The Best Products To Sell On Amazon To Make A Profit

Amazon is a great place to start an ecommerce business. But in order to be successful, you have to understand how to find the best products to sell on Amazon.

In this post, you’ll learn what products are hot along with a step by step method for quickly finding the most profitable products to sell with high search volume and low competition.

You’ll learn…

The most lucrative products to sell on Amazon as a 3rd party seller
The most popular categories on Amazon for 3rd party sellers
A step by step method for finding the best products to sell on Amazon
How to source your Amazon products for sale

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Characteristics Of The Best Selling Products On Amazon

The best products to sell on Amazon are competitively priced, yield recurring revenue and never go obsolete.

If you are a first time seller, then you should look for products that meet as many of the following guidelines as possible.

Products Should Be Small And Easy To Ship

shoebox shoebox

Amazon standard size packages have a maximum dimension of 18 inches by 14 inches by 8 inches and can not weigh more than 20 pounds.

If your product exceeds this size, then your Amazon FBA fees increase dramatically.

As a result, it is to your advantage to sell products that are small, light and easy to ship.

To put things into perspective, fulfilling a 1 pound standard size package with Amazon FBA costs roughly $5.

An “oversized” package with the exact same weight would cost almost $10 to fulfill.

A good rule of thumb is to keep the size of your product and packaging below the size of a typical shoebox.

Products Should Not Be Fragile

Fragile Fragile

You can avoid most shipping headaches and reduce your Amazon return rate by selling products that are not fragile. As a result, you should avoid selling glass or ceramic based goods that can easily break during shipment.

Positive reviews on Amazon are important for ranking in Amazon search and shipping a broken product always leads to returns and negative reviews.

Products Should Not Directly Compete With Large Brands

Amazon Basics

If you see a recognizable brand on Amazon for what you want to sell, you should avoid selling that product unless you have a strong value proposition.

Amazon owns a number of private label brands that compete directly with 3rd party sellers. And because Amazon owns the platform, they always have an advantage over you in terms of price and visibility.

In fact, Amazon has a reputation for placing ads for their own private label brands directly within 3rd party product listings.

Amazon Competitor

Products Should Not Go Obsolete

cassette

If you are starting an Amazon business on a budget, you should avoid selling products that can go obsolete.

As a result, you should avoid selling cell phone cases, computer equipment and other electronic goods because they lose value over time if they are not sold quickly.

You do not want to get stuck with inventory that can not be sold.

Products Should Be Evergreen

You should sell products that are in demand all year round as opposed to specific times of the year.

For example, you should avoid selling Christmas products or Halloween products.

The pressure to liquidate all of your inventory in a limited time window can be stressful and can tie up your capital for an entire year.

Products Should Be Priced Between $20-$200

Retail Arbitrage Money

Products priced in the $20-$200 range are the sweet spot for impulse buys on Amazon.

Items priced below $20 are generally not profitable after paying Amazon selling fees.

And products priced above $200 require a longer time to purchase which is not ideal for generating sales velocity.

Products Should Facilitate Crossselling

Cross Sells

Most successful Amazon sellers sell more than one product online. And it is in your best interests to sell related products that can be easily cross sold.

For example, if you sell linen dinner napkins, you should also try to sell napkin rings or cocktail napkins.

Amazon will group your related products together to increase your average order value.

Products That Are Consumable

Pet Food

The best products to sell on Amazon are products that carry recurring revenue.

Any product that is consumable such as supplements, cleaners, lotions, soaps etc… are ideal products to sell because customers will come back for more on a regular basis.

Amazon offers a “Subscribe & Save” option to ensure that loyal customers continue to buy your products.

Products That Can Be Personalized

personalized

Any product that you can customize or personalize for the customer will always yield premium pricing on Amazon.

Currently, we sell personalized handkerchiefs on Amazon that can be embroidered with a custom message and these products yield a 90%+ margin.

Selling personalized products on Amazon precludes you from using Amazon FBA. However, the added profit margins are worth the trouble.

The Best Products To Sell On Amazon By Category

When choosing the best products to sell, you should know which product categories are the most profitable on Amazon.

Below is a list of the top 5 best selling categories on Amazon for 3rd party merchants who sell private label products.

Editor’s Note: The following Amazon categories are popular for 3rd party sellers but may not be the overall best selling categories on Amazon.

For example, Amazon gift cards are a popular category for sales but this information is not useful for 3rd party sellers.

