I have been working on Amazon for six years. This year, I launched three new products, but all of them failed! How can I use innovative thinking and methods to rebuild my product selection system?

Let me introduce myself briefly. I have been working part-time on Amazon for 6 years. From a newbie who knew nothing, I have made a net profit of 250,000 yuan a year, and a fixed profit of 150,000 yuan in the following years. Then this year, the overall situation took a sharp turn for the worse , and I realized that it would be difficult to achieve the same results as before according to the previous product selection ideas and operation models. ( Not only product selection, but also new products are becoming more and more difficult to promote. This year, 3 new products were launched and all failed, and the old products also began to show signs of decline due to price wars .)

Now I have no confidence in product selection, so I hope to ask you for advice.

1. Based on my actual situation, how should I select products and choose the track that suits me?

I have also tried to choose a long-tail keyword market segment with a certain profit, but it is actually very difficult to choose one in practice. I think this idea is the consensus of many small sellers, which leads to everyone rushing to it, so in fact, the so-called market segment basically does not exist anymore? I wonder if you guys have any insights that can help me find another way to find the treasure category hidden deep in the market?

2. Regarding my own operation, I think that after 6 years of practical experience, I can at least reach the qualified level of operation. At present, I hope to select a few products with relatively long life cycle and stable profit margin. I will be satisfied with a profit of several thousand per month. I know that this is not an easy task, so I sincerely ask all the big guys to share some unique product selection skills and experience to help me achieve this goal.

3. The reason why previous products can continue to make profits is that each product is differentiated (appearance, function, accessories combination, etc. are all unique), and when selecting products, market trends are fully observed, and data is collated and analyzed. Can you help me analyze the new trends and new opportunities in the current market, and how to use innovative thinking and methods in this complex and changing environment to rebuild my product selection system and achieve a breakthrough?

I hope you can give me more advice and point out the product selection ideas and breakthrough directions that are suitable for me. I hope it can be as detailed as possible. I wish you all a prosperous new year and a happy family!

Anonymous user

Agree with: Yangzhou in March

There is a point that you should also be able to understand: the more people know about the specific operating procedures or specifications that can be summarized and are highly replicable, the less people will be able to benefit from them.

Therefore, in terms of product selection, what needs to be improved is the inner strength rather than the moves. Moves are easy to copy and also easy to become ineffective.

The saying "the blue ocean back then is the red ocean now, and the red ocean now may also have blue ocean segments in the future" will never go out of date. We cannot simply and absolutely understand the market as "getting more and more competitive". The overall competition will increase, but there will also be cyclical changes in some areas. These are some of the insights we gained when we were doing vertical product selection and promotion in certain categories this year.

So as for the "internal skills" suggestions for product selection, if you are working alone as a part-time worker, my suggestions are:

1. Target products in categories with relatively large market capacity and relatively active market within a unit of time. The market capacity and activity of different categories of products are different at different time stages. There is no need to occupy the market share. I just need to make a quick buck during the period of active market. During this period, the promotion fee will not be too high and the promotion cycle will not be too long. For individual small sellers, capital recovery is a great benefit.

2. For example, the idea of ​​a big boss who was doing distribution/fine distribution was like this:

The simplest and most brutal method is: filter the links in different categories that have been put on the shelves in the past month, as well as the number of links with relatively large growth in orders and rankings in different time periods of 12 months, four quarters, and other periods. The more such links there are, the more active the category is. Note that it is the growth rate, not the growth base. If there are 0 orders and 0 rankings at the beginning of the link, even if there are 1 to 5 orders after a few days, the growth rate is also 100% to 500%. If a category with 0 comments links can get orders after a few days, then if you distribute 100 links, assuming a 50% failure rate, can you get more than 50 orders a day?

Although I know that the original poster wants to do pure boutique, or to say less links, centralized operation, but you have to know that the product life cycle and market trends are dynamic. On the one hand, it is the dynamics of changes in consumer demand, and on the other hand, it is the dynamics of changes, iterations, and investment changes of competitors. As a small vendor, especially a part-time small vendor, there are actually many obstacles to deal with.

Not to mention you as a small individual seller, even those companies with a production value of hundreds of millions cannot say that they can generally achieve "products with a long life cycle and stable profit margins". The two situations that I can think of that can meet these two points at the same time are "market segments with barriers, the barriers can be of various types" and "markets that other sellers have not yet discovered and have not squeezed in."

Which categories are suitable for fewer links and more inventory (one sku with a large stock quantity) and which categories are suitable for more links and less inventory, this requires you to judge and distinguish by yourself. The one-trick pony strategy is conditional now (capital, supply chain, product research and development, promotion level, etc. are all restricted by many conditions). For small sellers, flexibility is the most important thing.

