2020 Product Research Guide - For Dropshipping & Ecommerce [I]

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2020 Product Research Guide A comprehensive guide of product research methods and ideas to steer those looking for "winning" products in the right direction.

Jesse O'Brien www.JesseJerome.com [email protected]

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CONTENTS What to expect of this eBook? Facebook Instagram Amazon AliExpress CJDropshipping Product Research Web Tools Thought Strategies Final Word

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What to expect of this eBook? Finding products to dropship or sell can be frustrating. The pages of this eBook are dedicated to provide you with industry wide used tools and knowledge to go on and find products yourself. This is NOT a winning product list where I give you winning products on a platter. Its like the old Italian proverb. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for his life time.

Word from the writer I will tell you right now this E-book is not going to be of use to everyone (hey, there is a reason its free). All of these methods are out there somewhere on the internet already! All I have done is; compiled them in one place, briefly expanded on them and added some of my own ideologies. If you follow even a small number of drop-shipper youtubers, podcasts, blogs etc the odds are that you know most of these methods already. Like any informational tool, its up to you to sift through the content and take away the information that resonates or applies to you. With that said, if only one person reads this and finds a bit of useful information from my eBook I will consider my job done.

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Facebook

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Facebook orientated methods are well documented but I will go over them first as they still rate as some of the best and most used methods of product research. These methods will be broken down into 3 sections.

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Facebook News Feed (Turbo Ads Search)

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Facebook Post & Video Search

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Facebook Ad Library

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FACEBOOK NEWS FEED (TURBO AD FINDER) This is one of the most effective methods to find winning products, and the method I would say people use quite often. It is simple to set up and can yield a variety of different product types, ranging from how popular the product is, to the niche it is in.

Turbo Ad Finder & How To Set It Up Turbo Ad Finder is a free Chrome extension that can toggle your Facebook news feed between showing only sponsored posts and its normal showing. This will save you time scrolling through an assortment of posts just to find ads and make the process of finding products easier.

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Install Install the Turbo Ad Finder chrome plugin

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Find

Click on the Turbo Ad Finder icon on your browser bar. Usually located in the top right

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Activate

Click the Toggle to activate Turbo Ad Finder. Your Facebook news feed will now be showing only ads.

Populating Your Facebook News Feed If initially, you are not seeing many ecommerce related ads in your news feed. You need alter your position in Facebook's logarithm. Engage with the ecommerce ads that you can find; by liking the post, commenting, and clicking on the ad to get to the landing page of the site. Once there, scroll around and look at the product page(s), and add the product to your cart and initiate a checkout (but obviously don't purchase). Once you have done so, Facebook will place you into a category of people who are likely to engage or purchase, and you will then find that Facebook will begin to promote more ecommerce product ads on your news feed.

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FACEBOOK POST & VIDEO SEARCH Another great way to find products, especially if you find that the Facebook news feed is not giving you any ecommerce ads. Using this method and interacting with the results you get, you will find that your newsfeed will populate with more relevant advertisements as well.

Facebook Post & Video Search Method The method is super simple: all you need to do is hit the search bar on Facebook and search for common dropshipping copy writing terms. Sort the given search results by posts and/or videos (I find most times videos gives better results). You can then further filter the search results by date posted or location if you wish. When using this method you want to look at the dates and engagement. Most importantly how long an ad has been running, number of views and what people are commenting. Common dropshipping copy writing

Showing search results of video only

Further filters

Example Search Terms

Dropshipping product advertisements

Some terms may yield more ecommerce product results so its best to test out a few. Limited Stock Only Flash Sale Limited Time Offer Off Today Only

Free Shipping People are going crazy The perfect gift Tag someone who needs this

24/48 hour sale 50/60% Off Closing store sale Get yours now

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FACEBOOK AD LIBRARY Probably the least reliable method in terms of finding winning products without any leads but it is extremely valuable for product research when used in conjunction with the previous methods or when you already have your niche or idea for a product.

Facebook Ad Library Method The Facebook Ad Library is a great free tool to see the ads Facebook pages are running. You can access it here and search for the pages/ads you want to view or you can get access through Facebook pages via the transparency tab (pictured below). The information from ad library can help you decide on a product. Keep in mind advertising costs money so the longer an ad has been running the more chance it is making money back or hitting their intended result.

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Click See More Find a dropshipping page or business and find the page transparency tab then click See More

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Go to Ad Library Once you click "See More" on the page transparency tab, page information will pop up including whether or not the page is running ads. If they are, click Go to Ad Library to get more information on them

Facebook Ad Library Method Additionally, you can use the Facebook Ad Library to research what products competitors in your niche (or not) are advertising and how well they are doing. Giving yourself a product to add to your store that you know already has interest.