Home & Kitchen

Home & Kitchen is the most popular category on Amazon right now. With more people staying at home and working from home, consumers are purchasing home related goods to make life more comfortable.

Here are some examples of the bestselling products on Amazon in the Home & Kitchen category.

Sheet Sets
Robotic Vacuum Cleaners
Home Organizers
Pillows And Pillowcases
Kitchen Appliances
Humidifiers
Air Purifiers

Sports & Outdoors

Sports & Outdoors is a popular category because less people are going to public gyms to workout.

Why drive somewhere when you can work out in the comforts of your own home?

Here are examples of some of the bestselling products in the Sports & Outdoors category.

Sports Apparel
Dumbbells And Weights
Water Bottles
Yoga Equipment & Exercise Mats
Fitness Trackers
Resistance Bands

Toys & Games

Toys Games

With more people spending time at home, home entertainment spending has increased as well.

Toys and & Games are the 3rd most popular category on Amazon right now for private label sellers.

Here are examples of some of the bestselling products in the Toys & Games category

Fidget Toys
Board Games
Art Supplies
Bath Toys

Beauty & Personal Care

Beauty Personal Care

Personal care is at the forefront for many purchases online in 2022. The current trend for “Beauty & Personal Care” products is towards sustainable and ethically sourced products.

Here are examples of some of the bestselling products in the Beauty & Personal Care category.

Makeup And Lotion
Face Masks
Facial And Body Cleansers
Hair Trimmers

Health & Household

Health Household

The health and household category has exploded in recent years due to concerns for personal safety.

According to WWD, health and personal care products had a 45 percent increase in 2021 with $23 billion in sales.

In fact, Amazon currently owns a 32 percent marketshare of all beauty and health products purchased online.

Here are examples of some of the bestselling products in the Health & Household category.

Disinfecting Wipes
Vitamins And Supplements
Towels And Wipes
Detergents And Cleansers

Remaining Amazon Product Categories In Order Of Popularity

Outside of the top 5, here are the remaining Amazon categories in order of popularity for 3rd party Amazon sellers.

Kitchen & Dining
Office Products
Garden & Outdoors
Tools & Home Improvement
Pet Supplies
Clothing, Shoes & Jewelry
Books
Grocery & Gourmet Food
Arts, Crafts & Sewing
Electronics
Baby
Industrial & Scientific
Automotive Parts & Accessories
Appliances
Cell Phone & Accessories
Handmade
Video Games
Apps & Games
Luggage & Travel Gear
Computers
Musical Instruments
CDs & Vinyl
Collectibles & Fine Art

How To Find The Best Products To Sell On Amazon

Once you’ve decided on a product category, you should use a keyword research tool to find the best products to sell on Amazon.

Amazon is essentially a search engine similar to Google that caters exclusively to online shoppers.

In order to succeed on Amazon, you must look for products that have high search demand with low competition.

Here’s a step by step guide on how to find the best products to sell on Amazon.

Step 1: Brainstorm Products To Sell On Amazon

brainstorm

To find the bestselling products to sell on Amazon, you must first brainstorm as many different product ideas as possible. Your goal is to start with a large pool of products and gradually filter out your best ideas.

The brainstorming process should NOT be random and you need a keyword research tool like Jungle Scout to accelerate the process.

Jungle Scout is a database of every product listing on Amazon. By querying this database with specific parameters, Jungle Scout can return you keywords and products that exactly meet your sales criteria.

For example, if you want to sell products in the “Home & Kitchen” category that fall under a certain criteria, you can use Jungle Scout to quickly retrieve that data.

In the example below, I’m using the Jungle Scout Opportunity Finder to find products and keywords that…

Generate at least $5000 in revenue
Sell at least 150 units per month
Sell for at least $20
Have a search volume of at least 1000 searches per month

Jungle Scout

Using Jungle Scout, analyze every keyword and follow the product guidelines in this post to brainstorm profitable products to sell.

Step 2: Analyze The Competition On Amazon

As you go through the keywords from the Jungle Scout Opportunity Finder, you should use these keywords to perform product searches on Amazon to analyze the competition.

Below is the Amazon sales data for products under the keyword “Removable Wallpaper Floral”.

Editor’s Note: The Jungle Scout Chrome Tool allows you to see the sales data for all of the sellers on the front page of search for your target keyword.

Jungle Scout Chrome Tool

Once you’ve brought up the sales data for your keyword, here’s what to look for.

