Products are the heart and soul of your online business. Products are what bring money to your online store!
You must invest in product research because it will determine your ability to make profits. Specifically, finding winning products allows you to capitalize on market demand by fulfilling that demand and satisfying your target market.
The key word here is to find profitable products to allow your ecommerce business to thrive and expand!
During my early years of online selling, I didn’t have access to the product research tools that most ecommerce sellers now have. This created all sorts of problems because I lacked the data to make informed decisions about my product selection.
Some products were a hit, but most of the time they were a miss! And unless you are dropshipping, this could end up being a costly mistake!
From the onset of your online business, it’s crucial to invest in market research tools so you can analyze market trends and identify winning products to boost your store performance. If you find the right product research tools, you can even hit your target profit margins in no time!
Let’s get onto it.
Key Takeaways
- Product research is an essential step to succeed in a dropshipping business as it helps you identify gaps in the market, and explore profitable ideas for dropshipping products.
- Analyze the market size and demand when evaluating products, while also taking into account the product pricing strategies and markup to ensure high profit margins.
- Use research tools to automate product analysis and research to ensure profitability and market demand.
- Discover the various methods on how to use product research tools to validate the demand for such products that are trending or top selling.
What is Product Research?
Product research is a combination of processes designed to gather information about a product and its market potential. It analyzes a product’s potential for profitability based on market demand and to identify its target market.
As part of product research, you aspire to identify opportunities for sales, trends and growth, and profitability (or pricing). These factors can influence your online business decision, especially in terms of choosing certain products as part of your product lineup for your online or dropshipping store.
To be specific, product research aims to answer the following questions:
- Is there a demand for this product in the market?
- Who are the potential buyers?
- Is there more or less competition for this product?
- Can you develop this product? (Or is there enough supply for this product?)
When most people think about product research, they think about choosing profitable products that you can sell via your Shopify ecommerce business. But there is more to this process than that. Using the data you gathered with product research tools, you can achieve any of the following:
- Narrow down your options for the best product ideas
- Validate trends and opportunities for products to sell online
- Attain competitive pricing for your products
- Know your competition
- Improve your current sales and marketing strategies
A dropshipping business or Shopify store owner that performs product research has the potential to succeed versus those that do not perform market research, no matter the business model.
Whether you want to identify opportunities or achieve high profit margins, this step is crucial to achieving your goals.
How to Do Product Research
When talking about product research, it has a massive scope. There are two things to consider here: the product and the market to which the product belongs.
Let’s dive deeper into each criterion to help ace product hunting on Shopify.
Market
When product hunting for your online store, you must consider the market before diving into the specifics of the product. Why is this important?
Because you want to determine if there is enough market demand and size for the product. If not, it would cost you more to pay for the product inventory (if it’s not a dropshipping business model) than you would earn in revenue from selling those products, if you make any sale at all.
The market size refers to how big the demand is for the product and you have enough target consumers. You need extensive market research to attain actual data and valuable insights about the market, but any data available would be valuable in determining if it’s a worthy product to add to your online business.
There are pros and cons depending on the market size that you’ve determined for a particular product. If it is a small market size, you can take advantage of the targeted demand from customers and the lack of competition.
But the downside is that if you are unable to successfully reach these customers, it limits the product’s revenue potential.
On the other hand, products with a bigger market size have higher competition. Therefore, you must invest more on promoting and advertising your products to stand out, significantly slashing your profit margin.
Google Trends is the best starting point when analyzing trends and demand for certain products and keywords. This free tool allows you to search demand based on a particular demographic and location over a certain period (such as a month, a year or 5 years).
The next consideration when doing product research based on the market criteria is the competitive landscape. How saturated is the market for this product?
Is it new or has it been introduced by other sellers before you? Will your competitors be targeting the same buyers or is it a different target market?
The good thing about having competitors is that the market for the product is validated – you know there is demand. The question now is this: how can you convince buyers to purchase the product from you instead of the other sellers offering it?