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Instagram

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Instagram can be used as a tool to find products or get ideas for products if you know what you're looking for. While we won't be able to see as much overall engagement and other data behind most Instagram posts you may still find it useful.

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Instagram For Product Reseach

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INSTAGRAM FOR PRODUCT RESEARCH Yes, Instagram does have ads but these are not how we will be monitoring the gram for product research. Instead, we are going to be turning our eyes to influencers and popular fan pages. This method may be a little bit more tedious than others but its a nice way to see what some competitors in your niche's market are trying to sell. So yes, this method will mostly rely on you having a niche already or having a general idea of the type of product you want to sell.

Method To Instagram Product Research If you have a niche or type of product in mind already, this is going to make the process a lot easier. If not, I guess its still an easy process for you to see what other people are selling. What you want to do is go to Instagram and search for popular accounts (those with a decent amount of followers) within your niche or possible market. These could be - influencers, fan pages etc. You may even want to use an influencer tool to find them, up to you. Once you find said influencer or fan page with a good following, you want to check their stories and/or gloss over their feed to see if you can locate any posts that are advertising products. Usually its quite easy to tell and will have a link or swipe up to an ecommerce stores landing page. These posts are usually paid and are only up for a selected time, they may also have a few products being promoted at once depending on their rates and ethics. Unfortunately we don't have a lot of data behind these posts in terms of engagement, but if its feed post it doesn't hurt to check the likes and comments.

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Amazon

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Next we have Jeff's baby, Amazon. Common use of Amazon is to spot selling trends and/or cross referencing trending products with alternatives on dropshipping supplier sites. These methods will be broken down into 2 sections. Though I'm sure there are more.

Amazon Movers & Shakers

Amazon Search Bar Auto Fill

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AMAZON MOVERS & SHAKERS Similar to Amazon's best sellers page (which warrants using also), the Amazon Movers & Shakers page shows products with the biggest sales improvements over the last 24 hours on Amazon (the best seller page shows a time period of a month). This information can be useful to spot buying trends and give you insight on possible winning products.

Using Amazon Movers & Shakers Free and easy to use, simply go to the Movers & Shakers page and you will be shown a list of top products that have improved sales over the last 24 hours. You can then filter results by specific department. The list is updated every hour, which makes it useful to spot buying trends. You can cross reference with the best seller list to see how top selling mainstay products compare. Some things to be weary of when using the Movers & Shakers information to source products is timing and speed. Timing - you need to catch a fad at the right time before it passes. Speed - you need to act on a fad before it passes (or explodes to maximise sales) and if you see a product trending you want to get on it before your competitors. So, it pays to monitor the Movers & Shakers page regularly. Familiarize yourself with the items so you can tell the difference between the ones that will stay popular for a while and the flukes.

Identifying Potential Buying Trends With Movers & Shakers One of the main appeals of the Movers & Shakers page isn’t the actual products, but what the products say about customer shopping patterns. Think bigger picture - what types of products are selling. As an example, let’s say the Camera & Photo category is full of binoculars and telescopes. Rather than selling the products that top the list, you can look at the trend of long-distance photography. If the pattern continues for long enough, that is evidence to deduce long-distance photography as an upcoming trend. Giving you a head-start on sourcing a similar product from a dropshipping supplier or some other long-distance photography product that hasn’t even appeared on the Movers & Shakers page yet.

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AMAZON SEARCH BAR AUTO FILL This method can apply to many websites that have auto fill settings on their search bar. While not the best tool for pure product research and sourcing, it can be useful source of product inspiration.

Amazon Search Auto Fill Method A super simple tool that you have definitely encountered at some point and time. All you need to do is go to Amazon and start to type a term into the search bar. As you're typing Amazon will begin to show the most searched terms using what you have typed. Now, there are much better methods to product research than this one but it can be helpful for certain niche sellers or as inspiration for a product to research.

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AliExpress

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Particularly the free Aliexpress Dropship Center and the API they (and many other paid product research sites) are using. They will provide you with extra product research tools for free. Great if you’re running you're on a tight budget or don't want to spend money on product research tools.

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Hot Selling Items

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ALIEXPRESS HOT SELLING ITEMS The Hot DS Item section gives you a list of items that are currently doing large volume of sales on AliExpress, based on the product category you provide/filter by.

How To Get To The AliExpress Dropshipping Center

Log into your AliExpress account, then click into your account drop down menu, where it says "Hi, (your name)", from the drop down menu click into either "My AliExpress" or "My Orders" and the Dropshipping Center should be in the banner menu on either of those pages. If the dropshipping center tab does not appear for you then its just a matter of registering for it. Here is a link to do so.

