Maybe you have been running an online store and want to scale up, or you are just starting to dip your toes in the water of eCommerce. What are you selling?
That’s the most important question, right.
Well, is it selling? Did you do your complete product research before you added it to your store? Have you nailed down your target customer base and already know how this product will make their life that much easier? What’s your USP?
Are you still stumbling for those answers? Well, let’s slow it down some, take a step back, and get a complete understanding of what exactly product research is, why you need it, and how this one step can shoot your store into the six figures. This guide will walk you through all you need to know for getting started with product research that will enhance your store.
What is Product Research?
Product research is the process of validating a product idea through detailed market research and consumer analysis before you add it to your store. This step helps determine that the products you sell will all produce a significant ROI and be beneficial versus detrimental for your online business.
There are four main types of product research: Brand Research, Consumer Insights, Competitive Analysis, and Product Development.
Brand Research
First, you need to identify and create your business identity to understand better who your target audience is and, just as quickly, who your competitors are. Then, any product that you want to add to your store should fall somewhere along the lines of your brand identity because that’s how you’re going to create your USP through your products. Then down the road, that’s how you will secure returning customers through their brand familiarity and loyalty.
Consumer Insights
This is a type of product research where you need to really examine the market and determine what your target market is buying. This part is where you get to dive into your target customer’s buying trends. Understand what keywords they are using to find the products they want and use those to your advantage.
Competitive Analysis
Competitor or competitive analysis is where you take a hard look at your competition. You want to analyze what they are selling, how they sell their products, and what changes you should make to your strategy to keep your business in the stakes. Even if your business is doing well, competitive analysis is still vital for product research. It will give you a clue into who else may be creeping into your territory.
Product Development
The product development type of product research is when you bring consumer knowledge into the process to inform the different areas of creating or improving a product. This involves taking a product that is already on the market and then analyzing the consumer insights to understand what can be done to improve the product before bringing it into your store.
Why is Proper Product Research Important?
If you invest in ANYTHING, it should be product research. If you don’t conduct proper product research, you will just be wasting your time hoping that your product will catch the eyes of some consumers that will convert into sales.
If you slack in this area, you could also end up jumping on the bandwagon of a product that you think is trending, but it turns out it was just a short-lived fad. You want to guarantee that your products are in it for the long haul so that your store can continue to do well and ride the wave of the product demand for as long as you can.
So how do I start…
Market Research is Key
Market research is all about understanding your target audience, world trends, and how your store profitably fits into these.
First, ask yourself these three questions:
- Who wants it?
- What do they want?
- Why do they want it?
If you know the answer to these three questions, you are already on the right path to determining what will sell well from your store.
Saturated Market Product Research
The issue that many first-time eCommerce marketers run into is the saturated market research wall. So many online store owners are taking note of outdated tactics that don’t work anymore. Sure these tactics may have worked back in 2016 and 2017, but we are in a whole different world now, just 4-5 years later.
Many first-time eCommerce store owners fall into the trap of product research spy tools that claim to give you a rundown of the hottest selling products on the market that will be sure to pull in customers. But you know what, EVERYONE ELSE IS GETTING THAT SAME MESSAGE. Every other eCommerce store owner is getting in on that pie, which means the slices are just getting smaller. Sure, that product may be a hot selling item now. Still, once everyone else using that same product research spy tool gets that same beta and adds it to their store, you’re now competing against hundreds, maybe thousands of other sellers for the same customers.
You want the WHOLE PIE, right? Leave the small pieces to the others to fight over.
Bad Products? What are those?
Any product that is more or less selling in your store is good, right?
Wrong.
One of the most significant issues I see with my students is putting all their efforts and focus into marketing BAD PRODUCTS.
A bad product is one that doesn’t serve a true purpose.
If a product is trying to solve an issue that doesn’t even exist, we consider that a bad product. This wall is where proper product research and market analysis comes in because you want all of your products to create a solution to a mass-market problem.
Another way that you can determine a bad product is if it doesn’t have enough demand to be profitable. Sure, you may sell a handful or so of these products each month, but is it enough to make that product crucial to keep in your store?
Lastly, if the product is readily available in tons of brick-and-mortar stores, this is another sign that it’s a bad product. If your target customer base can just as easily get the same product without paying to ship, they’re probably going to stay on the cheaper side and keep their shopping local—Aka, goodbye sale.
So how do you avoid falling down the path of investing in bad products? PROPER PRODUCT RESEARCH
Final Product Research Thoughts
Proper product research is one of those steps that can make or break your online store. You could have the fastest website, unlimited marketing spends, and maybe even a cutting-edge production team to handle shipping, but if you don’t have the right products in your store, you, my friend, will be doomed from the start.
Proper product research requires carefully calculated market analysis and testing to ensure you have only the best products in your store. If not, you could end up wasting your money away as you follow the path of a bad product.
Sure, there are plenty of product research spy tools such as DropShip Spy, Oberlo, and Niche Scraper, but don’t you know that everyone else has heard of those same tools too? Plus, it is not like they are going to feed you any different information than your competitor. So are you going to just accept the piece of pie that’s getting thinner by the minute? Or take that whole pie and run?
Remember, you don’t want to use your money to test. Use your time!
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Don’t fall down the traps of saturated markets or bad products…
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Frequently Asked Questions
What are the types of product research?
There are four main types of product research: Brand Research, Consumer Insights, Competitive Analysis, and Product Development.
How do you conduct product research?
To conduct proper product research, you must go through some methodical planning, deep market analysis, and a whole lot of information gathering to make sure you have all your ducks in a row before you dive in. The first step is, of course, finding the product.
What is product research and its objective?
Product research is commonly referred to as the many steps that eCommerce store owners must take before adding a product to their online store. The objective of this is to ensure that ALL of the products in your store will SELL. However, the goal is that they will also continue to meet the needs of your target customer base for years to come. Therefore, when conducting proper product research, you want to make sure that the product is unique, that there is a demand, and that there’s a high perceived value so that you get your money out of your investment.