Perhaps you can reduce your price to attract buyers, or you can offer them something of value, such as a freebie or free shipping.
Lastly, consider the product availability and your potential source for it, if you decide to sell them online.
While there could be a demand for a product, if you cannot find a supplier for it, it could result in a negative buying experience for your target customers as you are unable to fulfill the demand for that product. It is essential to research possible suppliers before listing a product to your online store.
Product
The next component of product research is to focus on the product itself. These are pointers that directly impact the product and your profitability.
First on that list is selling price and product markup. The potential selling price refers to the amount that customers would have to pay for the product.
There are various strategies to employ when developing a pricing strategy but the best way to do that is to analyze competitor’s pricing. It gives you a fair idea of how much they’re listing for the product and what their target customers are willing to pay for them.
There are pros and cons to each pricing strategy. Selling it low means you have to move several units to gain profits, but selling it high also limits your competitive edge as consumers are always seeking value.
Plus, you must consider the product markup. It directly impacts how much profit you make, so you have to prioritize finding suppliers that offer the product at low prices so you can get a good markup.
For both market-based and product-based criteria in doing product research on Shopify, you need reliable product research tools.
It will help you gather essential data and valuable insights about competitors, the profitability and scalability of winning products, and discover trending products based on sales data.
Grab your Shopify dropshipping eBook and find winning suppliers fast!How to Research Products for Shopify Online Store
The secret to find profitable products for your Shopify dropshipping store is to employ product research tools, such as ZIK Analytics.
It boasts a new Shopify sales tracker tool that makes it easy for ecommerce merchants to obtain essential information and make data-driven decisions about product ideas, market trends, and more.
There are various methods available on using this popular product research tool to identify winning products and opportunities for your online business.
Method 1: Discover Hot Products on Shopify
The first method to research products for your Shopify store is to use the real-time market trends provided on the dashboard when you log into the product research tool.
Once you access the Shopify competitor analysis tool, you can see the latest winning products on Shopify from the dashboard. There are two areas for you to consider what products to sell in your store: Trending Products and Trending Shopify Stores.
The Trending Products section shows products that have an excellent sales performance in the last 30 days. This list is constantly updated to ensure you have the most relevant and latest data to inform your decisions when choosing products to sell online.
You can browse through the list of trending products and identify opportunities based on your niche and target market. Let’s look at one of the top trending products on the dashboard – the Long Sheer Bell Sleeve Cropped Cardigan Shrug.
The Shopify store name is Back from Bali and the product is listed for $29.95. It sold 80 times in the last 30 days and the total revenue is $2,396.
Based on the Shopify website, the product is available in multiple color and size variants. The seller also offers free worldwide shipping.
Using the Shopify product research tool, we can analyze this product and find potential hot products to add to your store, especially if this niche product is suited to your online business model and niche. To do this, click on the Spy icon next to the product.
It will instantly provide you with essential data about the seller and their products. It shows the Shopify store URL and that the seller is based in the US. The website is in English and products are sold in the US Dollar currency.
In addition, the Shopify merchant has 141 products available on their website and they have made 2,520 sales in the last 30 days. Meanwhile, their 30-day revenue is at $88,481.
These are impressive numbers considering that the store was launched in 2023.
Browsing through their best selling products, we can see that the item that was among the top trending products on Shopify in the last 30 days are (unsurprisingly) among their best selling items. The store specializes in women’s clothing and fashion accessories.
Its top selling product has 111 sales and generated $3,324.45 in revenue for a product price of $29.95. Another product, a Boho Wide Leg Cropped Pants, earned a revenue of $4,824.75 after generating 105 sales.
Going back to the product that we discovered on the list of Trending Products on Shopify product research tool, we can look for potential suppliers for that same product. Click on the Box icon next to the product to find suppliers for that product.
This action provides many options on possible suppliers for this product through Aliexpress. The Shopify seller listed the item for $29.95, but you can find suppliers for $0.99 up to $5.33 on Aliexpress.
