7 Important Things Every Profitable Product Has

If you're interested in bringing in some money online — whether it's a side hustle, or something intended to replace your full-time job — ecommerce is a great choice.

Of course, you'll need to figure out what exactly you're going to sell.

There are tons of options out there.

You could dropship niche products through AliExpress, or sell handicrafts you made yourself, or even have a product custom manufactured in a factory in China.

Dropshipping is usually the most accessible option for beginners, with the lowest barrier to entry.

Basically, you sell stuff sourced from manufacturers, without dealing with logistics or inventory.

But how do you find the perfect products to sell?

There are certain things that profitable ecommerce products have in common.

This includes key aspects like market demand, manageable competition, and decent profit margins.

In a recent blog post, A Better Lemonade Stand explains what you should look for in a product.

CONSISTENT & SUFFICIENT DEMAND (GREATER THAN 400 SALES/MONTH)

You need to know that potential products are already selling on Amazon.

Verifying demand is so important.

I like to see at least 2000 sales per month amongst the top 10 sellers of a given product idea, or around 400 sales per month per product.

If you haven’t got Jungle Scout yet, you can also check out our free Jungle Scout sales estimator to get you started. It’s available across several marketplaces too!

LIMITED COMPETITION

As the new seller of this potential product, you have got to go up against some competition.

Especially when delving into a new niche, you need to find products where there is space in the market for a new seller.

Look for products where the top competitor listings have less than 100 reviews, or even less than 50 reviews.

THE “WEIRDNESS TEST”

Popular products can bring so many barriers for entry, such as high competition or legal and trademark issues.

Seek out obscure products with demand that are not readily available in brick and mortar stores.

You’d be surprised what weird and wonderful products sellers make the most money from.

HIGH PROFIT MARGINS

I may seem obvious but we need to know that we can make a profit.

It’s easy to forget this important piece when getting carried away with finding new products.

Seek out products that you can sell for at least $20 and start to gather some rough estimates on FBA fees, shipping and production costs.

FIND A PRODUCT WITH HIGH SALES & LOW RATINGS

Scout out successful products that have a low rating.

For example, a product that sells 300-400 items per month, but has a rating of 3.8 or below.

ENTER A NICHE THAT IS LESS MATURE

Competition can be a huge worry for new sellers. Why not seek out products with demand that have few reviews?

Try searching for products with a high sales volume and 40 or less reviews.

This means it won’t be so much work to gain some traction in this niche, and you won’t be playing catch up for too long trying to gain hundreds of reviews.

SPY ON THE COMPETITION

The final tip is to find opportunities by searching for private label sellers and checking out their storefronts.

Identify their top selling products and look for opportunities that you can replicate or improve.

You can do this manually right on Amazon if you like, or you can use the Jungle Scout Web App to filter for products that only have one seller.

You can find more great advice for choosing profitable niche products to sell online at A Better Lemonade Stand.