How to Find Trending Products to Sell Online
If you’re thinking of selling products online, the first step, and therefore the most important step, to start an ecommerce business is to brainstorm products to sell online. It may sound easy, but many entrepreneurs get stuck in this beginning phase because they don’t even know where to start. However, uncovering great product ideas is really just a matter of looking in the right places for inspiration. This article will show you all the right places you can look to find trending products to sell online.
Ready to get started? Read on.
How to Find Trending Products to Sell Online
There are many different ways to find trending products to sell online, so we recommend reading through each section to get an understanding of what’s viable so you can then further select which will be the best option for you. Depending on your product and niche, there might be a tactic that’s a more appropriate place for you to begin your search, so tailor these recommendations to suit what product or niche you might be pursuing.
If, however, you have absolutely no product or niche in particular that you’re pursuing, then comb through the tactics in this article and try each one out individually to start generating some product ideas! Each of these tactics is not only a viable way to find a trending product to sell online, but they’re also very valid ways to discover great product ideas to sell online. The trick here is to approach each tactic with an open mind and be ready to think outside the box to discover a product idea you can be excited about selling.
How to Verify Trending Products to Sell Online
First things first, it’s important to learn how to quickly verify product ideas so when you discover new ones throughout each tactic you try here, you can easily verify whether or not they’ll be a good trending product to sell online.
Verification is a very important step in the process because it will help you understand upfront whether you should pursue a product idea or not before you start to put valuable time, energy and capital into developing it further. For this reason, never skip the verification stage because it can protect you from committing to bad or mediocre product ideas.
The quickest way to verify trending products to see if they hold any value is with the Google Trends tool.
The Google Trends tool will show the trend of your product ideas based on total search volume, starting from 2004. Not only will it show you the total search volume, but it will also display the countries and cities that the ideas are most popular in.
Use Product Sorting & Filtering Apps
Jungle Scout is a tool that tracks Amazon listings and makes it easy for you to instantly sort through tens of thousands of products so you can hone in on what’s already being sold on the market. By adding some simple search filters, you can narrow down your search for products from thousands to a dozen or so in just a few minutes. This makes it easy to get to the root of whatever product you’re looking for and it can help you find other related products you might be interested in selling.
Although the app’s marketing focuses on Amazon selling, this tool can be used for finding great products to sell anywhere. It’s an ideal tool to use for entrepreneurs who have an idea of what niche or products they’re interested in selling online, but who would benefit from having an overview of what others on the market are selling. It’s a great way to discover trending products to sell online that are relevant to a specific niche or are a variation of an existing product.
Subscribe to Trend Publications
Trend publications are one of the best and most future-facing places to start your search for trending products to sell online. Unlike the other resources on this list, trend publications may not give you direct and exact product ideas, however, they can help you start understanding the direction consumer buying patterns are headed which can spark some incredible product ideas.
- PSFK: PSFK is a top trending online publication whose goal is to make things better. Make sure you also view their trend reports.
- Cool Hunting: Cool Hunting is an award-winning publication that uncovers the latest in design, technology, style, travel, art, and culture. Cool Hunting’s original content helps inform the creative community that’s designing the future.
- The Cool Hunter: The Cool Hunter is a natural fit for ecommerce entrepreneurs who want to stay in-the-know and ahead of the curve. The Cool Hunter is a leading authority on all things creative and a truly global hub for what’s cool, thoughtful, innovative, and original.
- UberCool: Slightly different from the other trending product publications listed here, UberCool is run by a one-man team, but there’s a lot of information and product ideas up for grabs.
- Trend Watching: Trend Watching searches the globe for upcoming consumer product trends. Trend Watching utilizes a team of thirty trend scouts in locations worldwide, all on the search for product trends and ideas that you can use.
- Trend Hunter: Trend Hunter is one of the world’s largest trend communities with a global network of 137,000 members. Trend Hunter is a great source of idea inspiration for aspiring entrepreneurs on the hunt for trending products to sell online.
