Whether you're just starting to sell on Amazon or looking for more inspiration for new products to launch, the task of finding new products is daunting for new sellers and experienced ones alike.
In fact, most potential Amazon sellers stop right at the first step, and that’s coming up with their first product idea.
In this post, we’ll do something a bit different by coming up with some lesser heard-of ways to get some Amazon FBA product ideas for the upcoming year.
1- Sort Alibaba Manufacturer Offerings by New
Alibaba is still the #1 source for Amazon sellers to find a manufacturer for the product idea they’re trying to bring to market.
However, navigating Alibaba and finding a good manufacturer is its own unique skill set that must be developed along with everything else an Amazon business demands.
One thing manufacturers on Alibaba like to do is show off the work they do for their customers. It helps with being found on Alibaba’s search engine and shows what they are capable of.
Although a factory will only do this to help their business, you can use it as a place to draw inspiration from for product ideas.
When you are viewing a manufacturer’s page on Alibaba, you will be presented with an array of products that they specialize in.
While they do their best to show you the “hottest” items on their home page, that’s not where the true idea generation comes from.
Every Alibaba seller has a list of all the products they can potentially make for you and products they have already made for their current clients.
The trick is to open up the “All Categories” section of their shop, ignoring what they’re pushing on their home page:
Once you’re in the “See all categories” page, sort everything by New:
What you’ll get from here is the manufacturer’s most recent, up-to-date, and innovative products they have been making for other clients and customers.
Manufacturers have clients all over the world that sell on every platform and retail store imaginable, so there is a good chance a lot of what they make may not even be on Amazon at all!
From here, gather up different manufacturers in your desired product category (you can even look at your own manufacturer if you currently sell on Amazon) and see what is the latest being produced.
You’d be surprised at just how much is being made that doesn’t have its own proper version on Amazon, a perfect opportunity to go after.
2- Check Etsy for Product Ideas
Etsy today is like Amazon in the future.
All the new and trending products on Etsy will eventually make their way in some form to Amazon in 12-36 months.
You would be amazed at how many successful products are being launched on Etsy that don’t have an equivalent offering on Amazon.
That’s an easy opportunity you can take advantage of, especially if you already have a manufacturer who can quickly put together a product based on your specifications.
So if you’re looking for product ideas, give Etsy a look.
3- Browse Flippa Businesses for Sale
Flippa is a website where people try to sell their business in an auction style.
There are all kinds of businesses for sale, but they have a section dedicated to Amazon FBA businesses.
If you create a Flippa account, you can browse businesses for sale, see what kind of products they sell, gauge their profits, and even find the seller’s account on Amazon if you want to analyze just how much of each unit they’re selling.
One thing that’s great about browsing Flippa businesses is that you can see all the variability there is to sell on Amazon, as people coming up with Product Ideas tend to have a hard time thinking of ideas outside of a narrow scope.
Make a Flippa account and take a look to get inspired.
4- Look at Popular D2C Brands That Don’t Have Amazon Accounts
There are a lot of innovative D2C companies that for some reason don’t feel like it is good for their brand to sell on Amazon.
It’s a strange decision, seeing as nearly half of all eCommerce transactions in the US take place on Amazon.
On top of that, Amazon is the world’s 3rd largest search engine, so people will naturally seek popular D2C brands on Amazon, only to find there’s nothing there.
That’s where you come in!
You can take advantage of the work a brand has done to educate the public about a new product, create something similar on Amazon, and reap all the benefits of their marketing since they don’t sell there.
There’s a plethora of D2C brands out there, look at this list of 140 D2C brands to get started, plenty of inspiration to draw from these companies.
Most of them don’t have Amazon accounts, so you can take their value proposition and easily offer it as a feature to your own products.
Conclusion
Using these sites (and the clever tricks outlined in this post) as inspiration for your product ideas can be the fuel you need to expand your product catalog in 2023 and stay ahead of the innovation curve.
Best of luck in your 2023 endeavors as an Amazon seller!
