3 Criteria For Picking Winning Products To Sell On Amazon & Shopify

In this video, I'm gonna give you three criteria to determining if your physical product idea is a winner or not. And by the end of this video, you'll know if the idea that you've been sitting on or the idea that you're considering is a boom or a bust. Let's dive in.

Okay. By far the most common question I am asked about starting physical products brands is what product do I sell or what brand do I start? I'm an investor. Physical products brands. So I'm looking for good ideas, but ultimately I'm also looking for good people, because ultimately people are what is behind a business. So in every physical products brand, or really any business in general, each person has different unique skill sets that they're bringing to the table. And so what we're going to go over is three things for you to consider what advantages you have over bringing a product to the marketplace. And it's going to be different than the next guy, which is why, by the way, there is no hack or secret market or special product to sell. It's all about what matches your skill set, your interest, and what you're actually going to do versus what you should ignore. So these criteria are going to help you determine whether or not you should pursue an idea or you need to throw it out and get a new one. Criteria number one, go after big marketplaces. There's a big misconception among new entrepreneurs that if somebody has already taken over an idea, that they can't do the exact same thing. Well, if there's no competitors, that might also mean, probably means that there's absolutely no market for it. Even if you're able to capture 51% of a market, if the market's tiny, it's not worth your time. Going after big markets that have been around for a very long time puts you in a better chance of success and than going after brand new markets. You don't want to be the first person into a market, and you don't want to be the last person in a market either. The best way to do this instead is to look at how you can bring some sort of a unique spin on a really big market. So if you're able to address a specific pain point that someone has in a big market, that's a really good foot in the door into a big industry. Great example of this would be someone like Dave Asprey from Bulletproof. Dave Asprey came out with a coffee as his first product, and that coffee was supposedly toxin free or mitotoxin free, which was a Pain point that he addressed in his podcast and on his blog. And as a result, he sold a whole lot of coffee. Coffee is a super competitive space. There's no money in coffee. Right. And he was able to do it at high profit margins, at high volume, in a really big market. He has really passionate customers as a result of that. Another example would be an acquaintance of mine. He spoke at one of our events. His name is Moise Ali. He developed a deodorant. Deodorant sells for like what, four bucks? And now he developed a natural deodorant that worked because he was frustrated with some natural deodorants that didn't work. So it wasn't like it was a new concept. Other people had the exact same idea, but he did it a little bit differently and their advertising was a little bit different. It's kind of like, remember dollar Shave Club. Dollar Shave Club. It's not like razors never existed. Razors have existed for a few years. It's been around for a while. But they had a unique spin on the advertising. They had a unique sales mechanism because of their viral videos, right? So they went after big markets with a little bit of differentiation. As a result, they had some foot in the door to be able to carve out their space in a really big market. So. So if you're going after small markets or if there's no competition in your market, then this may not be a good idea. Go after big markets where you have some sort of a small differentiation and that's a good sign that you should keep going. Criteria number two, and this is a big one, especially looking at it from the perspective of an investor. If you are looking for capital or you just want to ensure that you're going to be successful, the number two criteria is that you must have some sort of a unique strategic advantage in the marketplace in the space. Now, sometimes that means a first mover advantage. For example, if you had been selling on Amazon in 2013 and 14, you had a first mover advantage. If you were advertising on YouTube back in 2012, you had a first mover advantage. If you were doing search engine advertising back in 2010, you had a first mover advantage. Today, the first mover advantage is on who you know, what influencers, you know, what distributors, you know, what investors, you know, what mentors you have that have been through that market or done a similar product in the past. Ultimately, it comes down to who you know and who you are surrounded with that will give you a strategic advantage in the marketplace. Do you have an audience that you can tap into. Have you been blogging in a certain space so you have a following around something? Do you have a unique knowledge base? Do you know something about the marketing or something about the product development that very few people in your industry have? If you don't have some sort of strategic advantage, then there's no reason to go into that business. One person said it to me once, they said you have to have some sort of a secret weapon. You have to have something that you're bringing to the marketplace that no one else has. Even if that's knowledge, experience, someone you know, distribution, pricing, funding, it can be any of those things. But you have to have some sort of strategic advantage in order to win. If you don't, then there's no reason why an investor would invest in your business. And there might not be any reason for you to be in that business either. The third criteria to ensuring that your product idea is a winner is if there are multiple products that the same customer would buy. Let's look at the opposite here for a second. Do you remember Crux? You remember Crocs shoes? They were comfortable, like rubbery shoes that people thought were cool for like 20 minutes. They were a publicly traded company. I think they still are. But what product did they have after the shoes? Not much. Remember fidget spinners? They're still kind of around. But if you were selling fidget spinners, what other product is there that that same customer is going to buy? We have to think about this in terms of customers and not price products. Customers buy multiple products. Customers are going to stay with you for years and one year they're going to have this need and they're going to have this need. So let's think about moms for a second. Moms raise infants and they buy diapers and they buy formula and they buy all kinds of stuff for an infant. Then that child grows up and they have a new set of needs. So if you're serving the mom's market, you have a long term customer versus if you're selling a product, a one off product product. It's really hard to build a scalable business out of that. And as an investor, I'm going to look at this and I'm going to say, well, after you sell a lot of crocks or a lot of spatulas, what are you going to sell next? There has to be some sort of follow up product that you can sell the exact same customer. So if you carve out an area of the marketplace and you have several other product ideas, even if they're not in development yet, that's a good sign that you're in the right marketplace. And if one product leads to another product, it's a good product to pursue. So here's how this all rolls together. First, you need to be in a big market. Second, you need to have some sort of a strategic advantage in that marketplace. And third, the customer of your product must have several different products that they will buy. If your product idea matches all three of these, there's a good chance that you're on the right track. If one or more of these is off, you might want to rethink the product that you're considering. Hey, I'm Ryan Daniel Moran. I invest in physical products brands. I have a podcast that is all about developing your idea and bringing it to life and it's called Million Dollar Brands and it's on capitalism.com so you can go over to capitalism.com and subscribe to the podcast for free. And it's all our best ideas and best case studies to help you bring your idea to the marketplace. Thanks for watching.