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How to Find Winning Products for Dropshipping in 2024

14 minutes read
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Ana Gelevska

As everyone involved in the dropshipping business knows, offering the right goods at the right time is essential to success. Stocking your e-commerce shop with winning dropshipping products will attract customer attention, generate sales, and achieve profitability. But the market is always cycling through different trends, and sometimes it seems like demand for a product can shoot up or decline overnight.

That’s why it’s important to always be on the lookout for the next big thing, the next big seller that will put your shop on the map. As dropshipping entrepreneurs, we’re always monitoring social media platforms and popular online retailers to discover new and popular wares for our stores.

Doing manual research and comparison can take up valuable time, which is why we utilize online tools and plugins that streamline that process. In this article, we’ll show you how to find dropshipping products and how we use browser extensions to analyze what our competition is promoting in 2024.

Understanding the Dropshipping Landscape in 2024

Dropshipping Landscape

The e-commerce industry is booming, and dropshipping is one of the fastest-growing business models on the market, expected to reach a value of $476.1 billion by 2026. The main driving force behind this growth is the increasing popularity of mobile commerce. Consumers are using their phones to shop, and sellers must adopt mobile-friendly methods to market and sell their wares.

Competition in the online space is stiff, and the market can become oversaturated with the same products. To turn a profit, an online store must be stocked with items that sell and have the potential to bring in repeat business. To stay ahead of the curve, e-commerce store owners must be able to:

  • Recognize new and emerging trends
  • Discover the newest must-have items of the season
  • Offer products that fulfill a need or solve a problem
  • Have a catalog of staple products that are always in demand

This involves a lot of product and market research, as well as analyzing consumer behavior. Browsing social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok is a good way to see which trends are rising in popularity and which ones are dying down. The most important aspect of achieving success in this industry is knowing how to find products for dropshipping.

The Importance of Product Research

Product Research

Like any other market, the e-commerce scene also depends on supply and demand. In essence, it doesn’t matter what you have to offer if no one is asking for those products. For instance, phone cases are always in high demand, but if you’re advertising cases for unpopular smartphone models, sales will be slow and less profitable. That’s where thorough market research comes into play.

To build a successful dropshipping business, you need to invest in product research. When considering new stock for our e-commerce storefront, we analyze several key factors, such as:

  • Product demand – Regularly check which items are bestsellers for big online retailers like Amazon or even smaller dropshipping competitors. You can see how many people have bought a particular product and how sales have changed over a certain period. If sales are stagnant and on the decline, you’ll know to avoid that product and vice versa.
  • Emerging trends – Always keep in step with popular internet trends. Checking the trending hashtags on social platforms like TikTok is a good way of recognizing new trends and being among the first online stores that list new up-and-coming products.
  • Product rating – If you want to be successful when selling online, quality should always be a top priority. Check the star ratings and user reviews on wholesale sites and ensure they are legitimate. Having good quality items in your Shopify store increases the odds of customers returning to shop with you again.
  • Product saturation – Shopify sellers often have major overlap when it comes to their product range. To attract more shoppers, make sure your product palette is fresh and novel. Even if you’re selling the same thing as other dropshippers, ensure your items have additional features, greater customization, or interesting colorways.
  • Accessibility – Make sure the items in your shop are not available in regular brick-and-mortar shops. Your product range should include goods that cannot be easily found in traditional stores but are appealing to potential buyers.
  • Profit margins – What good is selling a product if it can only bring in cents on the dollar? The most profitable products usually involve low or no shipping costs for you as the middleman, are light and easy to ship or even group in multiples, and are in high enough demand to warrant a price markup.

By doing proper research, you reduce the risk of selling products that are not in demand, which are overly competitive, too generic, of low quality, or have high shipping and handling costs. That way, you can guarantee higher profit margins and repeat business from satisfied customers. However, doing all this research is time-consuming, so we recommended investing in a research tool like Koala Inspector.

