May 06, 2022

How To Find the Best High-Demand Products to Sell on Amazon in 2023

Supply and demand are the foundations of free enterprise and to succeed as a seller, it’s important to sell low supply, high-demand products on Amazon. While clever, innovative items may seem like a smart choice, a great product with little demand will not succeed.

Analyzing demand is vital to any product’s sales success, and this article explains what high-demand products are and how to find them. You need to start by identifying the most popular online buying categories and then zeroing in on the best products to sell by factoring in the product’s profitability potential and studying the degree of competition.

Here is our step-by-step guide for identifying profitable Amazon products that can boost your sales, and help you succeed.

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What is a High-Demand Product?

The two basic ideas within a free-market economy are supply and demand. Successful businesses do the research necessary to determine what consumers want and then check the availability (supply) of what they want. Fortunately for its sellers, Amazon constantly analyzes and publishes information that can help. Deciding which products customers are looking for most, depends on two measurements, the number of items sold and the sales volume for any specified period. Higher dollar items with good profit margins qualify as high-demand products on Amazon without high quantities sold every month. Lower cost products need more demand to be successful. For most products, 300 sales per month could be considered enough to be profitable.

To measure High-demand, low-competition products on Amazon, a seller needs for success can also depend on their place in the market. For example, a small independent with relatively low overhead doesn't need something to generate $10,000 in sales per month to be profitable. Products with lower sales volume but less competition might be better for smaller providers. However, those with higher operating costs may need to focus on products with very high-sales volume potential to cover their overhead. To find the right items, you must not only look for high-demand products on Amazon, but they must also consider the competition level and their own costs and sales goals.

What’s the Best Way to Find High-Demand Products on Amazon?

There are two approaches to adding products to your offerings. Finding a new, unfulfilled niche is one possibility, but it's difficult and usually a gamble. You think creatively, research, see, or create a product, and try selling it. There are lots of unknown variables, and no guarantee of success because demand is unknown.

The second approach you can take to adding a new product considers current demand and takes advantage of research Amazon and other organizations have done for you. By looking at marketing trends and the Amazon’s Best Sellers list, companies can find a potential product subcategory.  Then, by using the Best Seller Rank numbers on individual product pages, you can find a product with a successful track record to add to inventory. Looking at how many reviews an item has can also help you understand the sales level. The more reviews, the more sales there have been.

Look at Amazon’s Best Sellers

Most people know the Amazon Best Seller’s page but many do not understand its importance. The list, which is updated hourly, gives you the most popular product categories and subcategories with a list of the top sellers in each of them. By studying the lists and researching the current number of sources, you can add a great product to your mix. The only two limitations of the page is you don’t see the sales numbers themselves, and the list is limited to the top 100 items. In categories where there are thousand of items, number 102 might be an excellent choice.

You can, however, see how many companies are selling the product and how many reviews have been entered. On the item's product page, you will see the Buy Box winner, but you can find other sources and their prices by scanning down. For example, the product below, True Lemon, is sold by Amazon and one third-party seller.

Look at Best Sellers Rank (BSR)

The Amazon Best Sellers lists only provide you with the top 100 products in each category. However, many have millions of products. If everyone concentrates on the first 100, that creates lots of competition for the same items. Smart researchers then turn to BSR or Best Sellers Rank. On each product detail page, you find the BSR by scanning down to the Product information. The BSR tells you exactly where the item lies on the relevant category list or sometimes category lists. It might be the 105th item, meaning it doesn’t show on the Best Seller’s Page but is still considered a high demand product on Amazon. You may not know how many of something sells each year or the volume, but the information is still extremely valuable.

Knowing what rank a product has is great, but it’s also important to know the total number of products in the grouping. Some categories, like "Home & Kitchen," have millions of products, so even a rank of 8,000 is a great possibility. Other categories like professional medical supplies have fewer products, so the number 8000 might not be a great choice. Therefore, it is best to consider selling things in the top 1-10% of any category. To see the total number of items available, select the department from the drop-down menu on the left side of the search bar. Type the right and left square bracket into the search bar and see the total number of products.

