What to sell, what to sell, what to sell. That’s one of the biggest questions you’ll be asking yourself when building your online store. How do some stores end up making six and seven figures while others have a big, fat zero? It comes down to having winning products. And fortunately, all you need to do is find one to make it big. So in this article, I’m going to break down the three easiest ways to find winning products (and the exact thing that helped me find my winning product). Time to get those dolla dolla bills y’all.
#1. Monitor Best-Selling Lists
Most online stores have best seller lists. This is obviously great for customers who want to see the best products an online store can offer. But for online retailers best seller lists are a freaking goldmine.
And new entrepreneurs don’t exploit them enough.
Most say that the downside to dropshipping is that everyone is selling the same products as you. But I like to look at it with a glass half full approach: if everyone’s selling the same stuff, you can easily sell it too. And if you know what their best sellers are, then you can sell a winning product.
Here are a few examples of websites with public best seller lists.
Amazon
So, I’m going to be a Captain Obvious and start with the obvious choice first.
Amazon has best seller lists for literally every category. And not only that, but they’re updated every. single. hour.
You will find some brand name products on best seller lists like Lego and FujiFilm above. However, you can also discover some unbranded products that are also easily available.
Let’s take a quick look at women’s fashion. On the best seller list, I found these comfortable drawstring pants which are ranked 14 on Amazon’s Best Sellers for the Clothing, Shoes & Jewelry category. But they also ranked 1 in women’s Casual Pants & Capris. There are 964 reviews with an overall 4 star rating. Not bad at all.
I decide to look up the exact keywords following the brand name to see if I could find it on Oberlo. And sure enough, an Oberlo Verified supplier carries the exact product.
If they’re best sellers on Amazon, they could also be best sellers on your own store. So you can add products to your store, like this one, based on their performance on Amazon.
Okay, let me guess what you’re thinking right now. “But Nicole, I can’t possibly compete with Amazon. Their prices are too low.” Am I close?
I used to have those fears too until I experienced the impact of a winning product first hand. If someone sees your product from an ad first, they’re more likely to buy directly from you.
The secret – and this is a BIG one – is don’t use the manufacturer’s product name. You’re building your own brand, so spend the 30 seconds needed to come up with a unique product name.
Wish
Wish is another example of an online retailer who publicizes their best-selling products. Take a look at the cat towels on the bottom right corner. Over 50,000 people have bought those towels off Wish’s website so they’re definitely a winning product.
If you head over to Wish’s product page, you’ll see some more impressive numbers. Over 6,900 reviews proving that people are actually buying these products.
Wish is a bit more sophisticated, so you can’t just copy and paste the title into Oberlo. However, if you search for cat towel, sure enough, you’ll find the exact product.
The cool thing about this cat towel is that you can immediately tell just from looking at it that it’s an impulse buy product. Most of the products on Wish are catered to attract the impulse buy. So naturally they would do well on visual platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
So when looking through best seller lists, keep your eyes open for impulse buy products. Some trademarks for impulse buy products include things like:
- Colorful (or visually stands out when scrolling)
- Elicits an emotional reaction (“I need this” or “This is adorable” or “I love this”)
- Different design or style from anything you’ve ever seen
Insert Your Competitor Here
Most of your competitors have best seller lists. Check them out. Even if you can’t find their exact product, by studying their product collections, look for patterns within best selling products.
If you’re in fashion, online retailer Suzy Shier has a trends category. Within the trends category, you’ll find best sellers. However, what’s just as interesting is that they also divide their clothing into fashion trends. This can help give you an idea of what types of trends within the fashion niche are popular right now. Under trends, you see categories like athleisure, animal prints, and plaid. So, you can search for fashion within those types of categories so you’re selling the latest trends.
Ardene is another retailer that has a trends section. Funny enough, when you check out their best sellers, the first item that shows up is a plaid hoodie which confirms that this trend is on fire right now. So if you’re looking to sell women’s fashion, having a few plaid items can help you get some sales.
The more you look through competitor websites, the more you’ll find patterns and connections among top brands. You can incorporate these patterns as you build your product collection.
#2. Monitor High-Performing Ads
We live in a world of scrollers. We scroll through articles, newsfeeds, and product pages. But have you ever stopped to think what could happen if you didn’t scroll past an endless wave of posts?
