16 Amazon product selection analysis indicators and their application methods

The selection of products is just like the audition of a variety show. 500,000 people from all over the country participated and 150 people were selected to record.

The top five will be selected and the national champion will be decided at the Bird's Nest.

In the process, of course, you need to use many screening conditions to filter continuously. These conditions are whether they meet the "product selection indicators"

Let me first list these 16 Amazon product selection indicators

Each item will be explained in detail later!

The above is ranked by the importance of product selection. Items 1 to 7 are essential conditions for product selection. Items 8 to 10 are relatively important but not essential. Items 11 to 16 are personal choices based on your own planning and are not essential conditions for product selection. It is recommended that you compare all products that are difficult to sell with these 16 indicators one by one. The more indicators your product can pass, the better.

1. The product price is between 10 and 50 USD

The price of a product is very important. This is what buyers will definitely see and consider before placing an order. The price range of $10 to $50 can be said to be the sweet spot (optimal range) because this price range easily leads buyers to make impulse purchases.

  If the price of a product is within this range, most buyers do not need to compare prices with other products to decide whether to buy it. Because the price is very low, buyers are willing to bear the risk of bad products and place orders without hesitation. Even if the product is not as expected, losing a little money is nothing.

  Imagine if you were going to buy a more expensive product, such as a lawn mower or a brand new TV, you would spend a lot of time researching and comparing prices, and it would be impossible for you to make an impulse purchase. Moreover, more expensive and sophisticated products usually have big brands and international brands, which small sellers with their own brands cannot compete with.

  Another reason is that the products in this price range are usually simpler, unlike the high-priced products which are usually more sophisticated and complex, such as mouse pads (simple, cheap) and speakers (delicate and complex, more easily damaged, expensive).

  Products in this price range are an easy entry point for sellers with smaller capital to enter the e-commerce industry. The production prices of these products in China are also relatively low. The following are two examples of products in different price ranges.

If you are not a manufacturer or a large-scale company and do not have sufficient funds, it is obvious from the above example that small sellers who want to create their own brands must start from the price range of 10 to 50 US dollars.

  This product price range is an important key to the success of product selection. If you are a novice, it is best to choose products according to this price range when selecting products.

2. The product should be light

Ideally, the lighter the product, the better. 4-5 pounds is definitely too heavy, unless you plan to sell a product that is priced high. The weight discussed here refers to the shipping weight, not the weight of the product itself. The shipping weight includes the product itself, the product packaging and the shipping carton.

Generally, when the manufacturer gives you product information, it is difficult for you to know the actual shipping weight of the product. So when choosing products, you can try to find similar products of the same size on Amazon and estimate your own shipping weight based on their shipping weight.

The weight will determine the shipping cost from China to the Amazon warehouse in the United States and the Amazon FBA shipping fee. If the weight of the product exceeds 2 pounds, it will greatly affect your profit margin .

The following are the maximum dimensions and weights of packaged goods. It is recommended that the size of the selected product be within the large standard size (Large standard-size). It would be best if it is within the small standard size (Small standard-size)!

The following figure shows the charges for Amazon US FBA. Amazon began adjusting the charges on February 19, 2019. The charges for small standard-size products have been reduced! Amazon is helping you save on shipping costs, so are you stupid not to choose products of this size? It is also clear from the table that the weight of the product should be controlled below 1 pound, and if it exceeds 1 pound, it is best to keep it below 2-3 pounds.

For detailed FBA prices, please refer to the official website

Overview of changes to US sales commissions and Amazon Fulfillment Fees in 2019

The weight of the product affects your profit margin, which is also a cost that buyers don't see. If the weight of the product is too heavy and the shipping cost increases significantly, your product price will need to be raised to compensate for the shipping cost. Raising the price only compensates for the cost and does not increase your profit, but buyers will think the price is expensive. So if possible, try to keep the product size in a small standard size.

3. The product is ranked within 5,000 in the major category

If you want to know whether a product is selling well on Amazon, the best way is to refer to the Best Seller Rank (BSR). From the BSR, you can see whether the product is selling well in the category. For example, in the same category, the sales volume of the product ranked 2000 will definitely be much higher than that of the product ranked 20000. The ranking can tell the current market demand for the product.

If a product ranks first after entering a keyword, but only sells 1-2 units a day, this product is not what we want. There are other ways to determine market demand, but BSR is undoubtedly the fastest and most effective method.

There are many opinions about the BSR selection criteria. Some say that it is enough to be within 10,000, some say that 500-2,500 is the best condition, and some recommend that it is within 5,000. In fact, it should depend on your product category. The number of products in each product category is different, and the market capacity and demand are also different.

For product categories with large market capacity or large number of products, the BSR screening condition can be used to catch products such as books in the future. It is definitely no problem to catch 10,000th. If you rank 10,000th in the book category, you may be in the top 0.5% of the category, but if you rank 10,000th in the baby products category, you may only be in the top 5% of the category.

