How to Find A Profitable Product to Import?

Allen Zhu
Allen Zhu
Aug 27, 2017 · 5 min read

Finding a profitable product to import could be essential for the success of your business.

What kind of products to sell?

How do I verify if this product has a sufficient demand?

What kind of products are profitable?

Where can I get the product?

I bet you have asked yourself a lot of questions like this before you start your business.

So, in this post, we are going to share with you some best tips to answer these questions.

1, What kind of products to sell?

It’s common sense that companies produce products to satisfying peoples needs including entertainment, sustain and self-improvment, etc.

So, when you decide what products to sell, you should look at the functions of the product. Does it solve a problem? Does it entertain people? Or does it help people to improve? Does it make things better?

If the answers to these questions are “yes”, then congratulations, you can proceed to verify if there is a sufficient demand for that.

However, if you don’t know if you doesn’t have any clue, we do have some good tips for you.

a, Try to find a product to solve a problem you’re now facing. Looking for products that solve your own problems is always the easiest way to do.

Take the reverse umbrella for example. We used to be annoyed at the water brought in with the umbrella.

And the reverse umbrella solves this problem for good. And it sells quite good on amazon.

b, check social curating sites. There are a lot of websites that enable users to curate product listings on their site. Users can view, share and comment on these listings.

  • Fancy.com FANCY is definitely one of the best place to look for classy, high-end, beautifully designed, novelty products.
  • Pinterest.com Pinterest comes the second in my list because there are too much information to process for the user. And there is no editorial help, unlike Fancy.com.
  • Polyvore.com is one of the places people share and create fashion sets. It’s one of the places you can find trendy fashion.
  • WANELO.com is another fashion curation site.

Bottom line: beware of the IP infringements. You can always look for similar items, but never look for the exactly same item. Do not simply copy or just buy and resell the same clothes. Change the design or create better.

c, product review sites. Product review sites give us reviews on latest products. They receive a lot of traffic. Thus, suppliers and sellers will send new products for their review. And you’re probably to find new products there.

  • Engadget.com. At Engadget, you will find product reviews on the most popular gadget from big brands.
  • ndtv.com. Ndtv reviews more kinds of gadgets. It has more categories than Engadget.
  • Cnet. Cnet reviews almost all kinds of gadgets from car accessories, home studio, printers, e-readers to MP3 players.
  • gizmodo.com. Gizmodo is a website that provides reviews on things that’re new and novelty.

Bottom line: try to find the supplier of the products reviewed on these sites. You can also create supplementary products for those products reviewed.

d, Trend revealing sites. Trend sites offers a good chunk of contents that will give you the latest product ideas.

  • Thegadgetflow.com. At thegadgetflow, you’ll find the latest recommendations of all innovative products from all sorts of crowdfunding sites such as indiegogo and Kickstarter.
  • Trendhunter.com Trendhunter is one my favorite places to hunt for product ideas.
  • Springwise.com Similar to trendhunter, sprintwise is another service you can use, only springwise is less popular.

Bottom line. These sites will offer a lot more insights as paid services.

e, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Words travels fast on these platforms, but it might take some time for you to get the right source.

Bottom line: follow big accounts that share regularly and have the most followers.

f, crowdfunding sites. Crowdfunding sites allows people to get funded for their new products, new innovations. By looking at how many people funded the project and how much it get its fund, you’ll know how popular this product will be. As a result, it’s definitely one of the best places to look for new product ideas.

Bottom line: talk to the creator and try to build business terms with him or her.

g, amazon, eBay, aliExpress, Tmall. These websites are the largest purchasing sites in the world, their recommendations of products are just the best.

h, amazon tools. There are many amazon tools for sellers. These tools are extremely helpful for sellers as it list a lot of information that the seller needs. I list a few of them in the following.

  • JungleScout. JungleScout has been used by a lot of businesses when it comes to what products to sell on amazon. You will find the niche hunter much helpful.
  • Terapeak. Never used it.

You’ve got the products to sell. Now what?

Validate your product ideas.

Here is a list of tools you can use to validate your product ideas.

a, google trends. Google Trends gives you the information as how popular the product is and lists 5 most popular countries.

As a result, you know how your product will sell and where to sell it.

b, google market finder.

Google market finder allows you to search the search volume and the paid ads bidding based on different regions, different languages.

c, google keyword planner.

Similar to google market finder, google keyword planner also gives you enough information about how much the search volume there is in certain areas and countries.

d, Amazon tools.

  • Unicorn Smasher. Search the product you want to sell on amazon. And use UnicornSmasher to get how many sales the current sellers made.

You’ve validated your product. Now what?

Determine if you would have a good profit selling it.

You need to calculate the cost:

a, product costs. These including packaging, and the product itself.

b, service cost. This is the cost that your supplier charges you for extra services provided.

c, shipping cost. The cost for shipping your products from your supplier to your desired place.

d, customs cost. The tariffs and duties you have to pay for getting the products to your country.

e, warehouse cost. The cost for keeping your products.

f, ads cost. The cost for advertising your products to your clients.

g, commission. The amount of money you have to pay for using the services the platform provides.

h, shipping cost. the cost for shipping your products to your customers.

i, broken product cost. The costs resulted in broken products.

Usually, your gross profit margin should be at least 30% so that you can earn a profit.

Now that you’ve find a profitable product, what you need to do is to find a supplier for your product.

Do you have anything to share with us? Leave a comment below.

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Originally published at tech-bulk.com on August 27, 2017.

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