People are forever chasing the golden goose. The silver bullet. That one winning product that will change you from being a Camry driver to a Corvette driver. Or whatever tickles your fancy, really.
Finding the best products to sell on Amazon isn't always an easy task, but it certainly helps to understand the top selling categories and knowing what software tools can help you pinpoint the best selling products that you can sell on Amazon.
Before we explore the actual categories and products to sell on Amazon, we're going to cover some important topics you need to consider.
Let's dive in.
How to Find the Best Products to Sell on Amazon
For this tutorial we're going to use an amazing tool called SellerAmp SAS. This method I want to share with you is one of many methods. There's literally endless ways to find products to sell on Amazon.
We teach a lot of different methods in the OA Challenge, so if you want to level up your online arbitrage game then check that out.
What we're NOT going to do is find viral or seasonal products (for the sake of this tutorial anyway). Those strategies can be incredibly lucrative of course but I want to keep this one a little more evergreen.
Step 1 - Get SellerAmp & Install the Chrome Extension
Read my full review of SellerAmp if you want to see how great this tool is, but for this exercise we are using the Google Chrome extension which embeds itself right into the Amazon product page.
SellerAmp SAS is also a web application and it has a fantastic seller scanner app, perfect for those of us that like a little bit of retail arbitrage. Honestly this tool is great value considering that fact it starts at only $19.95 per month.
Now let's move on to the strategy.
Step 2 - Browse Products on Amazon and Stalk Storefronts
For this tutorial I'm going to browse through some skincare products. You can either do this many ways but one way I like to do it is by going to bigger brands, finding FBA sellers (using the SellerAmp plugin) and then stalking their stores.
The way you do this from the product page is to scroll down to the "offers" section in the SellerAmp extension and simply click on any one of the FBA or FBM offers shown in the list.
When you do this, it will open up the SellerAmp web application.
On this page you can start browsing through different storefront's products, which is called reverse sourcing.
As a side note, you can get automated alerts when these stores add new products if you use my new Strorefront Stalker Pro software.
It can take some time to browse through products, but this really is one of the best ways for beginners that aren't quite ready to spend money on buying OA leads or signing up to software like Tactical Arbitrage.
When browsing through products, you'll need to look for the following stats in your SellerAmp SAS extension:
- BSR top 3%
- Below or as close as possible to 250k sales rank consistently (you can see the sales rank on the Keepa charts for the product, which is another amazing software you need).
If you find a product that meets these two initial criteria, head over to the actual brand website to see how much they are selling it for. You'll be surprised how many brand stores sell for less than the Amazon price.
Let's take a look at a product I found on Amazon.
I found this cleansing cream from Merle Norman, a brand I wasn't very familiar with. You can see the buy box price is $43.97, it's sitting at 1% best sellers rank (BSR) and the sales rank is currently 67k.
Over on the Merle Norman website, this product is currently priced at $30.
When we plug the cost price of $30 into the SellerAmp calculator, things look a little dire.
Initial calculations show that this may not be a profitable product, but this is where we need to get creative!
Step 3 - Look For Discounts and Coupons
Getting a small discount on a product is quite often enough to turn a loser into a winner. There's plenty of ways to get discounts on products, the most popular being Google Chrome coupon code extensions or cashback extensions.
Some popular ones include:
- CapitalOne Shopping
- Be Frugal
- Top Cashback
- Rakuten
- Honey
In this particular scenario, it was even easier than that. Right down at the bottom of the website, there was a 15% discount for signing up to their newsletter.
When we plug in the new cost price of $25.50, the numbers look a little different.
Now we're showing a nice ROI of almost 21%, with $5.35 in profit. Don't forget that the SellerAmp factors in FBA costs so you can be confident that these figures are reasonably accurate.
Now would I go out and buy up every single one of these cleansing creams and spend every last cent I've got? Of course not. But this is a great, quick and easy exercise to show you how possible it is to find great products on the fly.
The more time you spend, the more experience you will gain and ultimately, the more profitable products you'll find to sell on Amazon.
Things to Consider When Finding the Best Products to Sell on Amazon
It's one thing finding great product ideas, but you need to consider a few other factors before stocking up on the product. Nothing sucks more than being stuck with products that won't sell.
Let's take a look at some of the considerations when looking for profitable products:
Shipping Size and Weight
It doesn't matter if you're selling with Amazon FBA or doing Amazon FBM, you need to consider the cost to get your products to your customers.
Amazon FBA fulfillment costs are very transparent and easy-to-understand. They are based on both dimensions and weight, as you can see from this table.
Apparel items will cost a little more than the prices shown in the above table. Selling items that are considered dangerous goods or hazmat items opens up a whole lot of other considerations.