The attachment contains the sharing of other colleagues, which can be used as additional reference.

Anonymous user

In summary, there are two major demands: how to choose a category/product, and how to more effectively determine whether this product can be made, what its potential is, and whether it can make money.

First, clarify your own strengths (supply chain advantages, operational strengths), and then determine your target positioning. For example, if you have factory resources that are relatively advantageous in pet toys, then this is your main track. There are thousands of products under this track. At this time, you can choose products in your own subdivided field based on the product selection software. For example, the monthly average efficiency of the top is 3000+ (to ensure market demand), the number of new products accounts for more than 20% (proving that new products have opportunities), and the return rate is less than 5%. You can combine your own needs and the data of Seller Elf to subdivide your requirements and find your own comfort zone.

To be honest, it is difficult to find a blue ocean market with potential by developing software, because there are too many softwares and many markets have been developed. This is no longer a threshold. If you have a factory, it is recommended to develop products based on the advantages of your supply chain and not to focus on a track you are not good at.

Then another point is, what have you been good at in the past 6 years, operations or product selection? Or both? In fact, we work together with operations and development to research products. Development has some perspectives that operations lack, and operations have some market operation data analysis, which development lacks. For a certain module, let development and operations work together to create an analysis SOP and make an online form. This is a joint effort. Generally, development tends to select products and find a certain market category, while operations determine whether this category can be done through analysis - whether it can be done to meet the company's goals.

Segmenting the market serves the purpose. The finer the analysis dimension, the more comprehensive the consideration, and the more accurate the conclusion will be. I have collected some product selection information before, and you can plan it based on the two logics I just mentioned. If the resources and supply chain are not strong, you can pay attention to some blue ocean categories and make some small and beautiful products (use product selection software to filter according to sales, comments, and shelf time)

Anonymous user

I feel the frustration of the stalemate that the poster is facing, and the urgent need to change but not knowing where to start, so I want to do my best to help.

I have no detailed product selection ideas and no successful experience to refer to. I would like to offer two points for your reference:

1. About product selection <br>Although choosing a long-tail keyword market segment with a certain profit is the consensus of many small sellers, we must know that this market is constantly developing, that is, the market segment itself has cyclical changes. Maybe the market segment that the questioner and many sellers jointly discovered is enough to earn dividends for 2-3 years, but now it may only be half a year to one year. It is not that the market segment no longer exists, but that the profit space cycle of small sellers has shortened.

So the main purpose of the question is to increase the frequency of new products in the market segment. Of course, the result is bound to shorten the cash flow of the store, which affects the profit of the questioner. But this is already a trend. At the same time, in order to avoid excessive financial risks, from a practical point of view, for example, if the questioner opens 3 products in 2024, then in 2025, he may have to open 5-6 products. This calculation can eventually reach the ideal balance point of the questioner.

2. About innovation <br>Previous experience has achieved profitability by relying on differentiated products and sufficient data support. Although the current market changes are very complex and changeable, various AI creative technologies are dazzling and make people feel full of crisis, but let's think about it, are the more novel, creative and constantly changing things more attractive to consumers? I think we can all feel that the answer is no because this logic is too abstract and too rational, lacking in humanistic color~

Okay, let's start talking human language.
If the questioner focuses too much on the innovation and change of creative products, he may deviate from the mainstream mass line. Although people have a curiosity, they still have to be grounded in the end. That is, product quality is the first principle. Therefore, it is recommended that the questioner return his attention to the product itself, continuously improve the quality, and then appropriately differentiate it to avoid putting the cart before the horse and taking a detour, which will only be a thankless task.

SeaSea

Agree with: Yangzhou in March

With about six years of experience, I can start my own product based on your post.

1 For the same product, you spend a lot of time screening, making differentiated and improved products, and simultaneously launching them on multiple platforms. They may all fail, but compared with the time you spent before, I think the marginal cost of this is lower.

2. Deepen the categories and supply chain. Old products are not tasty, new products are not successful, and advertising is getting more and more expensive. This is my current understanding. It is actually very difficult to keep a high success rate in product selection. Even when the category changes, you have to relearn a category accordingly. So I suggest narrowing the matrix in terms of categories, making it more refined, and establishing certain advantages for yourself.

3 Foreigners I know use recipes, that is, when they don’t know what to cook, they will use the recipes in the jar to cook. Then you must have a certain idea when selecting products, and you need to think about this idea in depth and rely on what feedback mechanism. For example, new products on the new product list, new hot products on other sites, new products from the source, etc. Make this idea clear and take the initiative, instead of just seeing it and thinking that it can be done.

4. Register patents for your own products. At present, capital is important and information is transparent, so it is difficult for individual sellers to go branding, but intellectual property rights still need to be paid more and more attention, one is self-protection and the other is counterattack.

