If you’re navigating the intriguing yet complex world of dropshipping, understanding product selection is paramount. Gone are the days when merely hopping on a viral trend guaranteed success. The dropshipping landscape has evolved, and so must your strategies. This comprehensive guide will walk you through the evolution of product selection, from its simplistic early days to the multifaceted approach of today. Dive into modern methods, pro-tips, and even the importance of trusting your intuition. Whether you’re a novice or a seasoned dropshipper, this guide promises insights that can shape your next big move in the industry. Let’s uncover the secrets behind finding those winning products that resonate and drive success!
Key Points
- Selecting the best items to dropship has evolved from merely chasing viral products alone to a more strategic, forward-thinking approach.
- Modern product selection involves thorough planning, research, and understanding of market trends.
- Tools like Google Trends, Facebook Ad Library, social shopping platforms, and product research apps will improve the product selection process and help in identifying the best items to dropship.
The Simplicity of Early Dropshipping
Back in the early years of online drop shipping – somewhere between 2010 and 2015 – product selection used to be quite a simple thing. In fact, the formula was so basic that it would be a stretch even to call it a formula.
It went something like this: first, you would have a quick hunt around various social media platforms (usually just Facebook, actually), looking for any products that had gone viral and amassed a high level of engagement.
Viral, trending products used to spring out of nowhere almost daily. Fidget spinners, for example (who remembers them?), or cheap earpods. Elastic training bands and massage devices are further examples of viral products that exploded out of nowhere.
Viral (or trending) products were everywhere. All you had to do was pick one, find a supplier, and replicate the same offer. Many people did, and in the process, lots of dropshippers did very well out of it.
You didn’t even need a particularly nice store. Branding was extremely basic, and the written copy was usually thrown together hurriedly onto a simple landing page. It didn’t seem to matter. All that did matter was finding a viral product and sourcing the best dropshipping supplier before building a landing page and advertising it to the masses.
Thorough Planning
That ship has sailed, unfortunately, and now product selection has evolved into something a little more involved and varied, as has everything else in the dropshipping business model.
Product selection is no longer something you can do on a whim. Jumping on the back of viral success is an old model that no longer guarantees success.
While the ‘old method’ would work very well for a short period of time, it would rarely enjoy a long shelf life. Drop shippers who sold nothing but viral products would be left scratching their heads three months down the line, looking for something else to sell once the market was saturated and their offer had run out of steam.
The modern way of researching products for a drop shipping store requires more effort, but as soon as you do find great products that convert with your audience, you have a far greater chance of long-term success.
Effective Strategy
We happen to know a thing or two about the best products to dropship, being surrounded by customers worldwide who are all very successful in this game. So, take heed of the following tips and tricks for finding the best items to dropship. We’ve got you.
Let’s get started with the raw basics: the fundamentals of dropshipping product research, before moving onto more ‘think outside of the box’ techniques, reserved only for the smart dropshippers. That’s you, in case you were wondering.
Basic Product Research Techniques
Search Viral Products
This may sound like a contradiction to everything we just said. However, we are certainly not suggesting that you should avoid viral products. Quite the opposite, actually. Viral products form part of an essential winning strategy for many people. Of course they do.
We are merely suggesting that the days of coasting along on viral products alone are probably over. The whole rinse-and-repeat method of sourcing hot products and ‘crushing it’ for a month or two before starting again? No one does that anymore.
The best way to make good use of viral products – and find the best drop shipping items in the process – is to engage in research through platforms like Google Trends or Kickstarter. Look for anything that is new to the market and has lots of engagement. Then, through the power of branding, create a unique and compelling narrative around the product.
The idea is to copy the viral success of others but put your own spin on it. For example, ‘cleaning gel’ for car interiors has gone quite viral recently. You could take that same product but brand it for office desks and build upsells around it.
Facebook Ad Library
The Facebook Ad Library is a well-established tool for finding the best thing to dropship: a solid jumping-off point to look for products that are selling in big numbers. Simply research what others are selling, filter out the well-engaged adverts, and find a supplier of that product on your usual channels.
Check Social Shopping Platforms
Social shopping platforms have really taken off over the last few years, combining e-commerce with the targeted preferences of online shoppers. Scroll through any social media feed, and you will see lots of adverts selling a variety of things – usually targeted towards your interests.
The likes of Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest Pins, and Facebook all combine self-contained shopping platforms. Keeping an eye on engagement and preferences on these platforms can help find the best products to dropship: an extensive list of products that online shoppers are endorsing in big numbers.
Incidentally, while we do see social shopping platforms as quite useful, we still believe platforms like Shopify or Woocommerce offer richer features and have a more professional edge to them. You should check out our guide on how to find the best dropshipping platform to find out more.
Product Research Apps
When trying to find the best products to dropship, product research tools can be a huge help and have really come a long way in recent years. These ‘spy apps’
(such as Dropship Spy, Niche Scraper, and Ecomhunt) analyse huge numbers of products and stores on various platforms and present them to you in an ordered fashion.