- Springwise: Their motto? Three inspiring business ideas every day. Not bad, right? From the Springwise homepage, you can browse the new business and product ideas that they’ve published in the last 30 days. If you’re looking for their entire database, you’ll need to subscribe to Springwise Access. With the membership, you can unlock the entire exclusive database of every innovative idea and startup they’ve ever spotted, along with categories and filters to find exactly what you’re looking for. Springwise also publishes a daily and a weekly newsletter, which you can subscribe to for free.
Check Out Product Review Blogs
What better place to look for trending products to sell online than blogs and magazines dedicated to showcasing some of the coolest new products entering the market?! Product review blogs and online magazines are a rich source for what’s trending now and can help spark spinoff ideas.
Below is a list of some of the top product review blogs you can make a part of your daily read:
- Uncrate
- AcquireMag
- Werd
- Outblush
- Bless This Stuff
- Gear Patrol
- Cool Material
- Gear Moose
- HiConsumption
- Firebox
Browse Product Curation Blogs & Marketplaces
Similar to the product review blogs listed above, there are also product curation blogs and marketplaces which are worth checking out. These blogs and marketplaces do the heavy lifting for you by curating the best of other, much larger marketplaces and niches.
- Canopy: Canopy curates the best, most impressive and noteworthy products from the Amazon marketplace.
- Thieve.co: Thieve is an AliExpress curated site. Much like Canopy, the products are all hand selected, saving you the time of having to go through thousands of junk products.
Scroll Through Social Image Networks
Social image sharing sites are great because you get a consumer perspective on interesting and trending products to sell online right now. Because it’s all very visual based, you can take in a huge amount of product ideas very quickly making it an efficient source for ideation.
Several of the larger social curation sites to check out include:
- Pinterest: Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social networks with over 50 million monthly users and it’s one of the top social image networks on the market. Make sure to check out the popular section for what’s currently trending.
- Fancy: Fancy describes themselves as part store, magazine and wish list. Regardless of what it is, it’s filled with product ideas for you to explore.
- Wanelo: Wanelo (Want – Need – Love) describes itself as a community for all of the world’s shopping, bringing together products and stores in a Pinterest-like product posting format. You can start by checking out the top trending people.
- Instagram: As if it needs any introduction, Instagram is filled with product ideas and it’s a great way to explore what products consumers are using and excited about right now. Use hashtags to find what consumers are using, follow influencers to see what they’re sharing and keep your eye on the rising and falling trends in your particular niche. Don’t forget to use Instagram’s “save” function to save potential product ideas you come across so you can refer back to them later!
Look Through Online Marketplaces
Online marketplaces are probably one of the most common sources to use to find trending products to sell online because they feature products that are currently selling online. However, because of the sheer size of many of these marketplaces, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and give up unless you know the best strategy to use to find viable trending products within these marketplaces.
Below, we cover not only just the marketplace where you should be looking to find trending products to sell online but also where you should look within the marketplace itself to find the gems.
Business-to-Business Marketplaces
Business-to-business (B2B) marketplaces are gold because not only can you find the gems but you can also find a supplier at the same time. Some of the more popular B2B wholesale product sites are:
- Alibaba: You’ve likely heard of Alibaba before, maybe even in our Alibaba Review, as they are the biggest ecommerce marketplace in the world — even larger than Amazon and eBay combined. Alibaba connects merchants all over the world with wholesalers and manufacturers that are typically located in Asian countries. With hundreds of thousands of products, there’s not much you can’t find on Alibaba.
Although it’s generally accepted that Alibaba is the largest online wholesale and manufacturer database, there are many other sites similar to Alibaba you can use for inspiration and to find product ideas.
Some of the largest competitors of Alibaba you should also spend some time exploring include:
Consumer Marketplaces
Consumer marketplaces are the places that are selling directly to end consumers. By strategically searching some of their trending pages you can get a better sense of consumer trends and the products related to them:
eBay: eBay is the largest online consumer auction site.
- eBay Popular: A list of some of the most popular product categories on eBay.
- eBay Watch Count: An online tool that lists the most popular items on eBay based on how many people are “watching” them.
Amazon: Amazon is the largest internet retailer.