Obviously, something of high value that costs a high amount to ship is not necessarily an issue. Just make sure you take these factors into play when evaluating the profitability of a product.
Fragile Items
You may want to avoid fragile products, if you can. If you're sending glass or ceramic drinkware and it arrives broken, not only will you be liable for the replacement but you may also get bad reviews. This is a double whammy, right in the feels.
Meltable Products
Meltable season is very important. At the start of Spring in the US, April 15th, through to October 15th, Amazon won't sell products that are likely to melt during transit.
The obvious product type is chocolate, but meltable items also include wax products and various cosmetics.
To see a full list of ASINs that are on the Amazon meltable list, check this article inside Seller Central.
Seasonal Products
More of a note of warning than a "don't sell these", some products are extremely seasonal. Halloween and Christmas products come to mind.
They can actually sell incredibly well, but just don't get stuck with a heap of inventory otherwise you'll be holding it for a year which could chew up your profits.
There are some caveats to this. Pumpkin spice season seems to extend well past the time Starbucks stops selling Pumpkin Spice Lattes. Candy canes can also sell all year round even if the velocity does slow.
Make sure that if you plan to source or sell seasonal type items outside of the season that you have done some research.
Obsolete Products
Phone cases and other tech related items are always at risk of becoming obsolete and outdated. They can also be highly profitable products, so if you're delving into this market just make sure you don't get stuck with inventory that is no longer in high demand.
Again, make sure you do some research because there will be pockets of tech that is outdated that may still sell but it's often not the rule.
Dangerous Goods
Amazon hazmat products can be lucrative items, but you will need to get approval to sell them on Amazon. This includes products with batteries, so while they're not technically "dangerous", you will still need to get approval to sell them on Amazon.
Consumables
Commonly referred to as "replens" because they need to be replenished, these types of products are great because customers will keep coming back for more. If you can get onto a good replen product, you will be well on your way to achieve sustainable growth and good monthly sales volumes with your Amazon business.
Don't only look for "replens" in consumable categories though. Things like socks, undershirts, gardening items, even some toys like Nerf darts are really replenishable products and more exist in every single category on Amazon.
Best Selling Categories on Amazon
Amazon is the biggest ecommerce marketplace in the world, so it's pretty safe to say that every category sells well. There's never really going to be one category that is necessarily "better" than another, but if you know anything about Amazon you'll know that some categories are in fact restricted so you may not even be able to sell them if you're new to the platform.
Having said that, let's cover some of the most popular categories to sell on Amazon:
Clothes, Shoes & Jewelry
Good old Crocs are sitting at top spot in the Clothes, Shoes & Jewelry category. The other products that often dominate are generic apparel items including t-shirts, socks and underwear.
Shoes are a lucrative product to sell on Amazon but like anything, do your research into specific types of footwear that are good and bad when it comes to selling.
You need to ensure you have larger margins to cover the returns that will come with shoes and clothing.
Kitchen & Dining
Drinking vessels are really dominating the Kitchen and Dining niche on Amazon right now, but this category is very broad and you'll often see many different types of products up in the best sellers section. It can also be quite seasonal.
Kitchen and Dining includes thinks such as drinkware, cookware, coffee appliances and accessories, wine accessories and more.
Electronics
Electronics is often hailed as the number one category on Amazon. The top sellers in the Electronics categories are often dominated by the big brand names like Google and Apple, but there is ample opportunity to sell lesser known products in many different electronic sub-categories.
Sports and Outdoors
Somewhat seasonable, but not enough to make this category one to avoid. Sports and Outdoors has always been abundant with opportunity for Amazon sellers, and it saw a huge surge during the pandemic when people resorted to working out from home.
Sports and Outdoors includes sub-categories like gym equipment, sporting goods, outdoor recreation items, and hunting and fishing goods.
Toys and Games
Everyone loves toys, especially Amazon sellers! Because products in the Toys and Games category are especially popular during Q4, Amazon has placed restrictions on some sellers using FBM in the past. Fortunately, it seems they don't do that any longer.
Toys and Games includes everything from figurines, Lego, collectible cards, bikes and skates, and much more.
Beauty and Personal Care
Beauty products in general are a massive, worldwide market that presents a lot of opportunity for Amazon sellers. We humans are a vain bunch, right?
The current top selling product in the Beauty and Personal Care category on Amazon is the Mighty Patch, which is a pimple patch. Other products in this category will range from various skin serums and cosmetics, hair care, and beauty tools and accessories.
Automotive
Most of the top selling products in the Automotive category are generic accessories that have widespread appeal. Many products also fit into other categories, such as cleaning products and phone accessories.
