In our previous blog, we guided you through the product sourcing options that you can try for your ecommerce business. That’s not a collection of vague ideas; rather, it’s what business enthusiasts have been using over the years now. Every year, these ideas of product development and selection get upgraded with the trends and improvements in technology.
The Internet is flooding with such ideas. Aimless searching for the products is simply a waste of time and effort. But, it can be challenging for newbies to decide which one of these can be more profitable than the other. To overcome this challenge, it is essential for businesses to have a thorough research of the target industry as well as product categories.
During the research, don’t forget to consider the words of your local competitors. Even when it’s recommended to count on highly profitable products, we advise you to never ignore small and less profitable products. The scope of the product depends upon the demand for products in the market. You can always earn good profits by selling a larger count of products.
For better ideas about listing the products across different verticals, you must have a good list of modes through which you can brainstorm and get fruitful ideas.
How can I get the ideas for products to sell on ecommerce sites?
● Google trends:
The market changes, technology changes, and so is the demand in the market. Whether you are selling products or services, you can search for their craze in the market via Google trends. You can search the name, keyword relating services, and products to check their relative interest among the people in the market over time. You are free to get location-specific results and compare them within the time frame. It’s your choice if you like to compare the competition of years, months, hours, or even that of a decade.
The results that you will get via Google Trends help you decide the location to embark and emphasize on the type of search results where your business is growing. It will help you select the keywords that you must add to your product listing pages.
● Online trend publications:
The online trend publications like TrendWatching, TrendHunter, PSFK, and many others can help you add new product categories to your store. The inbuilt BI in PSFK grasp the trends across the world and displays it over the sites. The trend publication platform helps you create new ideas about products as well as services for all the business niches.
● Niche review sites:
The niche-specific online review platforms are created to help communities in attaining the larger benefit from the market. Review platforms help customers discover new products/services/software that can be used to improve the functionality of your business. You can launch a website or blog site to talk about trending business products. To have a look, you can check the websites of Uncrate, Bless This Stuff, Firebox, and many others.
● Discussion forums:
The discussion forums are created to promote community building around the business niche, products/services, or the group of people connected with the same mindset. Businesses often use this to interact with other businesses, grow globally as a part of the community, and support each other in different situations. The successful business tycoons interact in these forums to connect with the new workforce and share their stories with other businesses. You can use these communities to discuss your product ideas, and find specific innovative ideas by exploring the stores of other users.
● Social media platforms:
Sometimes just-for-fun ideas can also be novel ideas to start your business. Via social media networks, you can understand the market requirement, know the products that are trending, connect with niche-specific groups and communities. Also, you can follow the hashtags relating to your target industry to know the buyer’s interests. Social media can help you create your business audience before even starting your ecommerce store. The insights and engagement on the products can help you walk with the trends.
● Online marketplaces:
The online marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, eBay, and many others are ecommerce giants that are getting profited by targeting the same market. With the help of these marketplaces, you can create a list of value-adding products with the help of best-sellers, trending products, highly likely on-sale, and especially the seasonal products.
In addition to this, you can use the search terms of a few products and get a few ideas in internal listings. Since there are millions of products on these marketplaces, you may not find each and everything on the first page, but a bit of research can help you collect amazing ideas on your list.
From where can I order inventory for my ecommerce website?
By now, you have already collected a lot of product ideas to add to your inventory. The next challenge is to find such products in abundance that you can fulfill the market demand. If you have some over-customized product ideas, you can either create them on your own or need to look for other manufacturers in the industry.
However, if you are looking for ready-to-sell products to be ordered for your inventory, you can count on:
B2B online marketplaces
B2B marketplaces empower other online businesses, especially manufacturers and wholesalers, to sell their products to other businesses in the bulk quantities. There can be nothing better than placing orders on these platforms because you will be getting product ideas via the same platforms and the opportunity to place orders as well.
This will save your time and efforts to search for the products as per your product ideas. Also, it will help you compare the products, categories, price, quality based on the description. By comparing the products from different vendors, you can perform research and place orders.
The popular B2B wholesale marketplaces to order your products from anywhere are:
- Amazon: With the benefit of Business Prime, now Amazon lets you place orders for products in bulk quantities without traveling to shops. Businesses allow discounts for set MOQs. If you have any odd requirement, you can enquire with the businesses and get quotations. There is no restriction in the count of quotes you can request for your business needs. You will get quotes within 24-48 hours, thus giving you an ease to compare, choose, and get products released within 3-4 days. You can get the tax relaxation directly when you place orders from your Amazon Business account.
- Alibaba: Alibaba is an ecommerce giant across Asia. You can order products nationally as well as internationally for your store. With imported products, you can fetch the attention of customers and earn profitable value on selling cross-cultural products. If you place an international order, keep the timeline of package delivery in mind.
- eBay: eBay business supply is profitable for SMBs as well as large enterprises. It allows the selection of products and offers finance for businesses to grow. In this way, you can amplify the growth of your business by getting the funds and placing orders for your business.
Some other B2B wholesale marketplaces include:
Manufacturers:
Connecting with the manufacturers of your products is a lot profitable for your business. The first and foremost thing is, you can negotiate and get products at affordable prices. Unless you are contacting branded manufacturers, you can sell the products on your brand. It will automatically improve the trust of your brand.
To connect with the manufacturers, you can use online business listing sites and directories. Here, are few such sites that can help you find manufacturers:
- Indiamart
- TradeIndia
- Tradeford
- JimTrade
Traditional Wholesalers:
Offline wholesale markets have always been helpful to serve business needs. To connect with these businesses, you can search for online and offline business directories and visit their store later. Some of the most authentic wholesalers may not be available online, and that’s where your ability to explore the local market will help you.
Unlike online sites, local businesses and flea markets can empower you with ideas and business tactics that you will not learn even after working online for years. Though the concept of the minimum order quantity (MOQ) will be there, with your due interaction with the sellers, you can ask for paid as well as free samples.
Once you establish friendly relations with the business vendors, you can place telephonic orders and get the products instantly delivered to meet your customer demands. That’s what makes ecommerce as an ultimate choice of retail businesses for years.
Order by Dropshipping:
In this case, you will not be literally buying the products for your ecommerce store, unless you will get an order. But, you will partner with a wholesale business to offer the products at wholesale rates for all of the orders. Also, the shipping partner of that business will be responsible for fulfilling orders. You can connect with such businesses via:
- AliExpress
- SaleHoo
- Wholesale2B
- Mega Goods, etc.
Also, you can connect with businesses from whom you purchase B2B business to know the possibility of partnering with them. Since the substantial investment is not involved here, you have to hire chances of spending on marketing more strategically and grow your business.
Now that you know more options to create product listings as well as platforms from where you can place orders, let’s not keep your mind in the loop and start making your list to place orders!