Without discussing the categories, we recommend a middle value to everyone, and select products with BSR ranking within 5000 in the major categories. Ideally, after entering your product keywords, there should be at least 2-3 products ranked within 5000 in the first page of search results in the major categories, which also means that this product has a certain demand in the market.

What are major categories and minor categories? Take the following picture as an example. Although this product has a good ranking in the minor category, it is only ranked 21,571 in the major category. It is very likely that the sales volume of this product is not very good.

Finally, remember to confirm whether there are other similar products ranked within the top 5,000 to ensure the demand for this product on Amazon.

4. Confirm the category or niche of the product. There are no big brands or international brands.

If you are a small seller without sufficient funds and manpower, you must avoid product categories dominated by big brands! Don't think that your products can compete with these big brands, they will definitely be far ahead of you.

Apart from the brand effect, it is difficult for you to produce products with lower costs but better quality than big brands. You cannot compete with them in terms of products alone, and buyers tend to choose brands they are familiar with or have heard of. Therefore, if a product category is dominated by many big brands, it is recommended to stay away from them!

How do you confirm whether there are big brand products in the category? It ’s very simple. Go to Amazon and search for your product keywords to see if your attention is caught by the brand. If you see a familiar brand on the first page of search results, it is not a good sign.

However, it is not a problem if the brand product is not the product you want to sell. For example, if the word you searched is Dog Collar, although there are products from a big brand on the first page, the products are Bark Collars, which are obviously different from the ordinary dog ​​collars you want to sell. In this case, even if there is a big brand on the first page, it will not affect your product selection because the products are different.

Ideally, you would like the products on the first page of search results to be from different brands, and they are small and unknown brands! This is also a very important condition in product selection. Products and product categories without competition from big brands can reduce competitive disadvantages.

Product categories to avoid:

• Appliances

• Appstore

• Books

• Clothing

• Electronics

• Gift Cards

• Grocery and Gourmet Food

• Kindle Store

• MP3 Downloads

• Magazines

• Movies and TV

• Music

• Prime Pantry

• Shows

• Software

• Video Games

5. The product is durable and not easy to break or deform.

This is very important. Many negative reviews come from damaged products. It is very important to choose products that are not easily damaged during transportation .

  Try to avoid products that are made up of multiple parts or have electronic components. Choose products that have only a single main body, such as yoga mats or mouse pads. These types of products are also easier to find manufacturers to produce.

Simple Product Condition List

• Rugged

• Easy to find manufacturers in China

• No electronic parts

• No disassembly parts

• No instruction manual required.

• Products only have a single function

• universality

6. The first page of product search contains at least 2-3 products with less than 50 reviews

If a product has less than 50 reviews, you have a better chance of competing with it and beating it. If the products on the first page of search results are all products with hundreds or even thousands of reviews, do you think you have a chance of beating it? Buyers will definitely choose the products with more reviews!

Give yourself a chance to win, choose at least 2-3 products on the first page with less than 50 reviews, so that you have a chance to squeeze into the first page! The more products with less than 50 reviews, the greater the chance of squeezing into the first page.

Suppose there is a product with great market demand, but there are very few reviews on the first page of search results, maybe less than 5 reviews. Congratulations, you have found a product with potential, and the chance of it making it to the first page is very high!

As we all know, the number of reviews is one of the important factors affecting rankings, so when selecting products, reviews are also one of the very important selection criteria.

7. The cost price of the product should be 25% lower than the selling price.

This is just a quick check to see if the potential product you selected has a certain profit margin. Of course, if you really want to do it, there will be many other complicated calculations, which we will skip here and just teach you a simple way to estimate profits!

How do you know the supplier's price? After selecting the product you are interested in, you can go to 1688 Procurement Wholesale Network to check the supplier's price. Is the cost less than 25% of the selling price?

Is 25% of the cost too low? Why leave 75% profit margin? Isn't 75 % too much? The answer is no.

To maintain a certain profit, this 75% is absolutely necessary. It includes FBA head-haul fees, tariffs, FBA shipping fees, FBA storage fees, Amazon platform commissions, value-added tax, in-site advertising fees and your profit. So when you add up all the little things, 75% is just right.

If the cost has to exceed 25%, it is recommended not to exceed 40% . If it exceeds 40%, you basically will not make any profit from selling, and there is even the possibility of a loss.

Friends who hate math are in luck! Bigtracker comes with a profit calculator that includes FBA shipping costs and Amazon platform commissions (no need to calculate it yourself, it’s very convenient). After entering your costs, you can quickly calculate the single profit price, gross profit margin and return on investment %.