My world completely changed because, one day, I stopped scrolling to look at a Facebook ad.
The ad copy? Lackluster.
The website design? Mediocre at best.
But somehow this ad’s engagement was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Sky high. Comment after comment. Friend tagging like you wouldn’t believe. Tens of thousands of likes.
Everyone wanted this product.
It was almost hard to believe that these comments were real. But they were.
I decided to look for a similar product with Oberlo. It was a big, colorful blanket, so I tried different keywords like “beach blanket” and “meditation blanket.” After a bit of searching, I found the exact, same product.
Bingo!
But the truth is, just because you find a winning product doesn’t mean you know how to sell it.
That first month, I only made $1659.70. These numbers don’t really hint that success is coming up: Less than a 1% conversion rate and only 39 orders. This product’s supposed to be a homerun?
The truth that no one tells you is that you can have a winning product on your store and have no freaking idea. Your store’s performance can be just like a lot of other new stores. Enough sales to know you can make money, but not enough to know you’re onto something big.
There are so many factors to ensure your winning product has the best chance of success:
- Your ad needs to target and attract the right audience
- Your website needs to convert
- You need to convince customers to buy right now before going off and doing research
- The product shouldn’t be widely available (i.e., not in retail stores)
- And more!
So don’t be afraid to ask around for store reviews to get feedback on your store. Because you could very well have some best-selling products on it without even realizing it.
And keep your eyes peeled on Facebook and Instagram for ads.
A little trick to consistently trigger ads from various stores is to add best-selling products from various competitors to your cart. Top-performing stores will usually have retargeting ads which often get triggered by abandoned carts. And you can use the templates from those ads as inspiration for your own ads to give you a better chance of marketing your winning product.
You can also use a tool like FB Search to find ads within your niche with high levels of engagement. You might need to play around with various keywords to find them (the more specific the better). So avoid keywords like “fitness” or “yoga.” Instead do keywords like “mandala blanket,” which narrows it down to the exact product. You’ll find posts with high engagement – sometimes they’re just standard posts but sometimes advertisers turn their existing posts into ads.
#3. Monitor Oberlo Verified Suppliers
You can also do your winning product research on Oberlo. And when it comes to winning products, the Oberlo marketplace is a goldmine.
All you need to do is pop into your Oberlo dashboard and hit the Suppliers button at the top of the screen.
I’m a research hound so I usually check out every supplier on the list. But there’s a pretty important feature on the supplier page: “Sort by: Order Count.” You’re welcome. 
If you’re in the pet niche, you might want to check out American Dropship, as two of their best-performing products are dog-themed necklaces.
If you’re in the fashion niche, Bessky Technology will hook you up. Whether you’re interested in women’s fashion, children’s fashion, or watches, this supplier has a fashion goldmine.
If you’re looking to start a jewelry brand, Apex Trading might be a good supplier, as their top products tend to be necklaces and watches.
If you’re looking for some random impulse buy products for a general store, you might want to check out irobotbox.
And while I only named a couple of suppliers, there are many more with great products you can sell today.
And so right now, you’re probably thinking something like, “Alright this is great, but what if I want to sell something that isn’t already proven? How can I beat competitors?”
You’re going to hate this answer, but it boils down to experience. Once you start seeing the patterns of what types of products perform best on your store, you can start catering your product collection to better serve your customers.
And once you get customers, people will start contacting you to give you feedback. Pay attention to that. Customers won’t always tell you what they want. But if they tell you what they don’t want, you can gain some valuable insight that’ll lead the direction of your store.
Beyond experience, the easiest way to find winning products before competitors is to look for newly added items that your suppliers add. If they have the characteristics of an impulse buy product, test it.
There are hidden gems with low order volume on Oberlo that have all the characteristics of a winning product – they just haven’t been tested yet.
Conclusion
So the main secret to finding winning products comes down to research. I know, I know, it’s super tempting to add random products onto your store just because they look nice. But if the goal is to have a store that sells top performing products, your process can’t be random. It needs to be strategic. So don’t be afraid to do you homework, do some competitor research and monitor what people are talking about online. By paying attention to high-performing ads, competitors, and Oberlo Verified suppliers, you’ll inch closer to finding high-performing winning products for your store.
Have you had success with a winning product? Let us know in the comments below!
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