The popularity of online shopping continues to surge and as a result, an ever-growing army of eCommerce merchants are entering the market.
With the competition growing fiercer by the day, sourcing a winning product at the right price can be the difference between the success and failure of your store.
AliExpress is a haven for cheap products that can be a roaring success when combined with good eCommerce marketing. Uncovering these hidden gems isn’t easy, however.
Luckily for you, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide to show you how to find products on AliExpress,so you pick a winner, not a dud!
Why AliExpress?
Established in 2010, AliExpress is one of the biggest online marketplaces in the world. Today, it sells everything from clothing and electronics, to home goods and jewelry. Those setting up a dropshipping business often turn to AliExpress because:
- They can source almost anything through its site
- They connect directly with manufacturers, so products are cheaper and can be sold for a profit on the likes of Amazon or eBay
- AliExpress facilitates dropshipping and doesn’t charge upfront fees for the service
- Most listings feature great product photos and descriptions
- It serves over 190 countries around the world
How to find products on AliExpress
Having such a huge number of products to choose from is great, but it can also be overwhelming. Want to find products on AliExpress which are sure to sell well? Check out the following steps to find and verify winning products for your store.
1. Check out AliExpress’s Best Sellers
If you’re looking for some inspiration to kick off your product search, the AliExpress homepage usually showcases some of its best selling products. It’s ‘Official Ranking’ page also highlights the most popular and best selling listings across each of its 13 categories.
Head to the category most relevant to your eCommerce niche for a broad overview of what’s selling well right now.
2. Filter your AliExpress search results
For some more in-depth research, head to the category or subcategory most relevant to your business. Or, alternatively, search for a relevant keyword.
Thousands of products are likely to pop up, so you can narrow down your options using filters. Finding products on AliExpress without using filters will take considerably longer!
To find the most in-demand products on AliExpress, sort the results by ‘Orders’ rather than ‘Best match’. This way, you’ll be shown listings with the highest sales.
However, it’s worth noting that cheaper products often have the highest orders. With profitability in mind, you can set minimum pricing parameters to find items which you can make a sizable profit on.
Depending on your needs, other filters to to consider using are:
- A minimum four-star product rating
- Free shipping
- Country to ship from
3. Criteria to watch out for on AliExpress
You can now browse the filtered results until you find something suitable for your store. Because you’ve sorted them by order numbers, you can rest assured that the top items have commercial appeal. But you should also look out for listings with:
- Detailed product descriptions
- Compelling product photos
- Great customer reviews – these can be imported to your online store
- ePacket shipping – this tends to be faster and often comes with tracking information
- Sellers with a good response rate
These will be beneficial later on when you’re selling the products and providing customer support.
Related article: The Complete Guide to Shopify Images
4. Snoop through top Shopify Stores
To find out what sells well for other eCommerce merchants, head to MyIP.ms and click into its worldwide websites database.
Add Shopify under the IP owner filter and you’ll be presented with a list of the most popular Shopify stores.
If you want to check out the best selling products on any of these stores – or any other Shopify-hosted store – just add ‘/collections/all?sort_by=best-selling’ to the end of its domain name.
If you think any of these best sellers will work for your store too, you can search for similar products on AliExpress.
5. Find products people are talking about
Stay on top of trending products by searching for your eCommerce niche on Pinterest, Instagram and other social networks. You can also browse review sites and check what influencers are promoting right now.
This is a great way to discover popular styles and products that people currently love. Then you can head over to AliExpress to find similar products. This way, you can piggyback on the exposure these products have already received.
6. Find out what products are in-demand on eBay
Even if you aren’t dropshipping on eBay, Watch Count is a handy tool for figuring out how much demand is out there for a product. If demand is high on eBay, it’s probably high on other platforms too.
Watch Count let’s you know how many people have added a product to their watch list on eBay. If hundreds or thousands are watching a product, this is a sign of strong demand – and a potential best selling product!
