Many people ask me how to find products to sell on Shopify and about the type of products to sell online and what are the best categories.
However, you should know that this selection of products can be influenced by elements such as competition, market saturation and the immediacy with which buyers want to obtain your products.
Therefore, if you do not have your own products or a clear idea of what you want to sell. Before adding products to your store, it is advisable to review what you should and what you should not sell on this sales platform.
How to find products to sell on Shopify?
So first, I’ll tell you the way to find out the products to sell on Shopify. Unless you have a lot of experience with online stores, even with physical stores. We always recommend creating an online store with dropshipping, at least to start.
Identical product to your competition, but at a lower price
This is a bad selection because there is always someone who is going to give a cheaper price. And, in the end, we end up without a business because of this price competition. We lose a product that allows us to make a profit.
Price competition is a factor that may be relevant, but it shouldn’t be the only consideration you have. To avoid falling into the trap of selling your product at a lower cost than your competition. As it could backfire and lead you to failure without even testing the sales potential.
Very large products to mail
This is a very common and quite obvious problem since it can be very complex and expensive to ship a product of considerable size.
Product with a very low-profit margin
Although this situation is similar to low price competition, you should take into account that, through online sales, people have not had the experience of the product because they have not seen it. Therefore, the return percentage is usually higher. So you should choose a product whose profit margin is not very low. In this way, you avoid incurring additional expenses, in case the product is returned to you.
4. Products with sale restrictions such as cannabis, drugs and even vitamins
These product categories are self-explanatory, requiring certain permits and are regulated, making them difficult to sell. Also, due to those same restrictions, they are difficult to advertise, which will limit your sales potential.The best categories to sell online
So what are the products that shoppers are looking for online?
Basically, they can be high-demand and popular products – those that everyone needs; and niche products, which are those that appeal to specific customers and are found within broader categories.
I anticipate that one of the secrets is to offer a combination of products that allows you to appeal to a larger base of buyers.
- Clothing
- Shoes
- Electronic
- Books, movies and games
- Cosmetics and body products
- Wallets and accessories
- Food and drinks
- Kitchen equipment
- Home equipment
- Sports and outdoor
- Toys and baby products
- Hobby Products
- DIY, gardening and pets
Another successful strategy is to combine categories such as DIY (Do it Yourself, do it yourself) with high-volume categories. In sales or categories that are part of a hobby, such as offering sewing kits or selling yoga pants.
It is clear that defining two types of categories is usually more effective in these types of stores. Because you become a specialist and it is clear that the specialty is a key characteristic for the success of a store.
You already know the products that can give you the best chances of success. The next step is to add them to the store. To learn how to do it, continue to the next section: how to add products to collections on Shopify?
How to find products to sell on Shopify and Start selling easily
Can you imagine being able to sell the products you want without having a warehouse? That is dropshipping.
To minimize the risk of starting to sell. It is usually interesting to have distributors who take care of the entire logistics process. This way you don’t have to start with very high investment and you can focus more on selling.
Luckily there are many distributors who have been getting into the dropshipping craze until it has become a solid business.
Choose your possible first products to sell
In this phase of “paper and pen,” I recommend you to write down the products that interest you the most or even that you are passionate about.
You can also list those that you know well because you use them often.
It will always be easier for you to sell a product that interests you a lot and of which you know how to share its benefits. Then a product that theoretically sells well but does not interest you in the least.
Do a supply and demand study
On your way to creating a virtual store at this point your research is threefold:
- Find if there are dropshipping providers selling the products on your list
- Find other stores that already sell these products
- Find out if there are customers who buy these products.
The first point is the easiest and fastest. A few searches on Google will help you see whether or not there are providers. Cross off your list of the products for which you cannot find suppliers.
The second point is still easy although it may take you more time because it is convenient that you investigate each page of your future competition. Write down prices, conditions … of each store you find.
The third point is the most difficult and we can only make hypotheses according to the number of stores that sell the products, if there are pages or forums that talk about the products, a number of searches are carried out on Google.
Design your business model
This step is necessary for any type of business and consists of defining the foundations of your business.
Once you have one, or several, finalist products, you should think about how to set up your business around it.
As it is a topic that we have talked about a lot, I suggest some articles to familiarize you with the concept:
Business model canvas
- In-depth business models
- The customer segments of your business model
Let’s sell !!
Having chosen your products and designed your business model, the next steps will be to set up your online store, take visits to the web and start selling.
To set up the store there are various platforms and we also recommend reducing expenses and time by resorting to an MVP (Minimum Viable Product). This technique consists of making a prototype of your store that has everything you need to start selling and nothing else. You will have time to improve the design, add more pages, filters …
Conclusion
Now you understand that “How to find products to sell on Shopify?” We recommend that you start with a Shopify store, you can start a free trial to see if it is the platform for you.