How to make Amazon's most popular products?Product selection methods and tips to help you set the key points

For cross-border sellers, whether the product selection can accurately match the market and user needs directly affects the competitiveness and profitability of the store. Therefore, in this issue, Xiaobian invited Lin Jinde, a senior trainer at the Amazon Global Store Official Lecture Hall, to bring a detailed product selection open course full of topics, from product selection strategies and data analysis to practical operation, to help sellers easily find potential exploits!

Digitized product selection helps sellers identify products that meet market needs and have strong profit potential by collecting and analyzing relevant data on Amazon. Compared with traditional product selection methods, data selection is more scientific and accurate.

The core idea is to “obtain data” to capture the current focus of consumer interest, “collate data” to extract potential market demand, and finally guide product selection decisions through “data conclusions”.

In this process, Amazon also combines its strengths and provides a variety of powerful operating tools in the seller back office to help sellers better understand market trends and needs. Include:

🔍 amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/
BEST SELLER RANK (BEST SELLER RANK) is an important indicator for Amazon that shows the sales rank and top sellers for each product in the category it belongs to. Generally speaking, products that rank high in BSR are more popular with consumers, and can obtain more sales and profits in this category.

🔍 amazon.com/gp/new-releases/
Compared to the BSR list, New Releases focuses more on new products that are growing rapidly, that is, products that have recently arrived on the market. Through it, you can see two things: one is the hottest new product now, and the other is a new product that is likely to become popular soon.

🔍 View path: Seller Central — Growth — Opportunity Finder
The Opportunity Finder is a free tool provided by the Amazon seller backend. With it, sellers can not only understand the overall demand situation in the current market, but also see which keywords are rapidly growing in demand. It also allows sellers to explore unmet overseas consumer needs and find new opportunities for product selection.

First, we need to understand the calculation logic of gross margin and what is the composition of the cost of the product --

Amazon also provides sellers with practical tools at this step. For example, category commissions, FBA storage fees, FBA delivery fees, etc. can all be quickly calculated using Amazon's revenue calculator*.

🔍 Seller Central Free Tool: Revenue Calculator
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/hz/fba/profitabilitycalculator/

Of course, with different products and different sales nodes, the performance of product profits will also vary. The key is to remember that choosing products isn't just about choosing popular products. In the product selection process, sellers need to set a reasonable standard of gross margin and make more accurate judgments based on their own operating methods, cost structure, and market conditions.

*Note:
1. The cost here refers to the cost of each product (single SKU), and does not calculate company-level rent, personnel, water, electricity, gas, etc.
2. In addition to the purchase price, production and procurement costs also include product packaging and labeling costs, as well as shipping costs from the manufacturer to the domestic warehouse.
3. The first trip fee includes logistics and customs charges from the domestic warehouse - port of exit - port of entry - warehouse in the destination country. It is recommended to calculate the cost per kilogram. (Note: Larger products will calculate dimensional weight rather than actual weight)
4. The category commission is not 15% for all categories, and there is a minimum commission of 1 US dollar. For example, if the selling price is 5 US dollars, the actual commission is still 1 US dollar.
5. Detailed parameter table for FBA delivery and storage fees Visit gs.amazon.cn to obtain FBA calculation forms on each site.
•Check FBA fees for specific ASINs: North America https://sellercentral.amazon.com/hz/fba/profitabilitycalculator/index
•Check FBA fees for specific ASINs: Europe https://sellercentral.amazon.com/hz/fba/profitabilitycalculator/index
•Inquire about FBA fees for specific ASINs: Japan https://sellercentral.amazon.co.jp/hz/fba/profitabilitycalculator/index
6. Loss refers to loss caused by various aspects such as initial delivery/delivery/return, etc., which is generally 1%-5%, and can be updated according to actual sales data during operation.
7. The storage fee is reasonably calculated according to the inventory turnover cycle. Generally, the storage fee for 3-6 months can be calculated.
8. For categories with a return rate of 10% or more, such as clothing, additional fees for accounting returns and exchanges will need to be increased.
9. Marketing expenses include promotions such as advertisements, coupons, deals, etc. The general plan is 20-30%. The gross margin generally does not include marketing expenses, but during the operation period, marketing expenses are reasonably controlled by comparing the ratio of marketing expenses to sales and gross margin.

In the product selection process, the main purpose of competing products is to:
● Verify market demand for products: observe changes in sales demand of competitive products, especially feedback on new products, and grasp market trends in advance;
● Discover market pain points and gaps: through evaluation and analysis of competing products, find out the shortcomings of existing products, provide differentiated advantages for your product selection, and fill gaps in the market;
● Help calculate gross margin and pricing range: Use the price, sales volume, and sales expenses of competitive products to estimate a reasonable pricing range and gross profit margin for selected products to avoid overpricing or too low pricing.

At the same time, sellers can also further analyze demand and competition through the following dimensions —

The above content is a sharing of highlights from the offline boutique small class course “Refined Product Selection Course Practical Course” from Amazon's official Global Store Lecture Hall. Systematic product selection ideas and practical methods can help novice sellers get started quickly and effectively avoid common product selection mistakes.