How To Find Trending Products To Sell Online
I’m going to show you not only how to come up with great product ideas but also how to find top selling products and trending products to sell online.
How To Verify Trending Products To Sell Online
This quickest way to verify trending products to see if they hold their water in weight is with the Google Trends tool.
The Google Trends tool will show to the trend of your product ideas based on total search volume, starting from 2004. Not only will it show you the total search volume, but it will also display the countries and cities that the ideas are most popular in.
For more information and a 17-point criteria for completely evaluating your product ideas, check out: Reverse Engineering The Perfect Ecommerce Product. To automatically evaluate your product idea, check out my Instant Product Evaluator tool.
Product Sorting/Filtering Apps
Jungle Scout is a new addition to this resources list, and the only paid resource I have listed on this page. Jungle Scout tracks Amazon listings and gives you easy and instant ability to sort through tens of thousands of products. Adding some simple search filters, you can narrow your search for products from thousands, to a dozen or so in just a few minutes. Although the app’s marketing focuses on selling on Amazon, this tool can be used for find great products to sell anywhere. My new favorite tool.
Subscribe To: Trend Publications
Trend publications are one of the best, future facing places to start your search for trending products to sell online. Unlike the other resources on this list this may not give you direct and exact product ideas, however it helps you start understanding the direction consumer buying patterns are headed which can spark some incredible product ideas.
- PSFK – PSFK is a top trending online publication who’s goal is to make things better. Make sure you also view their trend reports.
- Cool Hunting – Cool Hunting is an award-winning publication that uncovers the latest in design, technology, style, travel, art and culture. Cool Hunting’s original content helps inform the creative community that’s designing the future.
- The Cool Hunter – The Cool Hunter is a natural fit for its ecommerce entrepreneurs who want to stay in the know and ahead of the curve. The Cool Hunter is an leading authority on all things creative and a truly global hub for what’s cool, thoughtful, innovative and original.
- UberCool – Slightly different from the other trending product publications listed here, UberCool is run by only one man, but there’s a lot of information and product ideas up for grabs.
- Trend Watching – Trend Watching searches the globe for upcoming consumer product trends. Trend Watching utilizes a team of thirty trend scouts in locations worldwide, all on the search for product trends and ideas that you can use.
- Trend Hunter – Trend Hunter is one of the world’s largest trend communities with a global network of 137,000 members. Trend Hunter is a great source of idea inspiration for aspiring entrepreneurs on the hunt for new product ideas to sell online in 2015.
- Springwise – Their motto? Three inspiring business ideas everyday. Not bad right? From the Springwise homepage you can browse the new business and product ideas that they have published in the last 30 days. If you’re looking for their entire database you’ll need to subscribe to Springwise Access. With the $49/month membership you can unlock the entire exclusive database of every innovative idea and startup they have ever spotted along with categories and filters to find exactly what you’re looking for. Springwise also publishes a daily and a weekly newsletter, which you can subscribe to for free.
Product Review Blogs
What better place to look for trending products to sell online than on blogs and magazines dedicated to showcasing some of the coolest new products entering the market. Product review blogs and online magazines are a rich source for what’s trending now and can help spark spinoff ideas.
I have listed a few below to start with and make part of your daily read:
This is only a small list. To find more product review site that are a better fit for your niche, find one product review site that fits your niche well, then use a Similar Site Search to find other sites just like it. For example, click here to find other sites similar to Uncrate to see how it works.
Product Curation Blogs/Marketplaces
Similar to the product review blogs listed above are product curation blogs and marketplaces. These blogs and marketplaces do the heave lifting for you by curating the best of other, much larger marketplaces and niches.
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Canopy – Canopy curates the best, most durable products from the Amazon marketplace.
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Thieve.co – Thieve is a AliExpress curated. Much like Canopy (above) the products are all hand selected, preventing you from wasting time going through the thousands of junk products.
Social Image Networks
Social image sharing sites are great because you get a consumer perspective of interesting and trending products to sell online right now. Because it’s all very visual based, you can take in a huge amount of product ideas very quickly making it a efficient source for ideation.
Several of the larger social curation sites to check out include:
- Pinterest – Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social network with over 50 million monthly users. Make sure to check out the popular section for what’s currently trending.
- Polyvore – Polyvore is another great service, similar to Pinterest. Polyvore’s global community has created over 80 million collage-like “sets” that are shared across the web. Don’t forget to take a look at their (hidden) Top Trends page.
- Fancy – Fancy describes themselves as part store, magazine and wish list. Regardless of what it is, it’s filled with product ideas for you to explore.
