Whenever it comes to Amazon product sourcing, many people are struggling with:
Having served Amazon sellers since 2015, let me tell you how our successful Amazon sellers got started.
How to select good products to sell on Amazon?
From our successful Amazon client cases, the 2 most common product selection approaches are simple customization of existing items and focusing on a small niche.
Customization of existing items
Directly go to crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo to find novelty product ideas. Take Kickstarter for example, where users share creative product ideas. These ideas cover a wide variety of product types and are often improvements to existing products. There you’ll get a lot of inspiration.
If you’re interested in pet fashion products, browse all current pet fashion projects, especially those that have raised 90% or more of their funding. This tells market demand. However, projects that have only raised 30% or less show low interest from the target audience. This might be because these product improvements don’t meet their needs.
Niche products
Start with product categories you are familiar with or interested in. Then, look deeper into smaller subcategories. For these small niche markets, it’s not that big sellers don’t know, but that they overlook such markets due to the small profits.
Next, find successful niche product businesses and learn from them. With a few thousand dollars to start on Amazon, look for small businesses that, like you, have a modest initial investment but are still managing to sell their products well.
Find more stores like these as your references, and analyze their product selection and marketing strategies. For example, their products precisely meet specific consumer needs that aren’t fulfilled by other similar products in the market. Here are 2 real niche business cases: sell specialized socks for diabetic patients to address their unique needs, and market laundry detergent sheets with a focus on eco-friendliness. For more cases, subscribe to us.
Profits estimation when choosing products
When you find good products, be sure to estimate profits and select those with at least a 35% gross margin. This profit margin is calculated without considering Amazon’s PPC advertising costs while ensuring that the overall product purchase costs, logistics, and fulfillment fees have been deducted.
For example, last year we helped an Amazon FBA seller to source monster toy car painting kits. He added 5 monster-shaped cars and DIY accessories like paints, to enhance customer experience and differentiate from competitors.
Although the cost of the extra toy cars and accessories is not high, the finished product kits end up being too heavy and large. This leads to expensive Amazon fulfillment fees and eats half of his profits. So, whenever changing products, think through how these changes affect your total costs and profits.
Pics are from Amazon, not our client’s.
Where to find suppliers with great prices and quality?
Currently, on Amazon, it’s mostly about private labeling and branding. And most sellers source products from Chinese suppliers. After all, the price advantage is just too significant.
I’m guessing most of you reading this are either newbies without your suppliers or have some experience and want better-priced suppliers to optimize your supply chain costs. Whichever type you’re in, talk about your project with us. We are the leading sourcing agent in Yiwu, China. Over the past 10 years, we have successfully helped 1,000+ Amazon sellers customize niche products.
Deal with dozens of suppliers to help you get good prices.
For your desired product type, in-stock and ordering $1,000/style, we can help you wholesale directly from the factory and get the most competitive prices.
If you want to find Chinese suppliers yourself, Alibaba remains a top choice among Amazon sellers. It is quite easy to find suppliers, but it requires you to invest a lot of time and effort to communicate with suppliers, get quotes and samples, and make comparisons. For the suppliers you think OK, start with a small order to test if he is reliable. In this process, you’ll learn about the complete product sourcing procedures and gain some experience.
If dealing with Alibaba suppliers is too tiring or looking for better pricing options, feel free to chat with us. For the same product with the same materials and requirements, our prices are at least 10% cheaper than Alibaba suppliers.
Handle QC and save your logistics & warehousing fees in China.
When your products finish manufacturing, we’ll inspect them. Inspections at our warehouse cost $40/person/day. Going to the factory to inspect costs $150/person/day, cheaper than 3rd-party inspection companies at $200-300/person/day.
Moreover, our inspector will send you photos/videos of inspected items and confirm any found defects with you. If defects exceed your expectations and you want a full inspection, we can also provide timely one-by-one inspections. For all defects found, we will communicate with the supplier for a redo or refund. All these are things that third-party inspection companies can’t do.
Additionally, we help you save on logistics and warehousing fees in China. We have experienced freight forwarders to transport your products at the best shipping rate. If you don’t want to ship all products to your FBA centers at once, you can store your inventory in our warehouse for 1–2 months for free.
When you need to replenish, we will ship to your fulfillment centers in batches and on time, helping you reduce expensive Amazon storage fees and manage limited storage space during peak seasons.
Overall, we can manage and optimize your supply chains in China, ensuring stable and on-time product supply at affordable prices.
