How to Find Trending Products to Sell Online

You have set up your eCommerce Site, you have evaluated your market and your marketing plan is in place… You are well on your way to becoming an online selling machine. What now? It is time to increase those sales!

Adding trending products to your online store is a sure way to boost revenue, drive web hits and cash in on all that targeted traffic. After you have determined your market demand and potential, building your sales funnel to include hot product items means more money in the bank and higher ROIs.  But how do you find those popular products everyone is talking about?

(Pssst..Here are the 60 Best-Selling Products Online to Sell in 2019)

What if I told you that you don’t need any additional budget or a host of employees to do it?  That it is as simple as using platforms, online stores and publications that are already at your disposal?

In this blog we will introduce you to the tools that are available to you to find those trending products, products that are aimed at taking your online business to the next level.

Trends at Your Fingertips

Through social media you have access to an abundance of product trend data – you just need to know where to look. Social media platforms offer valuable metrics into what consumers are buying and why they are buying them. These metrics can help you spot up-and-comers and hot-off-the-press climbers as they start to make retail noise.

Here are some trending stats you can expect from leading platforms:

Reddit Forums

Social forums are an awesome place to find trending products, do product research and get insight into any niche market. Reddit is packed full of subreddits such as: Shut Up and Take My Money, Buy For Life and Find it On Amazon. These sub-forums give you access to active communities where you can get first-hand feedback on new, trending products and see what consumers are saying about them. Or, if you are already an avid Reddit user, why not jump in on fact-finding conversations or create your own Ask Reddit.

Pinterest

Pinterest has around 100 million active users, of which 67% are said to be millennials. Why is this important? Because according to Expanded Ramblings, 79% of those millennials use Pinterest to find things they want to buy. This makes Pinterest’s Popular (trending) Section highly valuable to small businesses on the hunt for new products.

If your niche market is ‘garden and home’, a popular pin such as below (which is trending at 14k repins), offers insights into possible product direction and guidance on how to create content around your product to boost sales.

Facebook

Chances are you are already part of the 1.65 billion monthly Facebook users and are running successful Facebook campaigns. The Facebook trends search allows you to search by  #keywords and by area or groups to see the latest, top and trending posts. Not to mention all the valuable stats you get from running your advertising campaigns, which tells us what people are interested in and where they are from.

Instagram

Another great way to find trending products is to search by relating topic hashtags on Instagram. For example, if you are selling in the ‘health and fitness’ market genre, search Instagram hashtags such as #wellness or #yogapants (just to name a few)  to see what your market is posting, which posts are getting the most engagement and what people are saying in the comments. With over 400 million active users, Instagram trends are a sure winner.

Check Consumer Marketplaces

Consumer marketplaces provide you with data you can use to find those salable trending products. From AliExpress to Etsy you have access to the trends and behavior of millions of consumers worldwide. This gives you direct access to what’s hot, trending and selling, which are invaluable market metrics.

Here is how you can search for trending products within leading consumer marketplaces:

AliExpress:

AliExpress is a new consumer wholesale marketplace from Alibaba which now allows users to order in small quantities. Search the AliExpress popular page to get key insights into trending products.

Ebay:

With Ebay you have access to a host of sales data that can help you to effectively choose a trending product that is high in demand. You can easily do this by inputting a product type in the search bar and scrolling down the left selection panel and select “Sold Items” as below.

This provides you with the units that have been sold and how much they have been sold for. All the data you need to gauge a product’s popularity and its ideal selling price. There is also nothing stopping you from using Ebay as a tester before selling the product through your online store.  Auctioning off one or two testers on Ebay could help you get clarity on market demand.

If you are looking for an even easier way, why not try a platform such as eBay Watch Count or Tarapeak. Watch count is an online tool that shows you how many people are watching certain products. While Tarapeak is a platform which collects all the data from eBay listings and correlates it into easy-to-understand, usable metrics.

Etsy:

Etsy is one of the fastest growing online marketplaces where people from around the world sell and buy unique goods on and offline. It is also a good place to see what kind of products are trending. Use their trending products page to see popular products being sold.

Kickstarter:

Where better to see emerging trends than on the largest crowdfunding website? Kickstater’s discover page includes their top listed products filtered by popularity, funding earned or staff picks.

Just look at the below Kickstarter campaign. We don’t need to tell you that ‘health and fitness’ is an ever-growing market, but this campaign doubled their goal to reach a whopping $21,981 with still 26 days to go. What can we take from this? Health Food is big, and organic “healthier” snacks are definitely hot, trending products.

Amazon:

Amazon is the largest internet retailer, making it one of the best places to do your trending product research. By simply using Amazon Bestsellers, you have real-time access to a list of their most popular products based on sales. Alternatively, you can view Amazon’s Movers and Shakers list, which will show you the products with the highest sales rank gain in the last twenty-four hours.

Storenvy:

Or check out Storenvy, an eCommerce platform and marketplace, for hot, trending products and to see how the market is reacting to these trends.

Trend & Product Review Publications

Online trend watchers and product review sites offer some of the best inside look into what consumers are buying. It is handy to subscribe to them to get real-time trending product news straight to your inbox. Here are a few links to get you started:

Product Review Sites:

Product review sites not only point out trends, but offer feedback on how those trending products are faring in the market. These include publications such as Werd and AcquireMag.

PSFK:

PSFK is an online publication dedicated to trends. They offer trend reports on almost everything from innovation to the future of retail.

Trend Hunter:

Trend Hunter is the go-to for up-and-coming entrepreneurs when looking for new product ideas. With more than 137, 000 members they are one of the largest trend communities and therefore the perfect place to hunt down trending product ideas.

How to Verifying Your Trending Product

Once you have narrowed down your list of possible products, it is always good to verify them to ensure you are right-on-the-money with your choice. The quickest and easiest way to do this is by using the Google Trends tool. This will not only give you a search volume graph from 2014 to date, but even better provide you with the countries where the term has been searched for the most. I.e Where the product is the most popular.

Don’t Forget To Product Test

Once you have found some sexy trend-setters, it is important to ask yourself a few basic questions before deciding whether to sell a particular trending product online or not. These should include:
Is the product easy to ship?
Products that are fragile, for example, may cause more problems than they are worth. Choosing a product that is easily shipped with the least amount of hassle will prevent excess returned items which could hurt your business in the long run.

Does your business model include carrying inventory?
If this is the case, think of your storage space before committing to a new product.

Is there room for expansion?
Not only is it ideal to choose a product that will ensure customers become repeat buyers, but ask yourself if you could expand with accessories or industry related products.

Is it marketable?
Think of your marketing plan and your main source of traffic before jumping in. Does it have SEO clout? Can you create social media and blog content around the new product?

There you have it, a good head-start on finding those trending products and ultimately boosting revenue. That’s not to say that your non-trenders, or less exciting products if you will, can’t bring in the big bucks either – it’s all in the way you market and drive traffic to your online store.

Have questions or suggestions of your own? Feel free to reach out in the comments below or drop us a mail.

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