What do you think?
Rate this book
Product Research 101: Find Winning Products to Sell on Amazon and Beyond
Just getting started with product research and sourcing? Stuck trying to find ideas or find that “perfect” winning product? Want to find good selling products that others are ignoring? Interested in wholesale or private label products? If you answered yes, then this book is for you. If you are an experienced seller or are looking to do arbitrage this book will have less value as I don’t discuss sourcing by arbitrage. I don’t do arbitrage, so I don’t teach it. This book is written for the new or struggling seller wanting to source wholesale or private label products. What you will Basic steps for finding top selling products How to generate product ideas and look for trends How to validate demand Tips for finding suppliers Analyzing data to help you pick a product It took me 5 months of research before I pulled the trigger on my first products to sell on Amazon. Five months and countless hours. I have pages of notes with product ideas in many different categories. Some were wholesale products, others were ideas for my own products. I had some money set aside to buy inventory. But I couldn’t commit. I was looking for...not necessarily thee perfect product, but, well yeah, the perfect product. Fear of choosing “wrong” was holding me back. I knew that product selection was key to success so I needed to choose right. Another part of the problem was I had bigger ideas—I wanted to create a brand and I had some ideas as to what sorts of products I would carry. But those ideas required more capital than I was willing to invest for my first product. As a result, I put so much pressure on myself to dream big and think towards the future that I did…nothing! Another hold up was I was a little skittish to follow the advice to source from Chinese suppliers. It seemed so complicated for a beginner. Could I not take a little less profit and source domestically? Were there not manufacturers that could produce my ideas in North America? Yes, and yes. Ultimately the delays helped me because I learned a lot by joining Facebook groups and listening to and learning from the experiences of others. I devoured the advice in forums as well as blogs, books, webinars, and courses. I learned of the pitfalls of private label that the gurus selling you the dream never talk about. And finally, I did pull the trigger. I put together this guide to help any of you who are feeling a little gun-shy too. I put this book together for all of you who have the brains to say “Hey, if everyone buys top 100 selling products wont that saturate the market?” I put this book together to help you find great products from many different approaches. After reading this, you should feel confident enough to find a product and get started with your e-commerce business.
63 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 25, 2015
641 people are currently reading
284 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
November 12, 2019
I have a Shopify website, and I bought this book thinking it's a product research for all e-commerce sites. I searched for "Shopify books" on amazon, and saw this title. What made me think it fits for Shopify is "Winning Products to Sell on Amazon (and Beyond)". the "and Beyond" took the emphasis off Amazon and made me assume it's applicable for Shopify as well.
Anyway, I wasn't so grumpy about it since there is a good chance I will also pursue Amazon FBA as well and it can give me pre-insight to know what is being talked about. The book is only 57 pages, but it still holds value more than it seems at first.
Note: I give books ratings relating on the info and insight I make out of them, and since I basically don't know anything about Amazon FBA, my 5-stars rating might not be so accurate.
I always make summaries for business books, and I decided to put it up with the review this time, so here you go:
NOTE: since the point of me summarizing the book is only to get more value out of every book, I don’t pay much attention to grammatical mistakes and typos, there might be some...
Wholesale: buying from a retail sale in big quantity in discounted price, and selling the discounted goods in retail-price and making profit of the margin.
Steps to find a successful winning product and listing it:
Choosing the Product:
First you should write down as many product ideas as possible to get the flow going and gather good ideas. Then stick to this product criterion:
1) Products over 10$: the reason you should sell products above the 10$ is the fees charged due to: shipping, storage, amazon etc…
2) Small and Light: when starting, it's better to stick to small and light products to avoid complexities and high shipping charges.
3) Not a hazardous product: any dangerous product is very likely going to be banned from getting listed. Further information can be found on Amazon.
4) Not Fragile: if a buyer receives a broken item he will give bad reviews, and that would be very constructive for starters.
Narrowing to the most suitable and best-selling products:
1) The Best Seller Method: browse the top 100 best-seller in amazon in different categories and sub-categories. This will give you a little information and knowledge to recognize what is selling and trending and what isn't.
2) Applications: FBA Toolkit, keyword search tools, ASD, all these and many others are apps that can help massively. Tutorials on YouTube are available.
3) Shopping Sites: browse articles and blogs in shopping sites to see what is coming to a trend and is a prospect for success.
4) E-commerce Sites: browse best-selling products in the website to see what sells well.
Validation Stage:
After making product ideas that apply to the criterion discussed above, now comes the second step, validation. The goal of validation is to assure that the product picked has potential to generate profit. This will be done mainly by checking sales stats to see if its popular or trending:
1) Ranking: ranking is a reflection of how well did a product sell recently. Pick the best 1% in ranking.
