty level, and the rate of sales increase or decrease. This helps you make informed decisions about which products to sell. Additionally, you can filter and sort products by date, niche, orders, and price.

Hand Picked:

The Hand Picked feature presents a list of products manually selected by the Niche Scraper team. With 1-2 new products added daily, you can choose the products you want and begin testing them on your store.

Store Analysis:

This unique tool enables you to spy on various Shopify stores, including general stores with unique products or verified dropshipping stores. You can search by keywords, store popularity, or relevance, and the tool will display best-selling products, traffic data, sales estimates, and other insights to help you plan your market entry.

Video Ad Maker:

Niche Scraper offers a user-friendly video ad creation tool that allows you to generate unique ad videos using images, music, and text within seconds. Simply copy the product page URL, paste it into the tool to fetch the image, and create your video

FindNiche

FindNiche is a free niche analytics tool for Shopify and AliExpress. It analyzes over 1,000,000 goods, 11,000 niches, and 700,000 Shopify shops.

Key features of FindNiche

This excellent product research dropshipping tool helps in many ways:

• Huge data: FindNiche helps you make choices by extracting useful information from enormous datasets.
• The program updates orders, prices, earnings, and more hourly, giving you the latest data.
• Strong filtering: FindNiche provides several filtering, sorting, and searching techniques, making it simpler to discover information.
• Clever picking: Find winning, trendy, high-margin, and hidden goods for your shop.
• FindNiche can inspire your niche and suggest things to offer. Despite lacking a “dropshipping” filter, the tool is still useful for e-commerce entrepreneurs.

Conclusion

In conclusion, successful businesses in today’s competitive market need good product research. This complete guide will help you create a successful product while saving time, money, and effort.

Product research should be done often to keep up with customer changes and preferences. Staying on top of this process ensures that your goods satisfy your target audience’s demands today and in the future.