Even Distribution Of Revenue – You never want to see one brand or listing dominating all of the sales.
Low Review Counts – The number of reviews is a measure of the strength of an Amazon listing. Ideally, you want to see review counts in the low hundreds.
High Selling Price – You want to see an average selling price greater than $20.
High Number Of Sales – You want to see a minimum of 150 sales per month.

Here’s a 4-minute video demo of how I do product research with JungleScout.

Step 3: Run The Numbers

Once you’ve found a potential product to sell, you’ll want to run the numbers to see if you can make a profit.

The easiest way to see how much profit you can make is by doing a search on Alibaba.

Editor’s Note: Go here for a step by step guide on how to buy from Alibaba.

According to Alibaba, I can source these removable wallpaper rolls for less than $2 per roll.

Alibaba Example

Meanwhile, similar looking wallpaper sells for around $20 per roll on Amazon.

Amazon wallpaper

However, the “$2 per roll” price is direct from the factory and does NOT include custom duties and shipping costs.

To calculate your true landed cost of goods, you must first find the customs duty rate.

Customs Duty

We’re in luck! Wallpaper does not have any customs duty at all.

The final step is to calculate the true landed cost of goods. Using my calculator, simply plug in the price and the duty rate to calculate your true costs.

Landed Costs

Shipping costs fluctuate all the time, but this calculator will give you a rough estimate of your landed costs.

Overall, I can source these wallpaper rolls for $3 and sell them for $20 on Amazon.

In general, you should aim for product margins greater than 66% to make a good profit selling on Amazon.

Step 4: Improve The Product

After running the numbers to make sure that you can make a profit, you should work with your factory to make sure that you have a solid valid proposition for your products.

Making a better product begins with browsing the negative reviews on Amazon for your competitors.

Amazon Review

According to reviews, this wallpaper is hard to line up. In addition, the adhesive tends to bubble up and wear out after only a few applications.

As a result, I would work with the factory to cut my wallpaper (or redesign the artwork) in a special way where all pieces are guaranteed to line up.

In addition, I would pay extra for additional adhesive to apply to the wallpaper so it doesn’t bubble up or wear out. This way, I have a strong value proposition to compete against the other listings on Amazon.

Different Sourcing Models For Amazon

Amazon Product Sourcing Models

Once you’ve run the numbers and found a good product to sell on Amazon, you must reach out to suppliers to source your product.

The way you source your Amazon products depends on your business model.

Here’s a description of every Amazon product sourcing model for your review.

Private Label – Private label products are products manufactured by a factory to be sold under your own brand or label.
Private label products are the best products to sell on Amazon because you own the brand and no one else can copy your trademark.
Retail Arbitrage – Retail arbitrage is when you buy inexpensive or clearance products from a retail store and then sell them for a higher price on Amazon.
Retail arbitrage is an easy way to start selling on Amazon but it’s not a good long term ecommerce business model.
Online Arbitrage – Online arbitrage is when you buy products from a marketplace or store at a discount and then sell them for a profit on Amazon.
This model is similar to retail arbitrage except you don’t physically have to go shopping.
Amazon Wholesale – Amazon wholesale is an ecommerce business model where you find an established brand name product, purchase it in bulk at wholesale prices and then sell it on Amazon FBA.
Selling wholesale successfully requires that you convince popular brands to allow you to sell their products on Amazon.
Amazon Dropshipping – Amazon dropshipping is an ecommerce business model where you sell physical products on Amazon without carrying inventory or performing shipping, handling or customer service.
Amazon dropshipping can be a good way to start selling on Amazon on a budget but it’s not a good long term business model.

Amazon Best Sellers Page

The Amazon best sellers page is a page maintained by Amazon that displays the best selling products on Amazon sorted by category.

Currently, you can find Amazon best sellers in the US, UK, Canada, Spain and Germany and the list is updated on an hourly basis.

During the brainstorming process, it helps to browse this page for ideas but keep in mind that products on the best sellers list are extremely competitive and saturated.

Furthermore, the products on this list may have extremely low margins. However, browsing this list can tell you what types of products are trending and may influence your decision on what to sell.

Overall, the top selling products on Amazon change every hour and there’s no magic bullet for finding the best product to sell every time.

However, if you use the methods outlined in this post, you’ll at least get a base hit and over time, you’ll create a profitable Amazon product portfolio.

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