Hot Selling Items The Hot Selling page on the Dropshipping Center is a database of the big sellers on AliExpress. Checking through the hot selling section can give you an idea of products that are selling and you can even categorize the products to help narrow down products for niches. There are a few things you want to look at with these products in terms of how well they are currently selling. Orders & DS Orders - Orders is the total amount of consumer orders, and DS is the number of orders from dropshippers.

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ALIEXPRESS PRODUCT ANALYSIS An extremely useful tool that the AliExpress Dropshipper Center offers, especially when it comes to finding products that are currently successful

The Analyze Action

Once you have found a product you're interested in selling on from the Hot Items list or anywhere on the AliExpress Dropshipper Center you are going to want to click the "Analyze" link under the "Action" column on the product row. This will present to you a graph with the sale volume rating for the last 14 days of your selected product. As well as the logistics reliability of the particular supplier. You can analyze products by copying their URL and posting them into the Product Analysis tab.

Analyzing The Product Analysis Graph AliExpress does not show the real sales numbers, but places the sales volume on a graph ranging from 0 to 100. Meaning, the higher the number is, the better the product is selling. This may not be useful if you're looking at a product no one has capitalized on yet or is specific to your niche but if you're looking for a "hot" product that is already proven to be selling well then this graph is important. When looking for a hot product you want to see how steady the sales volume is or if its growing. Random jumps to 100 and then no sales the next days most likely indicate someone just bought a mass shipment, as inventory or for whatever reason. So, soemtimes these products can be hard to read.

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CJDropshipping

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Essentially a logistics company, CJDropshipping have an online web app that also shows which products they stock, allowing you to directly place orders from them. They offer competitive prices and faster shipping times than Aliexpress (although there are questions about their reliability).

CJDropshipping App

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CJDROPSHIPPING APP CJDropshipping may seem similar to AliExpress but the good news is that all of the products that you find on here are making sales - there is a MOQ requirement for stocking any product with them. Just browsing around and looking at products, you’re bound to find a winner.

Using The CJDropshipping App Free and easy to access from the CJ Dropshipping website. You will find its similar to AliExpress or Amazon in that you can categorize by niche/department. The one thing I really like on CJDropshipping is that you can filter results by having a video (if you need creative content), and by their warehouses as well. Giving you their hot selling products out of specific areas of the world. CJDropshipping provides a lot of other nifty tools if you decide to dropship with them but as far as product research thats pretty much it.

Extras With CJDropshipping Along with the app, CJDropshipping has a lot of content such as videos and blogs on trending products and top sellers. I'm not saying you are guaranteed to find an absolute winning product or that they don't market these products without ulterior motives or anything, but if you are stuck for inspiration or ideas, you may pick something up from their content.

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Product Research Web Tools

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Product Research Web Tools standout over the aforementioned methods purely because the majority of the diligent work will be done by the apparatus itself. In essence, you're given trending and top selling products but at a cost (or sometimes free). These tools will usually provide the product, product relevant information and extra tools for dropshipping.

Foreword

Thieve.co

SellTheTrend

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EcomHunt

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SaleSource

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Seller-Pulse

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PRODUCT RESEARCH WEB TOOLS FOREWORD Just a little foreword before I touch on the various Product Research Web Tools/Apps or whatever you want to call them. First, I want to acknowledge the fact that I haven't covered every website. If you don't see a certain product hunting website or tool, it doesn't mean they are not good, nor does it mean the ones I have covered are better. If i'm being candid a lot of these types of tools are the same. However, the ones listed are just the ones I have experience with myself, and feel fine to vouch for. Ultimately, whatever you use, the choice is yours. Second, for the most part, these tools are delving from the same data to get their products. Because of this, I personally would advise to sticking to only one paid tool if you are wanting to go down that route. Third, you do not need to pay. A couple of these tools are free or have free memberships. All these tools do is analyse information that is freely available and serve it up nicely. What you're really paying for is the time you save by having this done for you and the convenience of the added features. Fourth, do your product research outside of these platforms. Test products, cross reference with google trends searches, facebook searches, product reviews etc. A lot of these are integrated functions of Product Research Web Tools but be sure to research products properly if that is not the case for whichever one you're using. Fifth, some of the tools I have written about have affiliate links attached and some do not. I promise I haven't let affiliation judge these processes. In saying that I will end with my recommended tools for anyone just starting out Ecomhunt free membership & Thieve.co - both are free.