Auto parts are readily sold on Amazon too but this is a more specialty niche, and like many categories on Amazon you will need approval before you can sell auto parts.
Health and Household
Health and Household has always been quite an odd one, to me. Awesome category, but an interesting mix of products. The top 8 products in this category right now include batteries, protein bars, and butt wipes.
You'll also see a lot of low hanging replen products in this category like bin liners, laundry detergent, toilet paper, and vitamins and supplements.
Pet Supplies
Humans love pets, even more so than their fellow humans at times! Pet supplies on Amazon are always in consistent demand and the category includes everything from poop bags to food, pet clothing, toys, and cages.
Finding Products to Sell on Amazon Using Keepa
If you know anything about me, or you've done my OA Challenge, you'll know how much I use a tool called Keepa. All of the top Amazon sellers use it, too. Knowing how to read a Keepa chart can help you tap into a wealth of data, giving you a serious leg-up when it comes to sourcing products to sell on Amazon.
This is a bonus strategy that I'm giving you in this article, in addition to the one above using SellerAmp. Like I said, there's a lot of ways to do this.
You can also start by going to the Amazon best sellers page, and then pick out individual categories to explore with Keepa.
The reason we use a tool like Keepa to help find best selling products is because it allows us to look way back at the history of a product. We want to make sure the current selling price isn't just a spiked price and we also want to see that a product has consistent demand.
Let's take a look at this #1 seller in the Kitchen & Dining category, the Stanley Quencher. The charts below are taken from the Keepa chrome extension.
I've marked the buy box activity for this product and you can see that there's periods its above $60, and times where it dips to $45.
Now picture this scenario. You head on over to Amazon and see that the buy box price is $65. This seems like a nice price to make a tidy profit, so you find them online for $35 each in bulk and figure that you'll have plenty left for a profit after shipping etc.
Then all of a sudden, you see that the price shifts to $45 on Amazon.
Sad face. You've now got a bunch of expensive tumblers and no ones wife needs that many. Or do they 😉
This is why you need to do your research with a tool like Keepa!
Different Methods of Selling on Amazon
Not only do you need to learn about the best selling products on Amazon, you also need to learn the different ways of selling and sourcing as an Amazon seller.
Amazon FBM - Fulfilled by Merchant
The FBM method involves you, the merchant, storing and fulfilling your own products without the help of Amazon. You will also need to handle your own customer support.
Amazon FBM has its benefits, but ultimately it's gong to come down to your own personal circumstances.
Amazon FBA - Fulfilled by Amazon
We love selling with Amazon FBA, but we also understand it might not be right for everyone. FBA sellers buy their products and send them in to Amazon's warehouse, where Amazon will then store, pick, pack and ship them directly to your customers when you make a sale.
This comes at an extra cost, but it also saves you a bunch of time compared to FBM. You can also become completely "hands-off" and use an FBA prep center to prepare and send your goods to Amazon. This is where the magic really happens!
Retail Arbitrage
Retail arbitrage is a method of sourcing products, more so than a method of selling. Retail arbitrage involves hitting the pavement and going into stores to pick up sales items that you can then turn around and flip on Amazon for a profit.
Retail arbitrage sellers may like to operate as Amazon FBM or FBA sellers.
Online Arbitrage
My personal favorite, online arbitrage involves sourcing products online from the comfort of your own home. It is much the same as retail arbitrage, except it's all done online rather than having to visit physical retail stores.
We've been fortunate enough to teach thousands of smart people learn the art and science of online arbitrage with our OA Challenge, and we typically like to sell with Amazon FBA when doing online arbitrage so we never need to lay a hand on the products we sell since we utilize a third party prep center to receive, prep, package, and ship our products to Amazon.
Frequently Asked Questions
It's hard to pin-point just a handful of top selling products on Amazon, but it's pretty clear that everything from household items to pet supplies are in high demand and can be sold for a profit by savvy Amazon sellers.
Yes, most definitely. But like any business model, it takes time to learn and you need to have time and money (not much) behind you to support your Amazon business while you learn and grow.
This is not easy to quantify however, Amazon software company Jungle Scout surveyed thousands of sellers and discovered that most Amazon sellers are making at least $1,000 per month, and some are making $100,000 per month or more.
Conclusion
Whether you want to try your hand at online arbitrage, wholesaling, or you want to dive right into creating your own brand, it's important to understand the demand for different products on Amazon.
You should also be aware of restricted categories on Amazon that will require you to jump through a few hoops, and you should also understand the different models of selling and how they might impact your journey.
No matter which way you go, Amazon is an amazing place to sell products online and it is pretty much open to anyone and everyone. What a time to be alive!
Thanks for reading, feel free to continue your learning with some of the suggested articles below.