The above shows that these kitchen towels are #171 in the Kitchen & Dining category. You can click to see what the top 100 are, see the number one kitchen linen set and number three dishcloths & towels.

Two tips:

  • You shouldn’t confuse BSR with organic ranking. The Best Sellers Rank shows how well the item ranks based on its sales, whereas the organic rank has to do with search engine ranking for a keyword.
  • You can usually gauge sales numbers based on BSR. According to many Amazon sellers, including Web Retailer, products with a BSR between 8,000 and 10,000 may generate 4-6 sales per day. With a BSR below 2000, the sales climb to between 6 and 10 units a day. Using these formulas, sellers can estimate potential sales volume.

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What are the Top Categories on Amazon?

The most popular online products fall into a few categories. It’s easy to understand that the more people who could potentially use a product, the more demand there will be. Also, some products are easy to understand and choose from without visiting a brick-and-mortar store. Therefore, many everyday personal and home items are the highest on the list.

The following are the top five categories:

  1. Home & Kitchen - This is an especially good place for new eCommerce sellers to start. Everyone loves to buy the latest gadget, add decorative items, and replenish stock needs. The products are easy for sellers to describe and easy for consumers to understand. Quality is knowable, and defects are less common in this category.
  2. Beauty, Health, & Personal Care - These items are lightweight and easy to store and ship, meaning lower shipping and Amazon FBA fees. Beauty and personal care products also often have a high-profit margin. While the category is popular with women, more men's products enter the market every day.
  3. Toys, Kids, & Baby - With every new baby born, relatives and friends want to welcome them with the perfect gift. Products for babies and kids are always high demand products on Amazon, but things like board and card games, arts and crafts for kids, etc., were especially popular while kids were at home during the pandemic. People don't want to spend time searching through huge retail stores for the perfect item. Online shopping makes choosing what to buy easier.
  4. Clothing and Shoes - Who doesn’t need clothes and shoes? Each retail store has a limited number of styles, colors, and sizes, whereas, on Amazon, people can find the perfect item for them. While the category is restricted, those that do qualify to sell fashion face less competition, and if you find a design that sells well, you could be very successful.
  5. Electronics - The field of electronics has continued to expand, and people always want the latest devices. Selling in the category can be tricky because electronics are complex. Choosing a reliable supplier is vital, as is understanding what you sell. Your description must be accurate, and instructions clear to avoid high returns and complaints in this category.

Tracking which categories are currently the most popular on Amazon can help you narrow down your search for the perfect product. Different organizations study and publish trends. We have divided the lists from two websites into high, medium, and low demand. You can see that while the results are not identical, the overall trends are the very similar.

High Demand Product Categories

According to FBA Empire, the following categories fall into high demand.

  • Home & Kitchen
  • Health & Personal Care
  • Sports & Outdoors
  • Beauty

Medium Demand Product Categories

FBA Empire has the following in the medium range:

  • Toys & Games
  • Pet Supplies
  • Home Improvement
  • Office Products

Low Demand Product Categories

FBA:

  • Industrial & Scientific
  • Automotive
  • Arts & Crafts
  • Musical Instruments

Examples of High-Demand Products with Low Competition

You can watch Amazon’s Best Seller Page for high-demand items, but marketing companies also regularly publish trend studies that describe the latest product demand. Forbes and others publish annual articles on buying trends. By looking at studies that different marketing experts have done, sellers can find promising trends and then see how much competition there is.

According to influencermarketinghub.com, the following were trending for 2022:

  • Skincare face masks
  • Nail polish
  • Haircare products
  • Fitness products
  • Yoga mats
  • Water bottles
  • Exercise bands (resistance bands)
  • Games and puzzles
  • Board games
  • Laptop skins
  • Camera and photo equipment
  • Handmade products
  • Pet supplies
  • Books

Here are a few examples of high demand low competition products on Amazon:

Jenga Classic Gamer by Hasbro

After everyone spending so much time at home lately, games, in general, are popular, and the classics continue to do well. Jenga Classic is number one in its subcategory of stacking games. Similar games are available from other sellers, but the Hasbro item is available through Amazon and three other sellers. It has over 60,000 reviews.