You can search by keyword to see a list of popular products. Alternatively, if you have a specific product from AliExpress in mind, find it on eBay and enter its URL to see exactly how many people have it on their watch list. This is a great way to verify a product’s demand before adding it to your store.
Watch Count also allows you to filter results by country, for checking demand in your local market, and by price.
7. Check Amazon’s Best Sellers Rank
Amazon’s Best Seller Rank showcases the top 100 items in each of its product categories. This only scratches the surface as Amazon has countless listings, but it offers great insights into what sells best within your niche.
If you find products on AliExpress and want to double check their profitability, you can go to the product’s page on Amazon and see its Best Seller Rank. If it ranks well, this indicates that it’s a popular item that could sell well for you too.
In the example below, you’ll see that this set of lunchboxes ranks 2,386 out of 90,000 within Amazon’s Kitchen and Dining category. It also ranks 123 out of 30,000 in its food storage and organization subcategory. The latter is a particularly promising position.
8. Do some keyword research
How often people are searching a product’s name is a good indication of interest. So check to see how often your potential AliExpress product is Googled with tools like Keyword Planner and ahrefs.
Doing some Amazon keyword research is also a good idea. If thousands of shoppers are typing your product name into Amazon each month, this is a strong sign of demand – even if you’re selling elsewhere. Sonar and SellerApp provide limited keyword searches for free, while KeywordTool.io shows search volumes for both Amazon and eBay.
These tools can also highlight keyword variations, which could influence your AliExpress searches and even the products you choose to add to your inventory.
For example, if I wanted some women’s hiking boots for my store, I might opt for a waterproof product after seeing the below search volumes.
9. Check Google trends
It’s worth checking whether interest in your chosen AliExpress product is growing or declining. An upward trend is an encouraging sign and suggests you could profit from this item for the foreseeable future. It’s also great for spotting seasonal demands, just make sure Google Trends is set to your local region.
10. Make use of product research tools
Product research tools like SellerApp provide an easy and automated way of spotting product trends. It’s also a great way to find products on AliExpress that are profitable. These paid tools offer data which can help you figure out the revenue and sales potential of a particular item.
Final words
There’s no way to know for sure which products will fly off the shelves. From your eCommerce marketing strategy to your store’s reputation, so many things can influence sales. But following these tips can help you identify and verify which products are most likely to appeal to your audience.
If you have a gut feeling about a certain product on AliExpress, these checks can help you substantiate their potential. If the indicators are positive, you’re likely to be onto a winner!
Did you know that over 60% of US online retail purchases were made through Amazon last year? Amazon’s hold over eCommerce is well established, with 9.1 million active Amazon sellers worldwide and an average of 66 thousand orders per day. Newer sellers may be wondering how they can get more sales on Amazon in such a competitive environment.
The truth is, they absolutely can because with Amazon’s booming market share come many opportunities. We’ve assembled this digestible list of 14 quick wins and strategic moves, to help you up your game and sell more on Amazon.
1. Do keyword research
Having the right keywords can be one of the most important tactics in reaching your target audiences. Using the keywords that are common to searches for your products is the objective, but search engine optimisation (SEO) is a constantly evolving game. That means that keywords used successfully in the past may not be as effective with updated search engine algorithms today.
The terms used by customers to find products change daily and are affected by seasonal, cultural, and economic factors. Hence, it’s important to stay on top of the latest SEO trends and make sure you cast a wide net when implementing keywords for each product listing.
Each product should be optimized with as many relevant keywords as possible – into the hundreds! This gives you the best possible chance of getting your products found by customers, helping you sell more on Amazon.
Amazon keyword research tools like Helium 10, SellerApp, Jungle Scout, and AMZ One can help by generating a list of related keywords with search volume, competition level, and other useful metrics, making it easier for you to choose the best keywords for your product listing
2. Use a repricing tool to get more sales on Amazon
When it comes to sealing the deal and making a sale, price is a main deciding factor for many customers. As an Amazon seller, you always want to make sure you’re pricing your products competitively, but equally, you don’t want to lose your margin!
