How do you find products for a private label?

So you have decided to become an Amazon private label seller—maybe as a side project to generate some extra income or as a full-time business that will require all your attention and effort. But how do you find your first private label product to sell? How do you start, where to look for product ideas? Here are some simple-to-implement strategies to help you come up with some nice product and niche opportunities.

Product Discovery Strategies and Places to Search

1) Consider Your Interests, Passions, Hobbies & Problems.
These are a good starting point for your product research. Think about what you love doing, things that you are drawn towards, activities you do in your leisure time. You’re likely to see many opportunities that others won’t or can’t because you’re already into the industry. Purchase decisions driven by passion or hobbies also often have high potential for great profit margins because those consumers are happy to pay a premium to get exactly what they want. And if you’re actually interested in the product you’re selling, you’re much more likely to keep going when you run into difficult times. Just sit down for 5 minutes and write a list, and try not to judge the feasibility of selling this product/idea yet.

2) Solve Customer Pain Points.
Think about what bothers you and others on a daily basis. If you can solve a pain point, this should be a great opportunity since customers usually deliberately seek solutions to their problems. Obviously you won’t come up with 50 pain points on the spot, so be observant of your environment and carry a notebook with you for a few days to jot down anything you notice. Also keep in mind that “pain point” is not necessarily meant in a literal way, rather this can also be an experience that frustrates or costs lots of time.

3) Find Product Opportunities in Keywords.
This approach encompasses strategic analysis of the search queries people are entering in search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Ideally, you want keywords that are high in volume but low-competition. Note that this strategy requires some understanding of keyword research and search engine optimization, and it can therefore be quite technical. But there are endless resources out there to educate yourself! Shopify offers a useful Beginner’s Guide and Ryte with their Wiki, eBooks, and expert articles are great for everything related to SEO. Obviously Google with their Keyword Planner Tool comes to mind immediately, but it’s not the only place that people use to search on the internet. Other resources and tools, especially for Amazon, include: Keyword Tool, Keywords Everywhere, Sonar, KeywordInspector, Helium 10.

4) Leverage Online Trends.
A final strategy is to browse all kinds of online resources for trends. Get inspired by checking out what’s popular and trending around the web, which is likely to be a good approximation for current customer demand. If you catch the right timing, you can even establish yourself as a leader for some niche. It is crucial, though, that you use your common sense (and maybe do some additional research) to judge what are only fads, and what will most likely be around for longer. Else, you are likely to sit on your inventory once the fad is over. An easy starting point is Google Trends, other trend publications are Trend Hunter and Trend Watching. Of course, Amazon itself is another valuable source for finding popular items with Amazon Bestsellers and Amazon Movers and Shakers. If you want to get product ideas right from the source, check out Alibaba, TradeKey, Global Sources, and Made-in-China. Reddit is worth a try, too, especially subreddits like SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY or BUY IT FOR LIFE and relevant threads. Finally, social media is filled with potential ideas, just browse #hashtags on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, or the popular section on Pinterest.

As you might have noticed, product research is no easy feat and a time-consuming task. Fortunately, Algopix has developed the Product Discovery Tool. You can perform broad searches using only keywords, see all of the listings that match your search term along with their data, and go on to receive Algopix’s data-driven insights for relevant listings.

Algopix makes it easier than ever to browse market opportunities and scout niche products without requiring accurate product identifiers.