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ECOMHUNT Ecomhunt is one of the better product research methods. This is a curated list of products that has several new submissions every day. Ecomhunt offers both a free and paid plan; the free plan has limitations on what information you get alongside the product, as well as a delay on the new products that are listed. I find the paid subscription to Ecomhunt isn't necessary. All the extras are cool, but all that matters is the product. For that reason (it being usable freely), I'd recommend EcomHunt most out of all of these tools.

Less Obvious Way To Use EcomHunt One way of using Ecomhunt (and a lot of these other product research web tools) is to go back a year or two through their listings. You will be surprised to find winning products that people are currently running, or have ran in the past. The posture brace, mosquito trapper, and random gadgets that have been scaled to 7 figures are all there, years old. 99% of people are only testing the products on the first few pages, and then find that there’s a ton of competition. That’s not to say that you can’t win in a competitive market, but it makes things more difficult when everyone is running offers for the same product to the same audience

Extras With EcomHunt Some of the other services, data and tools EcomHunt provides alongside its curation of winning products include -- Profit data, analytics, engagement data, links to Facebook ads, product videos, Facebook targeting suggestions, blogs, live training and more. However, some of these are only accessible with their paid subscription.

Check Out EcomHunt

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THIEVE.CO If I had to summarize Thieve I would describe it as Pinterest for AliExpress. Free to use, but bare bones in actual product data, Thieve gives aesthetic looking products a platform to shine and be discovered. Making it a good tool for someone doing product research.

Thieve & Product Data Thieve has its own dropshipping specific tool named ThieveSupply but I have yet to use it so I won't speak on it. In terms of what we are given on Thieve.co its quite basic, yet there are numerous products and thus product ideas provided free, which can be helpful.

Thieve Functions Thieve hand selects products from AliExpress and then vets them through a tinder like swipe system that they use. The first thing you may notice is how aesthetically pleasing their product photos look. Thieve has standard filters to list products into niches or specific categories, direct links to the products on AliExpress which is super helpful and they also display the product price from AliExpress onto their product pictures which can be useful also.

Check Out Thieve

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SALESOURCE SaleSource is a paid tool & one I would recommend if you did want to dip money into a product research tool. They do offer a free trial however. SaleSource is very robust and overall offers a ton of functionality. I’m only going to gloss over a few of the functions offered that are most useful when looking for products. You can learn more about their other offerings by clicking here.

Top Stores SaleSource Top Stores function uses machine learning and AI functionality to estimate the revenues of various stores, providing a list of them based on their assumed volume. While its hard to vouch for the accuracy of their revenue estimation, the sheer amount of high-volume dropshipping products and niches you will get exposed is more important than the estimates. Be sure to select ‘Dropshipping Stores’ when searching so that you don’t get a bunch of high-end brands and their products (unless you’re looking for niche inspiration).

Product Center The Product Center section of the app has several features: All of which provide you with great information and value that will help you find winners. Relatively easy to use; you just click on the relevant section and SaleSource will provide you with a list of products that correspond to that category. The 'New & Trending' feature is one I really like - it shows a curation of products that are newly posted/trending, that will refresh every 12 hours (supposedly to prevent over-saturation).

Chrome Extension The SalesSource chrome extension is pretty handy. It allows you to visit any ecommerce/dropshipping store, and analyze the store & product. The amount of information you get back from the tool is pretty incredible; including a list of competitors that are selling the product, vendors with the cheapest price and highest volume .

Check Out SaleSource

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SELLTHETREND SellTheTrend is very much like SaleSource. It is a newer Product Research tool but is filled with a huge array of functions and data. Unfortunately the quality of SellTheTrend is also locked behind a pay wall like the some of the other sites mentioned in this section but you can get a 7 day trial to test out its functions first by clicking here.

Product Research Tools If you haven't noticed the trending theme about all these sites let me make it clear now. They are all offering something pretty similar. I do find that SellTheTrend has really nifty tools pertaining to other areas of dropshipping or selling but in terms of Product Research its more or less the same as SaleSource, also in the fact that they also claim to source their winning products via data based predictive dropshipping AI technology. If you're heart set on using a paid tool I would probably flip a coin for SellTheTrend and SaleSource, you could really do no wrong with either.

The Nexus The Nexus is pretty much SellTheTrend's version of the SaleSource Product center. It has all the regular filters and categories. One thing it has that some of these other sites may not is the ability to filter by trends on AliExpress and Amazon. Some of the features include links to facebook videos and creatives for products, links to shoppify stores selling the said product, data on average selling price, average profit and much more.