2) Competition: search for the product you're planning to invest in. Check how many are also selling it, and according to the competition, if you sell a low enough price to rank first but still at the same time also make profit, the product has no enough competition to raise a finger.
3) Search Volume: use "Merchant Words" to see if the volume of search is high and the product is being searched for frequently. You can use other tools like: Google keyword planner, Google Trends, Watchcount.
4) Selling Fees: Amazon FBA's calculator can give you a good picture about the fees charged.
Sourcing
Sourcing will take the matter of wholesale and retail, fees, prices, profit margin etc…
Margin Profit: What is a good margin profit?
A reasonable profit margin is usually 20%.
Sources: There are two types of sources:
1) Manufacturers: in this case you buy directly from the factory. You can get products for a better price, but some manufacturers require you to buy in big quantities
2) Wholesalers and Distributors: the downside here is that you will pay more, but the upside is that it requires minimum requirements.
3) Liquidators: Merchant selling products that were kept not sold. The price is usually low, but there are reasons the products were not sold in the first place like: unpopularity, bad condition etc…
Ways to find suppliers:
1) google your product's name with wholesale, distributers or manufacturers. Go deep as possible, some best distributers have basic sites that don’t really rank high in Google.
2) Directories: sites like Alibaba, Thomasnet (US), Indiamart, Global Sources, Made-in-China etc…
3) Twitter: Twitter is considered a good search engine for finding even more potential decent sources. You can find sources by either simply searching in the search engine and by following pages that have the same niche you're looking for. You might be contacted by them too.
Testing
After going through all what is above and finding products that fits in the criterion, comes the last and shortest step.
To see if your product is a "winning product", get up to 3 samples and see how fast they sell. If they sell quickly and get good reviews, you got yourself a winning product that holds the potential of good profit.
Anyway, I wasn't so grumpy about it since there is a good chance I will also pursue Amazon FBA as well and it can give me pre-insight to know what is being talked about. The book is only 57 pages, but it still holds value more than it seems at first.
Note: I give books ratings relating on the info and insight I make out of them, and since I basically don't know anything about Amazon FBA, my 5-stars rating might not be so accurate.
I always make summaries for business books, and I decided to put it up with the review this time, so here you go:
NOTE: since the point of me summarizing the book is only to get more value out of every book, I don’t pay much attention to grammatical mistakes and typos, there might be some...
Wholesale: buying from a retail sale in big quantity in discounted price, and selling the discounted goods in retail-price and making profit of the margin.
Steps to find a successful winning product and listing it:
Choosing the Product:
First you should write down as many product ideas as possible to get the flow going and gather good ideas. Then stick to this product criterion:
1) Products over 10$: the reason you should sell products above the 10$ is the fees charged due to: shipping, storage, amazon etc…
2) Small and Light: when starting, it's better to stick to small and light products to avoid complexities and high shipping charges.
3) Not a hazardous product: any dangerous product is very likely going to be banned from getting listed. Further information can be found on Amazon.
4) Not Fragile: if a buyer receives a broken item he will give bad reviews, and that would be very constructive for starters.
Narrowing to the most suitable and best-selling products:
1) The Best Seller Method: browse the top 100 best-seller in amazon in different categories and sub-categories. This will give you a little information and knowledge to recognize what is selling and trending and what isn't.
2) Applications: FBA Toolkit, keyword search tools, ASD, all these and many others are apps that can help massively. Tutorials on YouTube are available.
3) Shopping Sites: browse articles and blogs in shopping sites to see what is coming to a trend and is a prospect for success.
4) E-commerce Sites: browse best-selling products in the website to see what sells well.
Validation Stage:
After making product ideas that apply to the criterion discussed above, now comes the second step, validation. The goal of validation is to assure that the product picked has potential to generate profit. This will be done mainly by checking sales stats to see if its popular or trending:
1) Ranking: ranking is a reflection of how well did a product sell recently. Pick the best 1% in ranking.
2) Competition: search for the product you're planning to invest in. Check how many are also selling it, and according to the competition, if you sell a low enough price to rank first but still at the same time also make profit, the product has no enough competition to raise a finger.
3) Search Volume: use "Merchant Words" to see if the volume of search is high and the product is being searched for frequently. You can use other tools like: Google keyword planner, Google Trends, Watchcount.
4) Selling Fees: Amazon FBA's calculator can give you a good picture about the fees charged.
Sourcing
Sourcing will take the matter of wholesale and retail, fees, prices, profit margin etc…
Margin Profit: What is a good margin profit?
A reasonable profit margin is usually 20%.
Sources: There are two types of sources:
1) Manufacturers: in this case you buy directly from the factory. You can get products for a better price, but some manufacturers require you to buy in big quantities
2) Wholesalers and Distributors: the downside here is that you will pay more, but the upside is that it requires minimum requirements.