This is something that using repricing software can help with. Repricing software automates the pricing process in real-time, ensuring your prices stay in line with those of competitors, and with market fluctuations, while you get more sales on Amazon.
Repricing software also has many customisable features that allow you to set prices at optimal levels to help drive sales, without compromising profit. It’s worth taking a trial to see how it can help lift your sales.
3. Get more Amazon reviews
Online reviews are important to spread confidence through word of month and for building credibility for your brand. It’s also a fact that 72% of shoppers won’t buy until they’ve read reviews of a product from people like themselves – people they trust.
Even a strong product with great marketing behind it still has to overcome the fear of the unknown if there’s no social proof. Plus, positive reviews are a significant factor in deciding which products win the Amazon Buy Box.
Get more Amazon reviews by encouraging feedback from your customers. The best way to do this is by utilizing feedback software to automate the process.
4. Provide great customer service
Customer service is absolutely essential in eCommerce. Offering top-quality customer service not only adds value, but helps retain customers. A big part of making a sale is assuring the customer that they can trust you to deliver, and that trust is hard earned but easily lost. Providing good eCommerce customer service is critical, and committing to providing great customer service is all the more so!
As an Amazon seller, you need to be on top of your customer service. Responsiveness, a friendly manner and quick and easy resolution processes are all ingredients that make for a winning approach to great customer service.
But it can be confusing trying to streamline it all. Thankfully, there are all sorts of tools available to make this job easier, like helpdesk software to keep all your customer interactions in one place. This helps you to respond quickly and accurately to customer inquiries when they come in, so that your customers always know you’ve got their back.
5. Leverage Amazon seller tools
The best part about being an Amazon seller is that you don’t have to go it alone. There are numerous tools available to help you maximize your business and get the most out of selling on Amazon, whether third-party or FBA.
From repricing tools, to help desk software, to review software and even shipping assistance, many tools exist on the market today that specifically help Amazon sellers optimize their listings, prices, feedback, shipping, customer service and even their taxes.
There are many different seller tools available, so it’s worth reading about options and making an informed decision about the right ones to choose for your business. With the right tools, you can grow your business more than you ever thought possible.
6. Get more sales on Amazon with ads
Running ads is almost guaranteed to help you get more sales on Amazon, but it’s easy to just throw money at them and hope for the best. You can do better! Pay attention to your advertising cost of sales (ACOS) metric, the figure for how much ad spend you need in order to make a sale.
By advertising more efficiently, you lower your ACOS and ensure you get more bang for your buck. Over time, you’ll learn what works and you can employ a strategy with regards to how you run your ads. Taking an insight-driven approach to Amazon ads results in a more profitable Amazon business!
7. Optimise your product pages
The old saying goes that 80% of readers never make it past the headline of any piece of content. That means once you’ve written your product title, you’ve effectively spent 80 cents of your dollar.
When writing product titles, stick to the formula of:
- Brand name
- Product name
- Features (size, colour, gender etc).
This lets you include the right keywords in the right order to immediately tell shoppers that this is the product for them.
Moreover, making sure to visually design your product pages so that they’re clean, simple and easy to read will also help win over shoppers. No one wants to read through a cluttered page. The more straightforward (yet informative) and the cleaner you make your design, the more likely you’ll be to win over those elusive eyeballs!
8. Win the Amazon Buy Box
The quickest way to get more sales on Amazon is by ensuring that your products show up consistently in the Amazon Buy Box (the area in the top right of a product page, where shoppers can ‘Add to Cart’ or ‘Buy Now’). This is because over 82% of sales happen through this highly sought after space.
Although the exact formula to win the Buy Box is unknown, there are a few things that we know are essential. These are mainly metrics that prove the seller is providing a good customer experience. Customer reviews play a big role here. The more positive reviews a seller can amass, the likelihood of winning the Buy Box increases.
In addition to reviews, something else that’s obviously very important to Amazon shoppers is price! By using repricing software, you can automatically set your prices at the optimal level to win the Buy Box and maximize profit, even if you’ve got an enormous inventory.