- Amazon Bestsellers: Amazon’s most popular products based on sales and is updated hourly.
- Amazon Movers and Shakers: Amazon’s biggest gainers in sales rankings over the past 24 hours, again, updated hourly.
Kickstarter: Kickstarter is the largest crowd-funding website.
- Kickstarter Discover: Browse all projects by popularity, funding, staff picks, as well as many other options.
Etsy: Etsy is a marketplace for handmade items.
- Etsy Trending Items: Check out the current trending items and listings on Etsy.
AliExpress: AliExpress is a consumer-focused wholesale marketplace from Alibaba that allows you to order in small quantities.
- AliExpress Popular: The most popular products being bought on AliExpress.
Storenvy: Storenvy is an ecommerce platform and marketplace. Their trending page features their merchants’ most recently trending products.
- Storenvy Trending Products: Products currently trending on Storenvy
Interact in Social Forums
One of the best places to find ideas for trending products to sell online is through social forums. One of the best and biggest social forums is Reddit and it describes itself as the front page of the internet. One of the most unique and powerful aspects of Reddit are what are called “subreddits”. Subreddits are niche-specific subsections that each cater to a different area of interest. Within these subreddits, you can find a tremendous amount of inspiration for trending product ideas to sell online that are directly relevant to the niche in question.
The subreddits are also valuable if there’s a particular niche that interests you the most and you want to look for trending products to sell online within that particular niche.
If you look carefully, you can also find some really great, product-focused subreddits where people are discussing their favorite products. Here are a few examples:
- Buy It For Life: Focused on products that are meant to last a lifetime.
- Shut Up And Take My Money: Interesting product ideas that consumers really want.
You already know that Amazon has an insane amount of products, but sifting through the millions of products can take a lifetime. Instead, swing by some of the Amazon-focused subreddits for a more curated list:
Finally, you’ll want to be on the lookout for Reddit threads that people are specifically listing their favorite products on. To start, take a look at these ones:
- Reddit, What is One Product Under $20 That You Recommend Everyone To Buy?
- What $100 Item Has The Single Greatest Ability to Increase Quality of Life?
Reddit can be an insanely valuable place to spot the next trending product that you can sell online, however, don’t let it be the only place you search. There are hundreds of thousands of similar forums, albeit smaller, that you can also find your next big product idea.
Search Through Hobbies
Hobbies are great because people are willing to spend lots of money buying products to support their hobbies. One of the best ways to uncover trending products to sell online is to look at different hobbies and the products people need to participate in them. Here’s a good place to start:
Discover Supplier Directories
This is another option that’s similar to looking through online marketplaces, which was an option for finding trending products to sell online which we mentioned above. This tactic, however, means that you’ll have to search for supplier directories in order to find suppliers that are providing products for merchants to sell to customers right now.
Suppliers are at the front and center of what kind of products are being sold on the market today and some suppliers, in particular, are the best ones to go to in order to find trending products to sell online. Dropshipping suppliers, wholesale supplier, and private label manufacturers are all very likely to be selling more trendy products to merchants than any other type of suppliers (like manufacturers, for example) because they often have lots of stock to sell to merchants, and they wouldn’t be stocking products that aren’t in demand that they can’t sell.
Just like we mentioned above in the “Look Through Online Marketplaces” section, this is one of the best places to look for trending products to sell online because if you do find a product that you’d like to sell, you’ll also find a supplier for the product! This will save you valuable time and effort in the long run from having to find a supplier for your trending product idea after you’ve figured out what you want to sell.
So, if you want to see what kind of products are in demand right now, check out dropshipping, wholesale or private label suppliers to see what they’re selling to merchants. The fastest way to locate many different types of these suppliers is to use supplier directories, like the ones we’ve curated here:
- Dropshipping Suppliers Directory
- Wholesale Suppliers Directory
- Private Label Manufacturers Directory
Conclusion
There you have our top tips to help you find trending products to sell online. Utilize each of these tactics to uncover lucrative product ideas to sell online, or to discover what consumers are interested in buying right now. Good luck!
