If you have just decided that you want to start an Amazon FBA business then the first question you probably have is “what products to sell on Amazon”. We can tell you that this is probably the biggest question you need to answer when you have an Amazon FBA business idea. It’s the most important question that all Amazon sellers have to answer.
In this blog post we are going to share our personal experience of what we have done to find successful products to sell on Amazon. By the end of this post you should have a clear understanding of what steps you need to take to find the best products to sell on Amazon.
If you google what products to sell on Amazon then there’s many pages that give you a list of the next TOP 20 items that you can sell on Amazon. Forget that list because everybody are reading it and that market is probably super saturated.
What you need to do is find a strategy that helps you find the best products to sell on Amazon. We have written another blog post where I share how to do product research on Amazon. There we laying out all the details you need to know how to get started selling on Amazon. How to do product research is the next step you need to do once you have set up the fundamentals for your Amazon business. In this blog post we are setting the foundation for your Amazon product research.
Table of contents
- What is your budget for your Amazon FBA business?
- How long can you live without taking money out from your business?
- Can you risk losing it all?
- How much time does it take to start an Amazon FBA business?
- How to select the right category to sell on Amazon?
- Do you have previous experience in a certain niche?
- What are the best tools for Amazon product research?
- Additional tips when choosing the right product to sell on Amazon
What is your budget for Amazon FBA business?
With my first Amazon FBA business I didn’t have any money and took a loan from a friend. Total of $2000 and ordered my first batch of products. I didn’t do any financial planning about how much money I need for my Amazon FBA business, how much money I can to take out for myself or anything like that. I just hoped that it would work out and luckily for me it did, but I was in great financial pressure for a long time. It took me a few years until I finally managed to run my business successfully. I could have done a lot better if I had done proper financial planning. Here are the things you need to think through about your budget.
If you have a small budget then you probably need to sell lower priced items. For example products in a $10-$20 price range. Then your product landing cost should be around $2-$5 and with a $2000 budget you could order 400-1000 units for your first product order and it should be enough if the product manufacturing time is not too long. We have also written another post about what are Amazon FBA business setup cost. Make sure you check it out as well.
If the manufacturing time is too long then you might go out of stock before your next product order arrives at Amazon
For my second Amazon FBA business my budget was $30 000 and I launched 5 products at the same time. That’s the main benefit for having a bigger budget – you can test more products for your Amazon business and eventually find winning products faster. For my first Amazon FBA business I launched only one product.
Another thing you need to do is think 6-12 months ahead when your product starts selling. You will probably need additional capital for bigger orders. I’d plan for that already. Check with your bank or consider other options when you need more capital for your Amazon business. You want these options to be available when you need it.
The smaller the budget the lower priced products you should sell on Amazon. If you have a bigger budget then you could go after the bigger niches, higher prices and larger products. But when you are just starting out then I’d recommend going for smaller niches and not for too general niches.
How long can you live without taking money out of your business?
Cash is king and when your business is growing you need to keep growing it. Otherwise you might create a situation where you don’t have enough funds left for your inventory orders. You need to think it through – how long can you live without taking money out from your business? Would be good if you can live at least 1,5 years without paying yourself from your Amazon business. But of course your product might take off, you get investors and can easily pay yourself from your Amazon FBA business as well. But that’s another topic. The longer you can live without taking money out of your business the better it is. Especially if you are just starting out.
If you are starting by yourself, with your savings then it would be good if you keep it as your side business for a while until it’s making enough profit to pay yourself. You could set a goal for yourself that you will start paying yourself $500 a month when you hit $10 000 in sales and keep the rest for your Amazon business growth.
Can you risk losing it all?
That’s the topic people usually want to avoid but it’s crucial that we talk about it. There’s a big chance that your first product on Amazon might fail. It happens a lot of times and to most of the people. You need to be ready for it and it would be good if you have enough funds for your second or third product as well. It’s good to have that mindset right from the start “that it might take 2-3 product launches until you find the right product to sell on Amazon”. That’s how most businesses find their successful product. Not just on Amazon but in other business industries as well. It takes testing, changing, gathering customer feedback and improving the product to finally find the winning product.
I hope that your first product is an instant success on Amazon but be prepared that it might take you more than one product to succeed on Amazon.
How much time does it take to start an Amazon FBA business?
You can start your Amazon FBA as a side business and only spend 1-2 hours a day on it. With that time you could launch your first product on Amazon in few months. You could also do it faster – depending on what type of products you are launching and from where you are sourcing it. For example if you live in the USA and source from a local supplier and they have a product in stock then you could have your product up on Amazon in a few short weeks and make you money. You could also live in Germany or anywhere else and find a supplier and ship products quickly to Amazon.
When you are starting out and don’t have any idea what products to sell on Amazon then a good way to start is to think about the category where you would like to sell. If you have a smaller budget then you should go for smaller lower priced items but if you have a bigger budget then you could also go for high priced items.
- Automotive Parts & Accessories
- Baby Products
- Beauty
- Books
- Camera & Photo
- Cell Phones
- Consumer Electronics
- Electronics Accessories
- Grocery & Gourmet Food
- Health & Personal Care
- Home and Garden
- Industrial & Scientific
- Music
- Musical Instruments
- Office Products
- Personal Computers
- Pet Supplies
- Software
- Sport Collectibles
- Tools & Building Supplies
- Toys & Games
- Video & DVD
- Video Games
- Watched
Each of these categories has a small subcategory where you could sell your products. There’s hundreds or even thousands of options to choose from. It’s important to know that some of these categories require a previous approval from Amazon before you can sell there. For example food, some baby products, liquid products etc. You can apply to sell there before you make your first inventory order from your supplier. That’s very important to do! Otherwise you’ll end up with a lot of products that you can’t sell on Amazon.