3) Liquidators: Merchant selling products that were kept not sold. The price is usually low, but there are reasons the products were not sold in the first place like: unpopularity, bad condition etc…
Ways to find suppliers:
1) google your product's name with wholesale, distributers or manufacturers. Go deep as possible, some best distributers have basic sites that don’t really rank high in Google.
2) Directories: sites like Alibaba, Thomasnet (US), Indiamart, Global Sources, Made-in-China etc…
3) Twitter: Twitter is considered a good search engine for finding even more potential decent sources. You can find sources by either simply searching in the search engine and by following pages that have the same niche you're looking for. You might be contacted by them too.
Testing
After going through all what is above and finding products that fits in the criterion, comes the last and shortest step.
To see if your product is a "winning product", get up to 3 samples and see how fast they sell. If they sell quickly and get good reviews, you got yourself a winning product that holds the potential of good profit.
January 18, 2021
Concise and to the point.
Very short read. Excellent introduction for newbies who want to understand the world of ecommerce related to Amazon. The author seems intent on providing valuable information and resources. I have it 4 stars because it was short and straight to the point in every topic.
Very short read. Excellent introduction for newbies who want to understand the world of ecommerce related to Amazon. The author seems intent on providing valuable information and resources. I have it 4 stars because it was short and straight to the point in every topic.
October 18, 2017
Pleasantly surprised
Great starting book for those interested in learning more about selling on Amazon. The steps appear easy to follow but I wish it gave a little more guidance as to how to promote products that you private label. That being said, the issue as to why the discussion on promoting your private label was discussed in the book and it is understandable. Overall, great read for some quick knowledge.
Great starting book for those interested in learning more about selling on Amazon. The steps appear easy to follow but I wish it gave a little more guidance as to how to promote products that you private label. That being said, the issue as to why the discussion on promoting your private label was discussed in the book and it is understandable. Overall, great read for some quick knowledge.
February 2, 2021
Incredible tips
I really liked that she gave specific websites to go to help you research and source. Some info can be confusing for a beginner.... However there is so much to this subject. I really liked her tips, but I would have loved it to be a little longer... There is so much to learn on this subject. It is scary. I would like to see maybe a chapter on mindset and encouragement.
I really liked that she gave specific websites to go to help you research and source. Some info can be confusing for a beginner.... However there is so much to this subject. I really liked her tips, but I would have loved it to be a little longer... There is so much to learn on this subject. It is scary. I would like to see maybe a chapter on mindset and encouragement.
February 6, 2025
wish I had this book years ago!
the ideas on where + how to source items to sell were great - I took notes on every page. a pile of free browser extensions + search tools are talked about. what a great book for a beginner looking to start selling on Amazon (pertains to online selling in general also). can read in one evening... take notes and next day get to work.
the ideas on where + how to source items to sell were great - I took notes on every page. a pile of free browser extensions + search tools are talked about. what a great book for a beginner looking to start selling on Amazon (pertains to online selling in general also). can read in one evening... take notes and next day get to work.
July 21, 2017
Informative
Informative, 👍idea's... Motivating ...
Highly recommended ............................good buy.... inexpensive
👍great idea's, motivating , inspiring
Right to the point, short read.
Informative, 👍idea's... Motivating ...
Highly recommended ............................good buy.... inexpensive
👍great idea's, motivating , inspiring
Right to the point, short read.
February 18, 2018
Honest and Helpful
Here's an internet business author who tells the real story about selling on Amazon, without promising you will make a fortune. If you've read the "gurus," now read this one to bring yourself back down to earth.
Here's an internet business author who tells the real story about selling on Amazon, without promising you will make a fortune. If you've read the "gurus," now read this one to bring yourself back down to earth.
August 10, 2018
It's loaded with very useful information.
I bought an FBA course and 80% of what I learned there about product research can be found in this book. I like the Summary part as I don't have to go through the pages if I need a quick browse.
I bought an FBA course and 80% of what I learned there about product research can be found in this book. I like the Summary part as I don't have to go through the pages if I need a quick browse.
March 6, 2019
Excellent book for Amazon FBA newcomers
Well researched, Well written book. I hope the author will keep updating this Ebook to stay on top of the competition for many years to come.
Well researched, Well written book. I hope the author will keep updating this Ebook to stay on top of the competition for many years to come.
June 26, 2019
A quick read
It is an easy, quick read. I'm going through a bunch of books on the topic, and gotta say they all seem very casually written and similar. Also, the lack of any mention of advertising costs was an interesting lapse in this book, I think.
It is an easy, quick read. I'm going through a bunch of books on the topic, and gotta say they all seem very casually written and similar. Also, the lack of any mention of advertising costs was an interesting lapse in this book, I think.