The Aliexpress supplier lists a similar product for $5.33, which means that you could potentially earn $24.62 in profits for each sale. Given that this product sold 80 times in the last 30 days, it’s a decent profit you could make with this product alone!
Let’s take another example trending product for further analysis. This time, it’s the Wireless WiFi Extender from Shopify merchant EssentialViva, which is sold for $25.99.
It earned a total revenue of $1,949 for 75 sales in the past 30 days.
Here is the product on the Shopify seller’s website. This product ships from China and is available in two color variants.
First, let’s analyze the competition to see how well the seller is doing sales-wise. The seller is based in the US and their website is in English and items are listed in US Dollars currency.
They have 21 products on their Shopify store and have made 2,038 sales in the last 30 days. Meanwhile, their revenue in the last 30 days is $80,591. The store was established in 2020.
The WiFi extender is among its best selling products, so let’s see if we can find potential suppliers for this item, if you want to consider this niche product for your online store. Click on the Box icon next to the product.
While I could not find the specific product from Aliexpress, I was able to use the Shopify sales tracker tool to find similar products. This product is available on Aliexpress for $9.72.
It comes in various plug options, ranging from US to EU plugs. Since the seller has listed it for $25.99, you could make a profit of $16.27 for every sold item using this pricing strategy.
Now, you get the idea on how to do product research for your Shopify dropshipping store if you want to unlock profitability and discover winning products with this handy market research tool.
Method 2: Analyze Competitors and Their Bestsellers
Another way to use the Shopify product research tools to identify high demand products is through the Trending Shopify Stores section.
The Shopify product research tools make it easier to do competitor analysis for your niche markets, or if you are looking for niche products for your store.
What’s great about this product research tool is that you can identify if the seller is a dropshipper or a print on demand company, allowing you to make a more relevant assessment of products to consider for your ecommerce business.
Additional information are also provided on the dashboard, such as the total sales and the total revenue for the Shopify seller.
Let us examine one of the top dropshipping store owners or sellers on Shopify. The Shopify seller is 4Colordress and is based in the US.
The seller has 1,818 products online and they’ve earned $183,276 in revenue for 4,136 sales in the past 30 days. The store was launched in 2022 and they also maintain a social media presence.
Browsing their best sellers list provides you with many potential ideas for your product research. You can validate the demand for these products given that they’ve generated lots of sales for the seller.
For example, the item Metal Square Décor Faux Leather Summer Slipper for Women has generated 34 sales in the last 30 days, resulting in $1,477 in revenue. This product is sold for $39.90 on the website.
Now, let’s see if we can find suppliers for this product and if we can get a decent profit for each sale. There are plenty of options for a similar product from suppliers on Aliexpress.
There is an exact match of the product on Aliexpress, which is listed for only $10.13. If you were to use the same pricing strategy as the Shopify merchant, you could make $29.86 per item sold.
Since the seller has generated over 30 sales in the last 30 days, that makes it one of the hot products on Shopify! It also validates there is a good profit potential when adding this product to your store.
Let’s dive into another example to help you know how to do product research on Shopify. This time, let’s check potential winning products from the Shopify merchant Auramma.
When checking the Shopify store website, the seller specializes in various products, such as phone cases, fashion and hair accessories, stationery, and home décor items.
Using the Shopify product research tools on ZIK Analytics, we can see that they have 349 products on their website and has generated 2,546 sales in the last 30 days.
Their total revenue in the past 30 days is $77,437. The seller is US-based and it was established in 2021.
The ZIK Analytics Shopify tool also shows their best selling products from their store, which includes a Satin Ribbon Headband with 38 sales in the last 30 days and a Checkered Quote Doormat that sold 35 times in the last 30 days.
Since our basis of winning products would be over ten sales in the last 30 days, these products fit the criteria!
If you are thinking about adding these top selling items on your online store, you can easily use the same product research tool to find suppliers. Let’s take the Satin Ribbon Headband as an example.
The original selling price for the headband is $37 (although it is currently on limited sale for $31).