Check Out SellTheTrend

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SELLER-PULSE Yet another paid tool that has a great amount of functionality. Unlike SaleSource or SellTheTrend, Seller-Pulse is a bit different in that it relies much more on the search parameters that you feed it; it has less of that ‘show me random products to give me inspiration’ vibe. Their biggest selling point within the dropshipping tool market is that they can help you find products that aren't being oversold.

Database Search

Though Seller-Pulse has a few tools that you might find useful, lets focus on the Database Search, which lets you specify specific parameters to find products.

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Navigating The Interface Select the product categories that you wish to explore with your search. There’s a convenient ‘Select All’ if you don’t have a particular type in mind.

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Filtering Parameters You have the ability to put in specific keywords, feedback scores, price and orders.

Additional Filters

Additionally, you can also segment your results based on a time-window, as well as whether or not that product listing on Aliexpress has a video.

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Search Once you’ve done that, go ahead and hit search to get your results. You can further filter and order based on the Category, Price, Feedback, Rating, and Order Volume.

Check Out Seller-Pulse

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Thought Strategies

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Now, the value of this section could range from - a bunch of bullshit to a goldmine, depending on the way you think about things. Basically, i'm just going lay out a few thought strategies that have proven to identify winning products.

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Annual Trends

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Order of Consequence

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ANNUAL TRENDS Everyone knows annual trends revolve around the seasons and holidays, shopping trends can too. Every year there is a Valentines Day and every year there are dropshipping stores that pop up for a month starting January, do six figures solely targeting the romantic holiday and then disappear until the next year. Another example? Just recently it was pride month. What started selling like crazy? Tye dye kits, pride flags, pride shirts and a whole bunch of rainbow colored items. Are you starting to notice where i'm going with this? You can capitalize on a whole lot of these celebratory months and holidays and the best thing is these trends are predictable, they happen every year.

I'm not saying to target every holiday (they don't all incite people to go buy things) or to go out of your way to build a niche store targeting specific holidays but If you target the right people, at the right time of the year, with the right product you can find a winner (even if just for a moment). Obviously, product targeting using this method may not be profitable year round but it also provides you an in to retarget customers whom you may have not had before.

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ORDER OF CONSEQUENCE This one practice alone is extremely powerful in a plethora of different ways, but for e-commerce specifically it's extremely useful for figuring out what products to sell. Here's how it works: First, start on a real basic level with some type of cultural shift, big world event, or something like that. For my example I will use the current state of the world with coronavirus, the protests, rioting and general global unrest. Starting with this event, we then extrapolate from there. A first order consequence of global unrest is people are, on average, more scared and fearful than they normally are. •Global unrest ➝ people are more fearful. Then, we keep going. As a result of being more fearful, what are people doing? Looking for ways to protect themselves and their families. •Global unrest ➝ people are more fearful ➝ people want to protect themselves. Now, what do people who want to protect themselves do?They buy protection - Guns, security systems, cameras — I don't have hard data to back this up, but a quick check confirms these types of things are flying off the shelves right now. •Global unrest ➝ people are more fearful ➝ people want to protect themselves ➝ people buy guns, security systems, cameras, etc. Most people would stop here. They'd think, "Ok so I should just sell security cameras or something like that then". Which might not be the worst idea ever.. However, we can go further. Using the increase in gun sales as an example, obviously we can't exactly dropship guns, but you know what we might be able to dropship? Something that people also buy when they buy guns. Like, a gun safe, gun carrying case, a special conceal carry purse, or something like that. •Global unrest ➝ people are more fearful ➝ people want to protect themselves ➝ people buy guns, security systems, cameras, etc. ➝ people need places to store/carry their new guns ➝ we sell it to them See how that works? Starting with the basic concept that the world is currently in a state of unrest, we came up with a really solid and specific new product idea in just a few minutes, simply by using our brains.

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FINAL WORD Product research is all about recognizing where there is opportunity. Taking a saturated market for example, say a new iPhone drops tomorrow, people are going to want cases, tempered screens that fit the new model etc. You need to recognize such opportunities to get the jump on competitors. If you want to already jump into a product that is already preforming then there are tools and methods in place to locate these. Always keep in mind that, just because a product is a winning product for someone, doesn't mean it will be for you. There are so many other things to consider that make a difference once you have your product - such as your offer, audience, marketing strategy etc but that conversation doesn't belong in this eBook. Anyway, if you managed to get through this slog of a read, I want to thank you for your valuable time. I hope you have found something to take away from this. Feel free to '@' me on social media or send me an email with any questions or feedback I'd love to hear of any of your queries, methods, successes and/or failures. - Thank you!

Jesse O'Brien www.JesseJerome.com [email protected]

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