Leveraging Koala Inspector for Product Research

Leveraging Koala Inspector for Product Research

Koala Inspector is a free-to-download Chrome extension that scrapes relevant data from the Shopify stores of your competitors. It helps you analyze other Shopify stores and reveals the keys to their success. It helps improve your e-commerce business by providing valuable insights into metrics like:

  • Best-selling products – Discover the hot-ticket items in any competitor store. See what products are selling the most, which are new and generating the most interest, and how everything is priced.
  • Dropshipping sources – Koala Inspector uses a machine-learning algorithm to match any product to a popular and trustworthy dropshipping supplier.
  • Successful Ad Campaigns – Easily find out what kind of ad campaigns your competitors run on sites like Google, Facebook, and Instagram.
  • Shopify traffic – Look up traffic analytics for any Shopify store to find out where its customers are coming from and better target your audience.
  • Theme finder – Have you ever visited a competitor’s Shopify store and thought those visuals looked good? Koala Inspector helps you find what theme a store is using so you can use it in your shop if you’d like.

In our expert opinion, the most useful functionality of Koala Inspector is the feature that allows you to save products to a favorites list and import those products to your shop in a single click. When browsing the competition’s inventory, click the heart next to products that catch your eye. You can add as many items as you want, export that list as a CSV file, and upload it to your shop. With only a few clicks, your Shopify store will be populated with proven crowd favorites.

Trends and Niches to Watch in 2024

The e-commerce market is driven by what is currently on trend. It can go through many cycles, and if you want to keep your inventory relevant and attractive to customers, you have to keep up. Still, there are categories of products that are always sought after and will sell no matter what. If you can recognize current market trends and popular niches within those categories, you’ll always know what to offer your customer base.

Here are some of the e-commerce trends that dominate in the winning products dropshipping 2024 category so far:

  • Clothing and accessories
  • Beauty and fitness
  • Baby apparel
  • Pet supplies
  • Home and office supplies
  • Tech gadgets and accessories
  • Reusable tumblers and bottles

It’s also important to recognize niches in the industry. Customers are more likely to buy a product if it aligns with their current lifestyle. People are becoming more health-conscious, so gym apparel is a hot-ticket item. Sustainability is also at the forefront of the public’s mind, so reusable items are gaining popularity.

Frequently, your audience is invested in more than one lifestyle, so there is overlap in the categories of products they are looking for. For instance, a health nut may be interested in buying gym clothes but may also be looking for a health tracker. Perhaps they’ll want a reusable water bottle and a yoga mat as well. If you’re able to recognize these common themes and curate your inventory to offer related items, you can easily increase your sales.

Product Selection Strategies

Product Selection Strategies

Populating your store with products is no simple feat. When choosing what to sell, you have to be thoughtful and methodical to ensure your target audience is interested in those items. Utilize social media to your advantage and follow where the current and emerging trends are leading you.

Use the insights gained from dropshipping tools like Koala Inspector to analyze the market and devise a winning strategy. You must consider several crucial factors when looking for winning dropshipping products to add to your shop.

Demand

Research products that have a high search volume and are currently trending. Good indicators of checking product demand for dropshipping are Google Trends and Amazon Bestsellers. Also, check competing Shopify stores to see what items are selling the most.

Competition

Analyze what your competition has to offer. Perhaps you’ll notice a product in high demand but has low or limited supply. Try to fill a gap in the market or offer a solution to a problem that your competitors have failed to cover.

Niche

Choosing a niche will help you target a specific audience. Theming your Shopify store and product offer to a unique theme will help you stand out in the crowd and attract a particular audience.

Seasonality

Build your business foundation on evergreen products that sell year-round, but be mindful of seasonal trends that die out fast. Selling products that peak in popularity during a specific season can give you a periodical profit boost.

Profit Margin

A product is worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it. Search out unique products that are in demand but have limited supply. That way, you’ll be able to charge more for something that not many sellers are offering. Also, factor in the shipping and handling costs and how they’ll affect the final selling price.

Quality

Customer satisfaction is dependent on the quality of your items. It doesn’t matter how affordable something is if the customer is unsatisfied with the quality and wants a refund.

Analyzing Shopify’s Best-Performing Products

Learning how to find products to dropship may seem daunting initially, but luckily, there are tools that make the job less time-consuming. As we mentioned earlier, our go-to Shopify research tool is Koala Inspector because it helps us check the Shopify inventory of our competitors in a few clicks. We can analyze what business model they are using and estimate the profit they are generating.

That allows us to make well-informed decisions on creating inventory and formulating prices based on that data. Below, we’ll explain how to identify the best-performing Shopify products in a few steps:

  • Select your competition – The first step is identifying which Shopify stores you’d like to analyze. After that, you can use Koala Inspector to perform a detailed analysis of their inner workings.
  • Check the overall Product stats – The product tab gives an overview of statistics like highest-priced and lowest-priced items, first and last listed products, and average selling price. That will give you an idea of how to set the prices in your store.
  • Review the All Products tab – This tab gives a comprehensive view of all products sold in that particular Shopify store. It’s an easy way to identify niches or popular themes.
  • Check the New Products section – This feature helps sellers discover recently added products and possible new trends on the market.
  • See what products are best sellers – Analyze which products are selling and are the most popular with customers.
  • Mark your Favorites – Once you’ve found products you like and made sure they are in demand, you can mark them with the heart icon. That is also a great way to keep track of any market shifts.
  • Upload products to your Shopify – This feature makes it incredibly simple to populate your Shopify with the best items on the market. Once you’ve compiled your favorites list, export it as a CSV file and upload it to your store. You’ll have an inventory full of best sellers in an instant.

This may seem like a lot of work, but Koala Inspector makes it fun. They have gamified the experience, so every time we use the extension, we earn XP points and climb the ranks. What an enjoyable way to motivate sellers to use every available feature.

Competitive Analysis

Analyzing the product selections of competing Shopify owners is an important part of any successful dropshipping business. Sellers can discover the most popular products in your niche, spot potential opportunities, and avoid selling products over-saturating the market. By analyzing the competition, sellers can learn about pricing strategies, marketing tactics, and customer service practices.

Koala Inspector makes it possible to retrieve all of this data instantaneously. With just one click, you’ll be privy to the inner mechanics of your competition. You’ll have access to their best-selling items and pricing structure, which you can import to your Shopify, to use as a guide. Furthermore, you can monitor their marketing efforts and see which ad campaigns yield the best results so you can replicate them for your shop.

This Chrome extension can also help you pinpoint the geographical location of the customer base and locate trustworthy wholesale retailers. You can even live monitor purchases as they happen in real-time. Koala Inspector is a goldmine of valuable information that savvy entrepreneurs can use to their advantage and convert into sales.

Testing and Validation

Once you have identified a list of potential winning dropshipping products, testing them before adding them to your dropshipping store is important. That will help you validate your product choices and avoid products that are unprofitable or not in demand. In-depth testing will save you time, effort, and money on a potentially failed product.

Collecting data on trending items and in-demand products is a good start, but it’s not always enough. You need to be very familiar with the product you’re trying to market and how it performs and holds up over time. Check the ratings for each product, and choose items with a high score and detailed user reviews. Most wholesale suppliers are happy to send you testing samples so you can test the product yourself.

When determining if an item will peak consumer interest or generate real sales, you’ll have to run several tests and compare results.

Have Pre-orders

You can open up a product for pre-orders to determine the level of interest of your target demographic. If the waiting list is long, the level of interest is high, and this product is guaranteed to be profitable.

Advertise on Multiple Platforms

Increase your customer pool by running ads on multiple social media sites. You can advertise the same product or multiple versions of the same product on several platforms and see which one performs the best. Analyzing which platform generates the most traffic will help you determine where to concentrate your marketing efforts.

Create PPE Ads

Facebook is an excellent tool to market your wares. Running small-scale Page Post Engagement ads is a good indication of the number of people willing to click and comment on your ads.

Do a Soft Launch

Having a soft launch of a select product is a good tactic to gauge consumer interest before investing in marketing. If you’re interested in opening a private-label dropshipping business, this is one way to test the waters.

Consider Customer Feedback

The most valuable metric any business can have is customer feedback. Always keep an open communication channel and be open to making adjustments based on feedback from your shoppers.

