Definitive guide to dropshipping in 2021 with best practices part II
Published on 20.01.2021 by Javier
We have started a very interesting guideline with the previous post. In the first part of the guideline, we wrote about dropshipping in general and how the system works. Hopefully now you are ready to understand the most important part of the dropshipping business - product research. In this post, we will cover the most interesting strategies that will help you to find ‘winner’ products.
Manual product research on Aliexpress
If you want to start with product research, then do it manually. You may say that there are lots of tools that can do product research in seconds but believe us, nothing beats the manual product research. First of all, you can’t learn the product research in & outs without doing it manually. If you don't understand the basics of the research, then none of the digital tools can help you in this. Tools are created to save you time and if you don’t know the basics of ‘what you are doing’ then how can tools save you time? So, start with the manual research.
Have you already picked a niche? Well, there are thousands of niches and you can pick one of them. Maybe you have a passion for something? Do you love collecting football cards? Maybe you love coffee or you are addicted to different sporting events? Well there are many niches and products are enough. If you can’t decide any niche, then check all categories on Aliexpress. There are hundreds of subcategories which can be lucrative for you. (here is a little sneak peak of how many categories there are on Aliexpress).
For manual product research examples, we have taken a look at this category: Automobiles and Motorcycles. As we click on the ‘automobiles and motorcycles’ category, you’ll see that there are many sub-categories including ‘car lights’, ‘Auto replacement parts’, etc. (check the image below, there are many subcategories for automotive niche).
Let’s take only one subcategory - Auto replacement parts. When you check that particular category, go for the products that have most orders. You can click on the ‘orders’ button at the top of the screen. “Orders’ button is above the products and below the search tab. In this case, you’ll find lots of products that have high % of reviews and sales. (check the image - those are the best products RIGHT NOW on Aliexpress in ‘auto replacement parts).
As you have come up with the best selling products in a particular niche, now you have to check each of them manually. Start with the first product and try to check the minimum 20 products. When we say checking, we mean comparing particular product prices with Ebay and Amazon listings. By that way you’ll understand whether there is big competition for particular products in the USA or EU. For example, let’s take a looks at the second product in this category. It’s “Tire pressure gauge” and it’s sold only for $7. The lowest price is $7 but it goes up to $10 (with more features of course). That could be a winning product indeed but we need confirmation from Amazon and Ebay. (Check the image of the product on Aliexpress product)
Now we have to search for the same product name on Amazon and Ebay. If we paste the exact name of the product, then you’ll get lots of results on both platforms. You’ll see that Amazon and Ebay are full of this type of product. Let’s take a look at the price - WOW - it’s sold for $10 on Ebay and $19.9 on Amazon. The same listing on Amazon is sold for $19.9 and it has more than 4800 reviews (which means there were thousands of sales for a particular product). That’s a very simple way to get a high profit margin from just one particular product. It’s sold for $7 on Aliexpress and could be sold on Amazon for $19 (you can compete with the main seller on Amazon and decrease the selling price from $19.9 to $19). Think about the shipping and other stuff that could be included in the price. So you can get around $5 profit per sale which is really good for a dropshipping model (check the image below - you’ll see an Amazon listing that is sold for $19.9 and has 4800+ reviews).