Also, it's a bit of nonsense. Keep learning. Environmental policies are always changing. Post something like this again in half a year and see how others respond. Haha.

The only sentence I remember from the entire book on marketing is – Create Value for Customer. Let’s encourage each other.

Anonymous user

The most ideal situation is to find a blue ocean market with relatively less competition and high profits, that is, a product that can sell 1 and return 3, which is generally above 30.99. The lower the market, the thinner the profit, and the more it tests the technology and supply chain capabilities.

Products below 20.99 have a net profit margin of 10-15%. Products below 10.99 may only make 7-8 yuan per order, and they are all sold in large quantities. The most classic products in this area are clothing, shoes, bags, and 3C series, which are very popular.

In fact, every market is quite competitive now (except for those with patented private models). If you don’t choose products according to your actual situation, you basically can’t survive.

For example, for toys and small accessories, the cost in Yiwu is 10 yuan at most, and you can sell them for 9.99 with a 15% discount + 10% advertising fee, and you can still make 10 yuan. Then if you buy goods in Hangzhou or Guangzhou, the cost is basically 2-30 yuan, so you can only sell them for 15.99, which is not much to make and the pressure is high. So you still have to choose according to the actual factory conditions around your base, or your own resources. It is best if the factory has its own patents and unique designs, which are easier to promote.

From a cost perspective, I calculate your profit of 7k per month, and if the net profit margin is 10%, it is only 10k USD per month. The average daily sales volume is only 300, and 10 pieces at 30.99 will be back.

If you promote 5 products with 2 orders per day or 10 products with 1 order per day, it is actually quite easy to achieve. The key point is whether you have the funds and resources to develop them. The current pricing ratio is basically 4-5, that is, $5 for the purchase and $20 for the order.

In terms of proportion, 25-30% is product cost, 15% is commission, 5% is refund, 15% is advertising, and 15-20% is the beginning and end of the process, so the gross profit is about 15-25%.

If you haven’t found your own product line after 6 years, it proves that you were just more lucky in making money before. . . .

Anonymous user

1. The OP's previous profitable products were quite unique in terms of differentiation (appearance, functions, accessories, etc.). If there is an opportunity, it is best to expand vertically and extend existing products and expand in the covered usage scenarios. For example, you can discover unpopular but relatively large demands from the keyword database, and develop products to supplement the vertical categories. The categories are also familiar and more experienced to operate, which is relatively easier and more accurate than finding a needle in a haystack; and you can undertake some related traffic and customer needs, which can appropriately reduce the initial promotion costs and make profits as soon as possible.

2. Category expansion. The success rate of new product launches has been greatly reduced. Under the premise of limited budget, you must focus on the segmented functions of segmented products in a certain segmented node of a large category, that is, for a segmented audience. Some differentiation is worthless and customers will not pay for it. Avoiding popular items is definitely the basis. If you see overwhelming recommendations for hot-selling products in certain categories on forums or some cross-border websites, don’t even think about running and dodging them. Don’t even touch them.

3 Brewmasters

It is actually quite difficult to make a few thousand to 10,000 yuan a month under the current situation. The profit is about 1K US dollars. If the profit is 20%, and the monthly sales are 5k US dollars, and the average order value is 25-30, then there will be 5-6 orders per day.

The problem lies in orders 5-6, which is actually in great conflict with the 20% profit.

1. The stocking cost is high. 200 units per month. With the current FBA warehouse configuration, it is difficult to stock reasonably. If the stocking cost is only 200 units per month, the FBA cost will be high, which will eat into the profit.

2. This amount of orders is not easy to stabilize the ranking even in some small categories. It needs to be maintained through continuous advertising, and it is difficult to guarantee profits.

In summary, if you want to make money stably with 5-6 orders per day, you can only develop some categories that can become the top ones with 5-6 orders per day. That is what you call the long-tail category direction. If it is a large category with this volume, you basically cannot make money.

Anonymous user

You can first learn how to fully understand the market of a product? From which aspects to do it? Analyze competitors, what should you mainly analyze? You can read this post: https://www.wearesellers.com/question/75441

There is another high-quality post introducing development learning content that I would like to share with you, https://www.wearesellers.com/question/69635. There is a private post in the forum asking about product selection ideas. The original post is here, https://www.wearesellers.com/question/29721. You should not see the answer. You can check out everyone's answers here, https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/tSs0aDlTe-3_WLJR6YZFbA

Anonymous user

Which sellers usually tell you about the treasures hidden deep in the market? If you have factory resources, you can get the factory's goods at a lower price, or the factory can work together to open private models. Some private models can be solved for hundreds or thousands of yuan. If you don't have factory resources, you can investigate whether there are opportunities in the market you have been or are currently doing.