October 24, 2019
Good intro the product strategy
Quick and easy read if you are just getting started in online selling. Doesnt try to sell you on only the pros, but also mentions the pitfalls and challenges. Not a get rich quick message. Overall good starter guide.
Quick and easy read if you are just getting started in online selling. Doesnt try to sell you on only the pros, but also mentions the pitfalls and challenges. Not a get rich quick message. Overall good starter guide.
January 27, 2020
Concise n complete
This is a good reference book and it seems the author has been genuine with his advice. It is easy to read and it seems that the information is complete. No quick rich scam here.
This is a good reference book and it seems the author has been genuine with his advice. It is easy to read and it seems that the information is complete. No quick rich scam here.
August 11, 2020
Wow! Very informative.
This is the fourth book on e-commerce that I have read recently and by far the best.
It gets into the level of detail that one needs in order to evaluate and pick the right product(s) to sell. Lots of info on online tools to use.
Highly recommended!
This is the fourth book on e-commerce that I have read recently and by far the best.
It gets into the level of detail that one needs in order to evaluate and pick the right product(s) to sell. Lots of info on online tools to use.
Highly recommended!
May 5, 2017
Quick read and packed with great info
I've read several books now in this genre and this one is the best so far. Lots of actionable information and tips. Highly recommend!
I've read several books now in this genre and this one is the best so far. Lots of actionable information and tips. Highly recommend!
December 20, 2017
Great book
Really good book for working on product research. This really help me out a lot during the process on amazon.
Really good book for working on product research. This really help me out a lot during the process on amazon.
January 30, 2018
Excellent
If you are looking for a helpful book on amazon selling, then this book is the right book for you
If you are looking for a helpful book on amazon selling, then this book is the right book for you
May 24, 2018
A fantastic little book. Small but very informative. Packed with useful references. THRUTHFUL compared to some other gurus half truths.
July 13, 2018
A great intro into FBO
This is a great book for those that are researching selling on Amazon utilizing their FBO program. I recommend that you read it!
This is a great book for those that are researching selling on Amazon utilizing their FBO program. I recommend that you read it!
August 4, 2018
Great Book!
Loved this book, provided all the information I was looking for. I totally would recommend people who are interested in learning about product research and AMAZON FBA.
Loved this book, provided all the information I was looking for. I totally would recommend people who are interested in learning about product research and AMAZON FBA.
August 28, 2018
Good reading
Exllent book. You can read it many time used for all levels of seller . I wish all beginner to have it
Exllent book. You can read it many time used for all levels of seller . I wish all beginner to have it
January 14, 2019
Great First Steps for Beginners!
This book gave easy to understand information broken down into digestible bites. Made me feel slightly less overwhelmed as a new Amazon FBA seller.
This book gave easy to understand information broken down into digestible bites. Made me feel slightly less overwhelmed as a new Amazon FBA seller.
February 5, 2019
Good book
Some good advices, easy understanding, good resources and I recommend this book to beginner FBA sellers on Amazon for finding the products!
Some good advices, easy understanding, good resources and I recommend this book to beginner FBA sellers on Amazon for finding the products!
May 20, 2019
Lots of good ideas!
I really like this book and took many notes on all the chapters. I'll put many of the ideas to good use
I really like this book and took many notes on all the chapters. I'll put many of the ideas to good use
August 19, 2019
worthless
all the info in this book are all online out there, couldn’t find anything special or informative, I still am where I was before buying this book!!!!
all the info in this book are all online out there, couldn’t find anything special or informative, I still am where I was before buying this book!!!!
November 25, 2019
Very Hepful Advice
If you need help find what products you want to sell inorder to insure your busines makes money, this book is for you.
If you need help find what products you want to sell inorder to insure your busines makes money, this book is for you.
May 13, 2021
Easy read
I recommend this book mainly because its language is I believe understandable to anyone without background in selling .Also
Author of this book ks keeping it real
I recommend this book mainly because its language is I believe understandable to anyone without background in selling .Also
Author of this book ks keeping it real
November 30, 2021
Buy the book
Renae put slot of thought into this book. There is a lot to
Digest. I brought the audio version to I can listen to it while I'm out and about.
Renae put slot of thought into this book. There is a lot to
Digest. I brought the audio version to I can listen to it while I'm out and about.
March 11, 2022
Awesome read!
May 5, 2022
good read
As I’m attempting to find my way through learning, this book is helpful in where to start. I know nothing of the subject matter and this was an easy read.
As I’m attempting to find my way through learning, this book is helpful in where to start. I know nothing of the subject matter and this was an easy read.
Read
August 29, 2023Not really informative
Eh at best. Doesn't teach you much. I suggest learning from better sources. This is too abridged to really teach much of anything
Eh at best. Doesn't teach you much. I suggest learning from better sources. This is too abridged to really teach much of anything
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews