Sign in to your AMZScout account
Amazon Product Discovery with AMZScout: A Step-by-step Guide
Anyone can start an Amazon business, but you can’t start a business with any product. Some products will be top-selling items and generate thousands of dollars each month, while others will just sit in your inventory collecting dust.
Product discovery on Amazon isn’t overly complicated, but you do need to make sure you put in the time to get it right. Even if you’re selling handmade items you need to know what’s in demand and what’s not. So, how do you find the products with the highest profit potential?
The easiest way to identify winning products is to use product research tools, such as the ones offered by AMZScout. In this article, we’ll show you exactly how to use each tool to generate product ideas and determine whether an item will make you money. Then, we’ll walk you through an example of the process from start to finish.
Table of contents
Keep reading to learn how to become a master of Amazon product discovery.
What Types of Products Should You Avoid?
Before you can start searching for products you need to define your criteria. And in order to do that, you should establish what types of products you want to avoid.
Here are a few types of items that you shouldn’t sell on Amazon:
Products That Are Expensive to Ship
This is especially important if you’re importing your inventory from overseas or selling through the Fulfilled by Amazon program. Shipping costs eat into your profits, so you’ll want to reduce them as much as possible.
The first thing to watch out for is large and heavy items. The bigger and heavier a product is the more it’s going to cost to ship. Second, stay away from fragile items, as couriers will charge extra since they need to take special care with your packages.
Products with Liability
If there’s a chance that your product could harm someone or make them sick then it’s usually not worth the risk. This includes consumables like food, supplements, and liquids, and any sort of cream that you spread on your skin.
There are also a lot of additional rules and regulations around these types of items, so in most cases it’s just not worth the hassle.
Dangerous Goods
Amazon deems certain chemicals and flammable materials to be dangerous goods. Not only are there additional regulations around these products, but if you’re selling through FBA Amazon will charge you extra to store them.
Apparel
Have you ever thought about buying clothes online before realizing that you can’t try them on first? It’s a bit of a problem.
A lot of people still shop for clothes online and then simply return the items that don’t fit. This is fine for the consumers but it’s going to mean a high number of returns for sellers. A high return rate can negatively impact your Amazon account, so it’s best not to sell apparel.
Seasonal Products
Ideally, you want to find products that sell well all year long. If you only make money during the summer what are you going to do during the winter?
Because of this, it’s not a good idea to sell seasonal items. This includes products that are only popular during certain times of the year. Gardening tools, for example, will likely only sell during the spring and summer.
Instead, look for items that have consistent sales every month of the year.
Items in Competitive Markets
As a new seller, you’ll want to avoid any products that are highly competitive. If you try to compete against major brands and lots of competitors you’re going to lose.
A better strategy is to identify markets that are underserved. Find products that are in demand but have been overlooked by other retailers. If you’re one of the only sellers offering an item people need then you’ll be able to find success right away.
How to Get Product Ideas
By now you probably have a good idea of the types of products that you’re looking for. But how do you find them?
AMZScout offers two solutions as part of the Web App to help you generate product ideas:
AMZScout Product Database
Amazon has a massive product database, with over 300 million different products on its marketplace. So how are you supposed to zero in on the few products that are right for your business?
Luckily, there’s a simple solution. The
allows you to search Amazon’s database using 44 different filters. You can search for top products based on:
Category
Product Tier
Seller Type
Price
Rank
Estimated Sales
Estimated Revenue
Reviews
Weight
And More
This makes it easy to filter out all the products that don’t meet your requirements and only focus on the ones with the best potential.
Once you enter all your filters just click search to see the items that match your criteria. From the next screen, you’ll be able to see some key statistics on each product, click on the product to view it on Amazon, and see if it’s available on Alibaba (which is a great place to source products).
Amazon Keyword Search and Reverse ASIN Lookup
Once you find a few products in the Product Database you can generate some additional ideas using the Amazon Keyword Search and Reverse ASIN Lookup tools.
Enter the items you’re interested in into the Amazon Keyword Search to get a list of all the keywords related to those products. You can also enter their ASIN number into the Reverse ASIN Lookup tool and get all the keywords other sellers are using to promote those items.
This helps you expand your research by exploring the niche further. You’ll end up with other products that are similar, items that are often sold with those products, and other keywords used to describe those products.
How to Validate Your Product Ideas
After you have a list of products you’re interested in you’ll need to validate them to make sure they’ll actually be profitable for you. There are two ways to do this:
Product Tracker
In the Web App, you’ll also have access to the Product Tracker tool. Enter your product ideas here to begin tracking them over time and see how they actually perform.
Using this tool, you can monitor an item’s sales, rank, inventory levels, rating, and review count. This will give you a good idea about whether it’s actually worth selling or if it’s results don’t live up to your expectations.
This is an excellent first step to validating your product ideas, but before you invest in any items you’ll want to do some more in-depth research using our other tool.
AMZScout PRO Extension
Install the AMZScout PRO Extension
to get key insights on any product being sold on Amazon. Once the extension is installed go to Amazon.com and search for the product you’re interested in. When the results come up, click the Pro Extension icon in the top right corner of your browser to gain access to a wide array of information.
When you perform a search on Amazon you’ll get dozens of results. You used to have to go through them one-by-one to find the right product, but not anymore. The Pro Extension scrapes Amazon for the data you’re looking for and displays it all for you. For each item, you’ll be able to see:
Price
FBA Fees
Net Margin
Estimated Sales
Estimated Revenue
Total Number of Review
And More
At the top of the screen, it will display the average sales, rank, price, and reviews for the niche as a whole. You can also click on each product to gain access to the profit calculator and look at its sales trends.
Best of all, the Pro Extension offers scores for both the niche and each individual product. These scores are based on the levels of demand and competition, telling you instantly whether an item is worth selling. A score over seven means it has the potential to be profitable for your business.
Finding Products Using AMZScout: A Step-by-Step Guide
Now that you know how all the tools work let’s walk you through an example and show you how to put it all together.
Step 1: Use the Product Database to Generate Ideas
Start by going to the Product Database and using the filters to refine your search. For this example, we’re going to enter the following criteria:
Categories: Automotive, Office Supplies, and Baby
Price: 25 - 30
Reviews: 10 - 90
Weight: Less than 3 lb
Estimated Revenue: 8,000
Rating: Less than 4
Once your requirements are entered perform the search.
Step 2: Review the Results
Look through the results to find products that look interesting or that you think have potential. Let’s say you’re interested in the Board2by Magnetic Whiteboard.
As you can see, it’s stats are a prime example of what you should be looking for.
It’s estimated revenue is over $9,000, it’s rank is strong but not so high that there will be a lot of competition, and its rating is only 3.9 so there’s definitely room for improvement.
Step 3: Use the Amazon Keyword Search and Reverse ASIN Lookup to Generate Additional Ideas
Now that you have a product you’re interested in it’s time to do some keyword research. As you can see, there are a lot of related keywords associated with this product.
All of these different product ideas could also be sold along with the whiteboard, meaning this could be a good niche to get into.
Step 4: Analyze Your Item Using the Product Tracker
Next, we’ll want to see how the product has performed over the last few months. Enter it into the Product Tracker to see the results.
It looks like this item’s sales have stayed very strong with a few very good days over the last week. Its rank is holding steady as well and seems to be trending up, which is a good sign. So far everything about this product checks out. Now it’s time to take the analysis to the next level.
Step 5: Use the AMZScout PRO Extension
Search your product on Amazon.сom, then click the AMZScout icon in your browser to open the PRO Extension.
You’ll now be able to analyze the product you found earlier in greater detail, along with all the other items in the niche.
Judging by the average sales, rank, price, and reviews this niche has potential, but let’s dig deeper.
Step 6: Calculate the Product’s Sales Margins
Click on the product you’re interested in, then click on the Calculator to estimate its sales margins. Enter your estimated cost. For this example, we’re going to guess that our total cost per item will be $4.
Based on this, you can see that the calculator predicts a profit of $15.27 per sale and total monthly revenue of over $4,841.
Step 7: Look at the Product’s Sales Trends
Click on the Product History icon to see how the product has sold over the last year. This will help you determine whether it’s trending up or down. It will also let you know if its sales fluctuate throughout the year or stay fairly consistent.
The sales have been a little up and down over the last year, but overall they’ve been fairly strong.
Step 8: Look at the Niche and Product Scores
Finally, review the niche and product scores to get a definitive answer on whether it’s worth selling this product and entering this niche.
Click on the product and then select the product score.
This product has a score of 7, meaning it has the potential to be profitable.
Next, have a look at the niche score. Click this number in the top right corner for all the details.
This niche has a score of 7 making it a niche that is likely to succeed. The demand seems to be solid and the competition is only medium, so you should be able to find success.
Conclusion
If you want to build a successful Amazon business you need to sell the right items. Fortunately, AMZScout makes it easy to find winning products. Use the tools in the Web App to narrow your search to only the items that meet your criteria. Then, validate your ideas with the Pro Extension before investing any money into your inventory.
By using this software you’ll take the guesswork out of your product research, giving you a much better chance of consistently making money.