Using the ZIK Analytics tool for Shopify, I found a supplier on Aliexpress that lists a similar product for $3.29. For each sale, you can earn a profit of $27.71.
Automating the competitor analysis process to identify and research products for your Shopify dropshipping store is made simple with this product research tool.
Since you have access to valuable market insights and the top trending stores, you can leverage their success to identify opportunities you can capitalize on for your website.
When evaluating the top trending Shopify stores, you should also explore the products listed under the Recently Sold and New Products sections.
You should never discount other niche markets as this could potentially unlock more sales and new product ideas that will diversify your product offerings on your store.
Method 3: Keyword Research
Another way to use the research tools on ZIK Analytics’ sales tracker for Shopify marketplace is through keyword research. Again, go back to the market insights dashboard and scroll to the bottom-right of the dashboard.
In this section, you will find trending keywords on Shopify.
These keywords provide insights into market trends and potential demand that you should consider when planning your store’s marketing campaigns and finding product ideas.
These keywords are ranked based on their search volume on Shopify and major search engines, so they should give you a clue on what people are looking for online.
You can also collate these ideas with Google Trends data and insights. It will help validate those ideas so you can determine the most profitable products to boost your store sales.
To explore each trending keyword, you can click on each keyword, and then it will take you to the Product Explorer page. You can input any filters that would suit your preferences for your store’s goals or business model (dropshipping, print on demand, etc).
The search brings up various products wherein you can analyze them for their sales and revenue. It will help validate if the ‘portable heater’ keyword is a good addition to your product offerings or not, based on the sales performance of current sellers that have them on their Shopify website.
In this case, the portable heater product category is doing relatively good. The top selling item has 30 days in the last 30-day period and a total revenue of $394.
The listing price for the product is $13.15. Another product on the list is also doing great with 27 sales in the last 30 days and 7 sales in the past week. The seller has earned a revenue of $387, with each item listed at $14.35.
Now, let’s do keyword research on the next trending keyword as per the ZIK Analytics Shopify product research tool: blanket throw. There are many Shopify sellers that have listed this product on their website, it is doing excellent in terms of sales.
This product is one of the top selling items on Shopify targeted for this particular keyword. It has sold 188 items in the past 30 days and 44 items in the last week.
These are impressive numbers given that the product was uploaded in March 2024. And yet, the seller has earned a revenue of $10,285 for this product that is listed at $85.
The seller makes this product available in various color options.
With the product research tool, you can check this product on Aliexpress to find potential suppliers. I found this product on Aliexpress that is listed at $28.89.
While the product is priced higher than you would normally find in most Aliexpress suppliers, you can still make a hefty profit of $56.11 for each sale.
You can follow the steps I’ve shown here for any other trending keywords you find on ZIK Analytics or any other research tools you are using for your online business. You can check the tool periodically to find the most up-to-date trends and data that will inform you of the best product ideas.
Conclusion: Product Hunting on Shopify
Shopify product research tools make it easier for you to navigate the complexities of running an ecommerce business.
With more ecommerce merchants and online store owners vying for customers’ attention, finding winning products that allow you to thrive in a competitive market is highly important. A well-executed curation process for your product offerings can help you earn a decent profit despite the competition.
When exploring product ideas for your store, it’s crucial to always consider your target customers. Do these products appeal to your ideal customer?
Despite the prevailing industry trends, you can only succeed with product research if you can align it with what your customers want or need. Analyze their problems and aim to solve those problems with your products.
Also, it is important to vet your suppliers to ensure product quality because that is how you can win over repeat customers.
Follow the tips provided in this guide to help you navigate this process confidently and maintain a profitable business with top dropshipping products.
Track Winning Products with the Shopify Sales Tracker
Want to stop guessing and start selling what actually works? The Shopify Sales Tracker shows you what products are trending, who’s selling them, and how much they’re making—so you can build your Shopify store around real demand. From profit margins to supplier links, this tool gives you a shortcut to successful product hunting on Shopify.