Essentially, they gauge a product’s potential by examining factors like order volume, sales history, and its overall footprint/presence on Woocommerce and Shopify stores. They do need a subscription, but it should be worth it in the long run.
TikTok Hashtags
Get into the habit of watching product-related videos on TikTok. Hashtags such as ‘TikTokMadeMeBuyIt’ will reveal a ton of products that are well-engaged, popular, and selling very well indeed. Another hashtag worth looking at is ‘viral product.’
Learn to interpret engagement and feedback in the comments and make decisions based on what you are reading. This is a simple yet effective method to help find the best drop shipping items.
Amazon Bestsellers
One of the most straightforward strategies to find the best products to dropship is by looking around Amazon’s bestsellers list (which gets refreshed hourly, by the way). The obvious advantage of sourcing product ideas here is that a ready market is already established. Customers demonstrate an existing appetite for these products; your goal is to position yourself to serve them.
Take, for example, the kitchen and dining category on Amazon. Picnic flasks are currently a hot item, with one particular model amassing over 5,000 reviews. A two-minute browse on Aliexpress (or a chat with our product sourcing team) can help you locate this exact product, ready for drop shipping.
eBay WatchCount
Another great resource when hunting for the best items to dropship is the website eBay WatchCount. This platform shows products that have drawn attention on eBay in big numbers. As with everything else in this guide, a high number of watchers usually indicates qualified purchase intent.
Search by keywords or categories to quickly determine market favorites. For instance, a recent top pick in the outdoor dining category is a large, foldable, heated parasol. If this is something that interests you – and slots in nicely with your niche – you could reach out to suppliers to find the same product.
Watch Your Competitors
When searching for the best products to dropship, keeping one eye on potential competitors should be a habitual strategy. Look at the range of products they offer and try to understand their sourcing methods and branding, sales, and advertising tactics.
Predicting their next product launch can give you a competitive edge. Become familiar with your competitor’s ethos and try to stay one step ahead of them.
Pro Tips!
As promised, let’s look at some strategies less practiced by the masses. Throw a few curveballs like this into the process, and they could help you find the best products to dropship.
Expand Your Boundaries
Occasionally, it helps to search outside of your current country to see what products are popular elsewhere but have not yet ‘caught on’ in your current location. Use a VPN and a separate social media account to trick your platform of choice into thinking you are in Brazil, for example, when you are actually in America. This approach sometimes reveals a range of well-engaged viral products that have not taken off in your country.
Culture Fusion
Think about exploring international trends and products. By blending different cultural elements, you can introduce unique items. For example, you could merge Chinese tea ceremony sets with modern minimalist aesthetics. It’s all about the positioning and the branding.
Look at Niche Community Forums
Skip the mainstream and tap into niche forums, like subreddits and Quora. Sites dedicated to specific interests can reveal viral products before they actually become viral products. You could, for example, join communities like r/gadgets to stay ahead of the curve and see what peaks people’s interest.
Go With Your Gut!
We want to end this list with a very important strategy – one that is so commonly overlooked in this modern age of apps, extensions, and research tools.
If you have a compelling ‘gut instinct’ about a product that hasn’t been proven elsewhere (through all the methods mentioned above), that certainly does not indicate there is no market for it. You might be onto something.
Don’t become too obsessed with the usual product-sourcing methods. While they should be your default strategy, you must also allow your creative side to shine through and trust your gut instinct now and then.
For example, one of our customers found success by taking mosquito patches and targeting parents of young children, presenting the patches as child-safe.
She asked our product sourcing team if we could find colorful, vibrant, “playful looking mosquito patches.” We did exactly that, and she built an entire brand around child-safe mosquito patches with our fulfilment team handling the logistics for her dropshipping store.
It had never been done before, and it worked very well indeed. So much so, in fact, that a whole new niche was spawned, and there are now multiple stores worldwide selling the same type of thing.
So, go with your gut. It is seldom wrong.
Wrap-Up
Do not, whatever you do, take the easy route and throw together a bunch of viral products in a store in the hope of finding something that works. Again, that is an old strategy that no longer performs very well. Consumers have grown wise to smaller stores with few random products thrown together and do not treat them seriously.
If you are selling multiple products, that’s fine, but make sure they fall within a specific niche. ‘One-product’ stores are fine also – provided you pay extra attention to the branding.
Our Ultimate Guide to Dropshipping covers details like branding (and more) in greater depth and is very much worth reading, especially for anyone who is new to dropshipping.
And if you need a little help in sourcing products, don’t hesitate to reach out. We are always pleased to hear from both novice and expert dropshippers, having helped thousands of budding entrepreneurs find winning products over the years – it would be our pleasure to do the same for you!
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I am Komo, a marketing specialist with a strong focus on dropshipping. Over the past two years, I have gained valuable experience and expertise in the dropshipping industry. I have successfully implemented various marketing strategies to drive traffic and optimize conversions for dropshipping businesses. My passion for the industry has allowed me to stay updated with the latest trends and best practices, ensuring effective results for the companies I work with.