Scaling Your Dropshipping Business

In today’s overly competitive landscape, simply selling winning dropshipping products may not be enough to guarantee success. Still, the dropshipping industry offers many expansion opportunities for those who can recognize them and take advantage. The best way to ensure longevity in this field is to grow your business by offering a wide range of products, establishing a brand identity, and increasing your customer pool.

The first step to scaling up your operations is to establish a distinct brand identity. Choose the perfect Shopify layout in line with your brand ethos, and that conveys a message at first glance. That will differentiate you from other sellers with generic branding and instill confidence and trust in your clients. Research shows that brand trust is the second most important purchasing factor influencing consumer choices.

Next, it’s important to invest in diverse marketing tactics. If you’re scaling up your operations, you’ll also need to expand your customer base. You can launch bigger paid advertising campaigns on social media platforms and convert clicks into sales. For a greater impact, reach out to content creators and influencers to offer them free products in exchange for an honest review.

The most important step to growing your business is effective inventory management. You’ll need to connect with a supplier that can handle greater product turnover without compromising the quality. Automating any aspect of managing your inventory is also imperative, like tracking sold inventory and the order fulfillment process. That will reduce the risk of errors and let you focus on other things.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Mistakes to Avoid

 

Running a profitable Shopify business is not easy. Many get into this industry thinking it’s a fast money-making scheme, but soon discover the realities of running an e-commerce business. It’s not enough to fill your Shopify with products that are popular at the moment. Knowing that an item is currently trending doesn’t automatically translate into sales.

Deciding to go the safe route and sell the same things as everyone else may not be a smart business decision if the market is oversaturated. Going in the opposite direction and selling items that are too niche or only seasonally relevant can also fall through. Dropshipping is a delicate balancing act that all e-commerce entrepreneurs must master.

To avoid these common pitfalls and achieve your business goals, you can follow these tips and tricks:

  • Study the competition – Stay ahead of the curve and see what the competition is doing. Use tools like Koala Inspector to analyze their inventory and see what is selling or is being passed over by consumers. Discover the average pricing for best-selling products and set competitive prices in your store.
  • Know your customers – Have a detailed insight into buyer statistics like age, sex, and geographical location. Understanding your target audience will help you better anticipate their needs and budget.
  • Have staple products – Make sure your product range includes high-quality goods that sell year-round regardless of the current trends. These products are the building blocks of your business and ensure repeat business.
  • Follow market trends – You should also keep up with market trends and add trending products to your inventory. Social media apps like Instagram and TikTok are good indicators of what trend, item, or lifestyle is currently popular.
  • Invest in marketing – A solid marketing strategy ensures your products reach their intended audience. Running paid ad campaigns on different sites increases the overall impact of your marketing strategy.
  • Find reliable suppliers – Suppliers are responsible for the quality assurance and shipping of products to customers, so it’s necessary to choose trustworthy and efficient wholesalers. They must be capable of handling large order volumes without increasing shipping prices.
  • Develop a recognizable brand – A unique store name, custom logo, and a distinct branding style will make you stand out from the competition. Maintaining consistent branding throughout all aspects of the business will inspire trust in your customers.

Conclusion

We’ve demonstrated that there is more to running an e-commerce store than just having winning products. Dropshipping relies on many factors to be a reliable source of income, and like any other business, you need to invest time and effort constantly to guarantee success. You need to build a recognizable brand that shoppers can trust, invest in marketing and paid ads to reach a wide target audience and be up-to-date on the latest trends.

 

Most importantly, you need to be aware of what the competition is doing. Gathering and analyzing statistics from other successful sellers allows you to quickly identify the best dropshipping products and gives you a direction in which to steer your business. Luckily, we have access to online tools that simplify that process.

Get a Koala Inspector, and start gathering information and converting visitors into sales today. 

 

 

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Ana Gelevska
Ana Gelevska
Ana is a creative and customer-oriented freelance writer with over 5 years of experience working with eCommerce global clients. Ana enjoys breaking down the latest eCommerce trends and diving into the needs of today’s merchants.

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