Some people stay away from categories that require previous approval because it’s difficult to open them. But because of that there’s also less competition. Keep that in mind as well when looking for a product category.
I usually just start looking around Amazon and browsing through different categories and try to see if I find anything interesting. When you are finally an Amazon seller then you start looking for new products everywhere, even on regular shopping centres. I do it all the time. This way you could find a product that’s not already for sale on Amazon.
Do you have previous experience in a certain niche?
Where are you currently working or where have you worked in the past? Have you seen anything rare and interesting that you thought “Wow that’s a great product!”. Think about where you have worked and what products were used there. It could be a total nonsense product but it could sell very well on Amazon. There’s a lot “not so popular niches” out there where people are making a lot of money. For example faucet to hose adapter. Look at the image below to see how much people are selling it in a month.
The tool I am using for this is Helium10. It’s one of the main tools we use for my Amazon business and I’d recommend for you to use it as well. You can use it for product research, Amazon keyword research, Amazon PPC and for many other things. If you want then you can use our promo code to support the site below. There are many reasons why I use it and I am writing more about it here: Best product research tool for Amazon FBA.
If you haven’t worked in a small niche where you could know some of these products already then that’s ok. Ask around, think about your friends and family. You never know who gives you a golden nugget product idea.
If you still don’t know what products to sell on Amazon then that’s ok as well, 99% of people don’t know when they are starting out. The important thing is to have the will to find what to sell on Amazon.
Best Amazon product research tools
There’s a lot of tools for your Amazon product research out there. They all vary a bit but overall they are very similar. I’d like to have a way of thinking that there isn’t one tool out there yet that saves you from doing the work. You need to do the work and analyze the market and find out what products to sell on Amazon. We have also written a post about the best amazon product research tool that you can read here.
Additional tips when choosing the right product to sell on Amazon
When thinking about what products to sell on Amazon then there are many things you need to consider. You should know that by now already. I’ll give you a list of eight things that will save you a lot of time and energy for your Amazon FBA business.
- Can you improve your product compared to the products on Amazon?
It’s very important that you change at least something before sending your products to Amazon. The best way to do it is by reading your competitors’ negative reviews and finding their weak spots. After that you should have a clear understanding of what you need to change. Then talk with your suppliers and ask if they can make these changes. - Can you stand out with the main image?
This is one of the most important things when doing your product research on Amazon. You need to find a way to stand out with the main image. You could consider doing one of the following things: adding a box to the main image, making a bundle, using attractive colors and displaying everything that’s in the box. - Do you make at least 30% profit?
If you don’t make at least 30% profit before your PPC then you should skip that product and find a new one. Otherwise you don’t make any profit after all the expenses. When you start running your PPC then you spend probably around 10%-15% from your total sales. You will also have product returns. That depends on the category but it’s probably around 5%. After all these expenses you need to have some profit for your business as well. If your profit margin is too low then there’s nothing left for yourself. - Does your product have multiple keywords for traffic on Amazon?
It’s better to have a product that has multiple keywords that people are using to find the product on Amazon. We call these “long tail keywords”. For example “water hose connector for indoor pool”. This is a really specific keyword compared to “water hose connector”. You need to have these smaller keywords that are around 1000+ in search volume as well. This is a great way to get sales without competing with super competitive keywords. - Are products making sales even with a smaller amount of reviews currently on Amazon?
When choosing a product you need to be sure that not only products on top of search results are making sales. Would be good if products are making sales in the middle and bottom of the page. For example doing $5000 in sales at the bottom of the search results. It means that you can also make sales even if you are not ranked in the first positions. - Does your product have a short manufacturing time?
To have a short manufacturing time is a great thing but it’s not crucial to have it. It just means that you can get your products faster when you make your inventory order. If you have a shorter manufacturing time then you can turn around your money faster. - Is it small and cheap to ship it?
Smaller products are cheaper to ship (per unit). If you have a light product as well then you could also ship it by air. If you can find a product like that and also make sales then this is a really good thing. Because then you can get your products on Amazon in one week instead of 6-8 weeks when shipping by sea. - Is it a good category where to launch multiple products and build a product portfolio?
Would be good if you look at a whole category where you could build a product portfolio. It’s not 100% necessary but would be a great thing to have. This way you could build a real brand that sells multiple items in that niche and even cross sell some of the products.
What Products to Sell on Amazon Conlusion
To find the right products to sell on Amazon is an ongoing journey and takes time and effort. Some people find their product right away and it’s a home run and some people spend months until they finally find it. It’s important that you consider all these things we talked about in this blog post. This will save you a lot of money and you’ll make less mistakes. Don’t forget to read about the best amazon product research tool to make sure you are using the right software. Also take a sneak-peak on our very long and detailed post about how to sell on Amazon where we share a lot of tips how to become a successful Amazon seller.
If you have any questions about what products to sell on Amazon then leave a comment below or send us a message. We are more than happy to help you.
