At Payoneer’s Beyond 24-hour global virtual summit for digital business last year, Donald Wilson, Founder of GearBubble, gave an illuminating presentation on how to research, market and sell print on demand (POD) products in the dropshipping industry.
With more than $125,000,000 in e-commerce sales and a platform that’s trusted by over 200,000 sellers, Donald Wilson is uniquely able to detail what goes into making a winning product line. Here, I’ll be providing a quick recap of his talk, including how to get into the hot product mindset and how to research new products. To watch the full session, as well as all the other sessions from our Beyond summit, click below:
One of the overarching themes of Donald’s talk was that if a product is hot, it will sell everywhere, including Amazon, Etsy, Ebay, Facebook and Google.
“That’s the key to having a good mindset for hot products; it’s abundant mindset. If it’s selling on Amazon and it’s a hot product, it will also sell on Etsy…Facebook, Instagram, Bing and TikTok.”
So, how do you know if a product is hot? Typically, hot products are both in-demand and seasonal. For example, during the Christmas holiday season, mugs, shirts and jewelry make great gifts and are very in-demand. While shirts and jewelry can get a bit pricey and are usually a suitable gift for someone a customer is very close to, mugs can be easily personalized and are cheap enough to make for a great gift for anyone all year.
Once you identify a product type you’re interested in selling, it’s time to start getting more specific and doing some research.
When it comes to researching new products, you have a few options, including Etsy, spy tools and Amazon. For all intents and purposes, Etsy is the best research tool, as it’s free and easiest to use. To get started, simply follow the steps below, as outlined in the session:
To come up with a successful product line, you must be in tune with the market. This means devoting 15 minutes, three times a week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday are recommended) to seeing what products are selling well. To get started, simply search on Etsy for different gift ideas, e.g., “gift for mom”, “funny gift for mom”, “funny Christmas gift”, “gift for dad”, “funny mom mug”, etc.
Your search results will help show you the products that are selling well. Pay attention to product reviews, including number of reviews and when they were left to determine if a product is still in-demand.
Once you get an idea of what products are hot, it’s time to note them down in a spreadsheet and determine how they can be improved. There are any number of ways to improve on a product, including:
The points addressed here were only a small part of Donald’s session. To learn how to build out a research process, watch a live Etsy product research and much more, click below to watch the full session, as well as all the sessions from the Beyond virtual summit.