For example, if the price of a USB charging cable is $7.99, you can get the minimum cost of $2. The system will automatically calculate how much profit you have left after deducting the FBA shipping fee and the Amazon platform commission fee . After evaluating these profits and deducting the FBA first-mile fee, tariffs, FBA storage fees, value-added tax, and in-site advertising fees, how much do you have left? !

If you can't find a product with the same quality and lower cost than others, don't try it easily, because your selling price will not be able to compete with others, not to mention other factors. In the end, you often have to sell at a loss. Don't try to compete with these big sellers or manufacturers with low prices, because in the end you will lose everything.

8. Existing product listings have room for improvement and optimization

When you find that the product listings on the first page are not perfect and there is still a lot of room for optimization, congratulations, your chances of getting on the first page have greatly increased! This is the same as the reason for having less than 50 reviews. We all hope that the products we choose have a certain chance of getting on the first page of search results. So when the existing product listings on the first page are not yet complete in terms of optimization and there is room for improvement, this means that after your product is put on the shelves,

In addition to product selection skills, you can also rely on operational skills to help your products get to the first page.

How does Amazon select products? What are unoptimized listings?

• No product images or only a single product image

• The product images are of poor quality

• Very short or no product description

• Bullet Points that are not filled

• Very brief description

• Product highlights are omitted

• The title is not optimized

• Title and Bullet Points have no keywords

9. The top three keywords of the product have more than 100,000 searches per month

How to confirm whether the product you choose has market demand? A simple way is to look at the search volume of the product keywords. Select the top three keywords and see if the search volume exceeds 100,000.

10. Can the product be easily supplied by suppliers in China?

China is undoubtedly a major manufacturing country today, and the lowest cost is definitely in China. Therefore, when selecting products, you must make sure that you can easily find suppliers for your products. You can also go to 1688 Procurement and Wholesale Network to have a look. If there are many manufacturers, you don’t need to worry about the supply problem. If there are few or even no manufacturers, you must rely on your own connections to find manufacturers. As mentioned earlier, if the product you want to sell is a simple product with a single function, it is not difficult to find a supplier. Another advantage of having many suppliers is that you can compare. Whether it is price or product quality, you have many choices to compare.

11. Non-seasonal products are especially good

The following are not necessary conditions for product selection. It is recommended that you do not choose seasonal products, such as winter down jackets or summer swimsuits. These two are seasonal products, and their sales will drop sharply after the season. Of course, some people don’t mind making money in a certain season, but non-seasonal products are better. In addition to having a fixed income every month, the product and keyword rankings are also more stable .

But if you are a manufacturer selling swimsuits or down jackets, you don’t have to worry too much about this. Just sell them according to your expertise. This condition is not a necessary condition for product selection.

12. Similar products are also sold on eBay

Another way to confirm market demand is to check other e-commerce platforms.

Is the product you want to sell also available on other platforms, such as eBay?

If so, it means that your product has a high market demand and is also sold on e-commerce platforms other than Amazon.

13. Is it possible to develop other related products to expand the brand?

If your plan is to create a private brand, you need to consider the product's extensibility when selecting products, whether this product can allow the brand to develop a series of products instead of just one product. But if you originally want to sell a single product, this product selection condition is not important.

For example, a silicone baking mat is a product with high scalability. On a small scale, it can be extended to related baking utensils, and on a larger scale, it can be sold to kitchen utensils. Products like this are very suitable for brands to develop a series of related products, and also give themselves a space to select products. In addition to the products selected at the beginning, there are also related products to choose from later.

If you want to create your own brand, this condition becomes important. The derivative nature of the product will help build a real brand.

14. The product itself has room for upgrading and improvement

Although this condition is placed at the end, the editor thinks that for sellers who want to develop their own brands, this is something that is worth careful consideration!

Imagine if you can make products with better quality or performance than existing products, or if you can make unique products that are different from existing products. You have entered the market later than others. If your price is not as low as others, and your product quality or performance is not as good as others, and you sell the same product, who will buy from you?

You can look at the existing products and see what shortcomings you can improve, or what methods you have to make your products unique, rather than being exactly the same as others. For the development of a brand, uniqueness is a very important key!

15. The product is of a nature that requires regular purchase

Products that you will buy again include vitamins, toilet paper or paper towels, laundry detergent, etc. These products are usually sold by big brands. Although it is a good thing for a product to have this property , it is usually difficult to find products that meet the above important selection criteria. So don't worry about this.

16. Products have diverse keywords

The more keywords related to a product, the greater the search volume, which means the greater the market demand. Generally, a product should have more than one keyword, but after completing the product selection according to the above selection conditions, you can still check whether the product has a variety of keywords. If there are only a few keywords, it will be very disadvantageous for competition. On the one hand, the chance of squeezing into the first page of search results is small, and on the other hand, there are fewer opportunities for exposure when doing in-site advertising, which indirectly leads to a decrease in the conversion rate, all of which will cause additional costs.