Microfiber Hair Towel

This is an example of a newer product catching on but with fewer sellers. That translates as low supply. Anyone in a hurry to dry wet hair will understand the advantages of this product. The towels, made from soft, light, but extremely absorbent material, can dry a wet head much faster than a traditional towel. These are great for the gym, the beach, and even home use. Currently, the monthly sales number for these microfiber towels is about 1708 monthly, but big sellers haven't yet entered the market.

Rug Gripper Pad

New room or scatter rugs can freshen any room, change a color scheme, or cozy it up. Unfortunately, rugs can slip and slide. People need a gripper pad to go under rugs to avoid frustrating safety problems. They protect the flooring and prevent rugs from sliding around. These pads have other uses, too, like keeping futon and bed mattresses from slipping. There are many reg sellers but not as many people selling these rug gripper pads. There are about 7,000 sales per month in this subcategory but not too many sellers.

Ergonomic Safety Baby Comb and Brush

Baby products are always great, and this is number 96 on Amazon's Best Seller List, has over 15,000 reviews, and only three sellers besides Amazon. This makes a great baby gift and is small and lightweight which means low fulfillment costs and high profit potential.

Outward Bound Slo Feeder

More pets were adopted during the pandemic and pet items are always popular. This dog bowl, designed to slow fast eaters down, is a low supply high demand product on Amazon. It only has a couple of suppliers but is a best seller. It’s #55 in pet supplies and #1 in dog bowls. It has over 77,000 reviews.

John Paul Mitchell Tea Tree Oil Lavender Shampoo

Beauty and personal care items are always great, and currently tea tree oil products are in demand. This shampoo is designed specifically for course dry hair and features popular lavender mint scent. There are four suppliers besides Amazon and the BSR is #106 for Beauty and Personal Care and #3 for Hair Shampoo. The star rating is very high and there are 38,060 reviews which means lots of sales. The item is small and lightweight with little chance for breakage during transit.

Check Product Profitability

Besides having high demand, low competition products on Amazon, a big part of business success is profitability. On Amazon selling lots of something at a low-profit margin often isn't as good as selling fewer items with higher margins. The risk of losing money due to returns, changing and unforeseen market trends is higher with a low per-item profit margin. New sellers should start with relatively inexpensive items, under $15, with profit margins of 50%. That’s the same as 100% markup. For example, if something costs you $5, sell it for $10. If something costs $20, price it for $40. According to many experts, the sweet spot for Amazon sales tends to be between $10 and $50.

Concentrate on smaller, lighter items to keep fulfillment costs down. Heavier, fragile products that can get damaged in transit are a liability. Keep shelf-life in mind, too, to reduce potential loss during downtimes. If new models come into the market every six months, don't buy a 12-month supply. Rather than offering seasonal items, concentrate on finding products that sell all year, so you are building volume over time rather than always finding new products. Don’t sell items you don’t fully understand, because the potential for poor or incomplete product description, returns, and dissatisfied customers is higher which lowers profits.

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Conclusion

Successful sellers find high demand, low competition products on Amazon that also have great profitability. They can start their search by looking at Amazon’s Best Sellers list. It shows the top 100 sellers in each subcategory.

After reading articles and studies on current trends and choosing some potential additions to their product lines, the next step might be looking at the BSR. The Best Seller Ranking, listed on the product page, will let you know exactly where the item lies on the relevant category list. While a product might not show up in the Best Seller list, which only lists the top 100, in categories with thousands of items, even something with a BSR of 1200 could be a great seller.

By checking out how many sources there are for the product and evaluating profitability, sellers can decide whether they should add an item to their sales inventory. High demand products on Amazon, being sold by few, and bringing in high profits are the ones you want to sell.

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Read further:

Find out 8 most important criteria that make up a winning product and how to  run Amazon product research.