9. Amazon account health rating
The Amazon account health rating (AHR) is a new feature that helps you monitor your account health based on its adherence to Amazon seller policies.
It considers both negative factors (such as the number of unresolved policy violations on your account) as well as positive factors (how your account positively impacts the customer experience through its selling activities).
Each account will be given a rating, which is regularly reviewed as Amazon monitors the performance of its sellers. If your account is off-target, you will be notified so that you can improve your performance. Conversely, a good AHR rating will work in your favor, helping assure customers that they’re doing business with a compliant seller.
10. Maintain your Amazon SLA
A big part of being a seller is cultivating trust with your customers. That means showing them that you operate in an above-board manner and that you’ll make good on your promise of fulfillment to them. One way of doing that is by making sure your Amazon store has a Service Level Agreement (SLA). This is a promise to your customers that they’ll receive their orders on time. When it comes to fulfillment, the SLA is based on the capacity to fulfill open orders and on-time shipping and delivery.
SLAs help manage customer expectations by defining standards and outlining circumstances under which you as the seller won’t be liable for unfulfilled promises (e.g., natural disasters preventing shipping, etc).
eDesk’s customer service solution is designed to alert you when your SLA is expiring, so your business is never caught without one. Having a current SLA helps you maintain transparency with customers, thereby building trust which helps ensure customer loyalty.
11. Focus on products that already sell
Most ambitious business owners want to try new streams of revenue, but it’s important not to lose sight of the things that are making you money now.
By doubling down on the products that already provide your Amazon store with a reliable revenue stream, you not only deliver to market demand but ensure that you have the financial runway required to take risks on innovative new products, if need be.
Review your financial statements every quarter and look at the items that are performing best in your store. Think about how you can continue to market these with ads, SEO keywords and upgraded images to maximize their selling potential in your online store.
12. Sync your inventory
Inventory can be a delicate balancing act. Hold too much inventory for too long and you need to pay over the odds to store it. But hold too little inventory and you lose out on vital sales, or even customers, due to an inability to fulfill. Amazon can also penalize you if your inventory performance isn’t up to standard.
Stock control is something every seller needs to understand and have the capability to manage for optimal results. Smart inventory management is an under-appreciated way to increase your Amazon sales and profit margin. Fortunately, there are tools that can help. Investing in the right tools and software can help sellers take the stress out of balancing supply and demand.
13. Expand into new Amazon marketplaces
Amazon currently has 20 marketplaces around the world, which include the US, Canada, Mexico, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, Singapore, Brazil, Australia and more.
You can scale your brand by moving into some of these marketplaces. This can involve doing market research to find out which products are popular in each market and then uplevelling your shipping operations in order to be able to ship globally.
But expanding into new markets also means you’ll need to take language into consideration and localize your listings so that they feature each marketplace’s local language and SEO keywords in the appropriate language. Multilingual customer service is also needed in order to be able to service customers across various marketplaces in their local language.
Sounds complicated? It doesn’t have to be. eDesk’s help desk solution is designed to support customer service and workflow in multiple languages, so you can expand your business without investing in the overhead of hiring a global team.
14. Spy on your competitors
Ok, maybe “spy” is a bit of an exaggeration, but profitable sellers are always on the lookout for what their competitors are doing. You want to make sure you’re offering the right inventory for your market at the right prices. Repricing software will monitor this for you, taking the guesswork out of pricing at the right levels.
Using data gleaned from helpdesk reporting can also help you gather valuable insights and feedback from your customers, which will help you to better understand what customers want and need. Acting on analytics-driven insights from easy-to-read reports means you’re always one step ahead of the competition.
Final thoughts
The quest to increase your store’s Amazon sales doesn’t need to be an uphill struggle. There are many resources available to Amazon sellers today to help them optimize their store and develop a healthy sales pipeline.
By staying in touch with how the Amazon platform grows and using the right tech tools to drive your business, you can continue to do what you do best: building a great brand, winning customers, retaining existing customers and improving your bottom line.