- Wanelo – Wanelo (Want – Need – Love) describes itself as a community for all of the worlds shopping, bringing together products and stores in a Pinterest like product posting format. You can start by checkout out trending people.
- Instagram – As if it needs an explanation. Instagram is one of the fastest growing social networks and it’s filled with product ideas.
Online Marketplaces
Marketplaces are probably the most common sources to find trending products because they feature products currently selling online. However, because of the sheer size of many of these market places, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and give up unless you know the strategy to finding the best, trending online products within these market places.
Below, I will cover not just the marketplace where where exactly you should be looking within the marketplace to find the gems.
Business-to-Business Marketplaces
Business-to-business (B2B) marketplaces are gold because not only can you find the gems but you can also find a supplier at the same time. Some of the more popular B2B wholesale product sites are:
- Alibaba – You’ve likely heard of Alibaba. They are the biggest ecommerce company in the world, even larger than Amazon and eBay combined. Alibaba connects consumers all over the world with wholesalers and manufacturers (typically) from Asia. With hundreds of thousands of products, there’s not much you can’t find on Alibaba.
Although it’s generally accepted that Alibaba is the largest online wholesale and manufacturer database, there are many other sites similar to Alibaba you can use for inspiration and to find product ideas.
Some of the largest competitors of Alibaba include you should also spend some time exploring include:
Consumer Marketplaces
Consumer marketplaces are the places that are selling direct to the end consumer. By strategically searching some of their trending pages you can get a better sense on consumer trends and products related to them:
eBay – eBay is the largest online consumer auction site.
- eBay Popular – A list of some of the most popular product categories on eBay.
- eBay Watch Count – An online tool that will list the most popular items on eBay based on how many people are “watching” them.
Amazon – Amazon is the largest internet retailer.
- Amazon Bestsellers – Amazon’s most popular products based on sales. Updated hourly.
- Amazon Movers and Shakers – Amazon’s biggest gainers in sales rank over the past 24 hours. Updated hourly.
Kickstarter – Kickstarter is the largest crowd-funding website.
- Kickstarter Discover – Browse all projects by popularity, funding, staff picks, as well as many other options.
Etsy – Etsy is a marketplace for handmade items.
- Etsy Trending Items – Check out the current trending items and listings on Etsy.
**AliExpress – **AliExpress is a new consumer wholesale marketplace from Alibaba that allows you to order in small quantities.
- AliExpress Popular – The most popular products being bought on AliExpress.
Storenvy – Storenvy is a ecommerce platform and marketplace. Their trending page features their merchants most recently trending products.
- Storenvy Trending Products – Products currently trending on Storenvy
Social Forums
Maybe the best place to come up with ideas are social forums. One of the best and biggest social forums is Reddit and describes itself as the front page of the internet. One of the most unique and powerful aspects of Reddit are what’s called “subreddits”. Subreddits are niche specific sub-sections, each of which cater to a different area of interest. Within these subreddits that you can find a tremendous amount of inspiration for trending product ideas.
The subreddits are also valuable if there’s a particular niche that interests you the most and want to look for trending products to sell online within that particular niche.
If you look careful, you can also find some really great, product focused subreddits where people are discussing their favorite products.
Here are a few examples:
- Buy It For Life – Focused on products meant to last a lifetime.
- Shut Up And Take My Money – Interesting product ideas that people really want.
You already know that Amazon has an insane amount of products, but sifting through the millions of products can take a lifetime, instead, swing by some of the Amazon focused subreddits for a more curated list:
Finally, you’ll want to be on the lookout for Reddit threads that people are specifically listing their favorite products. To start, take a look at these ones:
Reddit can be an insanely valuable place to spot the next trending product that you can sell online however, don’t let it be the only place you search. There are hundreds of thousands of similar fourms, albeit smaller, that you can also find your next big product idea.
Look At Hobbies
Hobbies are great because people are willing to spend lots of money buying products to support their hobbies. One of the best ways to uncover great products ideas to sell online is to look at different hobbies and the products people need to participate in them.
Trending Import Products
I have recently discovered a new resource that has been unbelievable for obtaining new trending products ideas and all the ideas come right from real time data.
Duty Calculator Trending Import Products – DutyCalculator allows importers to determine the duties on their import products. Using information importers are using, Duty Calculator’s Trending Products page allows you to select what products are currently trending based on country import and export selections. So if you want to see what products people are currently importing from India to Canada, you can see that. If you want to know what products Australians are importing from Kenya, you can find that. Definitely a really cool tool based on what people are actually doing right now.
About The Author
Richard Lazazzera is an ecommerce entrepreneur, author and speaker. Learn more about Richard or get more from him on Twitter.