How to Find a Profitable Product on Amazon in 2026

If you're trying to find your first Amazon product, the scary part isn't finding something that looks profitable. It's actually knowing whether you're about to put $10,000 to $15,000 into the wrong product. So in this video, I'm going to take one real product opportunity and show you exactly how to evaluate it from start to finish. And this will include the numbers and the red flags that will make me want to walk away, because the truth of the matter is that a product can look good inside your market research tool and still leave you with thousands of units of inventory just tied up struggling to sell. And you can spend weeks checking that revenue, the competition, the margin. But if you've never launched before on Amazon, there's always this one question in the back of your head. And that is, what am I actually missing right now? And by the end, you have a repeatable process for deciding whether a product is actually worth risking your money on Even if you've never launched one before. But before we evaluate the product, let me quickly show you where an idea like this actually comes from. Because the most good product ideas that I find today come from 1 to 4 different places. The first one being Amazon. The second one, markets that are already growing. Number 3, things I'm hearing about every single day. And then number 4, products that are already selling successfully outside of Amazon. And just to be clear about what we're actually building here is that I'm not talking about Amazon wholesale retail arbitrage or just simply putting your logo on a generic private label product. The goal is really to find a real opportunity, build your own brand around it, something that you can actually be proud of, grow over time, and ultimately own as a long-term business asset. For For this example, I want to start off with Amazon itself because we can start looking at what customers are already asking for on Amazon. You can type in a keyword into the search bar and see what Amazon actually suggests or automatically completes for you, because these are popular searches that people are typing into Amazon every single day. And the way to understand this is that Amazon is basically a search engine for products. People go there, type in what they're looking for, and actually buy on Amazon. And this is where a tool like Smart Scout becomes very, very useful. And if you've never used it before, Smart Scout is a market research tool that lets us dive deeper into Amazon search data and see things like estimated search volume, related keywords, brands, products, and other market information. And Amazon gives us the initial high demand ideas, but Smart Scout helps us go deeper and look for high search volume ideas where people are already searching for something specifically, but maybe there are not many sellers directly serving that search yet. The second place that I look is explodingtopics.com, and this lets you see markets and topics that are starting to grow. And maybe it's a new ingredient, a new diet, a new sports, a new supplement, a new hobby, or entirely different product category itself. If I see something gaining attention here, I come back to Amazon and I ask myself, 2 questions. Number one, are people searching for it? And then number 2, if they are, is there room for competition? The 3rd source is everyday life. You hear something on a podcast, you see a trend on social media, or you notice people repeatedly talking about a new diet, a new sport, an ingredient, or a supplement. And we've seen this happen with markets like creatine, electrolytes, and even supplement gummies over the last few years. And fourth is products already selling successfully outside of Amazon. And you might find a brand doing well through its own Shopify store that is barely selling or not selling at all on Amazon. So instead of developing a product from scratch, you can approach that brand and see if there's an opportunity to bring that product onto Amazon for themselves. So there are plenty of places to find ideas, but finding the idea is not where most of the risk is. The risk starts when finding something interesting and convincing yourself way too quickly that it deserves your money. And I say that because I've been selling on Amazon for nearly a decade, which sounds crazy to say out loud, but today I do over $4 million every single year in revenue. And I've also made product decisions over those years that cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars. And that has changed the way I research products. So I'm not looking for enough evidence to convince myself an idea actually works. I'm looking for the thing that would make me unwilling to put my own money into it. And that's the standard we're going to use here. So let's go ahead and find one. So let's use creatine as a starting point here because creatine has been getting a lot of attention everywhere. You hear it on podcasts, you see it on social media, and there are products being created every single day around this one simple ingredient. So maybe I noticed that trend and think to myself, okay, maybe there's an Amazon opportunity here. And the obvious search might be creatine gummies. And if we go onto Amazon and search that, we can immediately see plenty of sellers already competing in this market. So saying creatine is popular, therefore I'm going to launch creatine gummies, is not really product research because we've only identified a popular category. What I want to know now is whether customers are asking for something more specific inside that one category. So I take creatine gummies, put it into Smart Scout, and start looking for related type of searches. And one keyword that catches my eye is creatine gummies for kids, because according to Smart Scout, that one keyword has more than 10 searches over the last 30 days. So now we actually found something worth investigating. And I didn't say we found a product to launch just yet, just something that looks interesting. And I want to take a little bit of a step forward because in this particular case, it's specifically around kids. So there are additional questions that we have to answer before we even go forward. Things like, are these even, you know, suitable? Are they compliant? Are there any formulations that we have to take into consideration? Or does the Amazon platform require us to have certain documentation or prevent us to even sell or position the product this way? And that has to be validated before this opportunity gets anywhere near our money. So if we cannot satisfy those type of requirements, this product is dead regardless of how good these numbers actually look. And that's exactly the point of this process. If the research tells us not to launch it, the process actually works. So now let's take that exact search and see what Amazon gives the customer. So the first question is actually pretty simple. Is there enough search demand here? And is this market underserved enough to justify more research? Because we already know people are searching up creatine gummies for kids. Now I want to see what Amazon gives them when they make that actual search. So if I type that exact keyword into Amazon and see 50 established brands selling products specifically positioned around that search, there's probably not much of a gap there. But if most of these results are generic creatine gummies, that becomes more interesting because maybe there's only 3 or 4 brands directly serving that specific search. Now we potentially have demand on one side and limited direct competition on the other. And this applies far beyond this example because a broad category can be extremely competitive while one specific search inside that category is still underserved. So instead of only asking, what products can I sell? I'd rather ask myself, what are customers already searching for on Amazon and is not doing a great job of giving them? This is where I start paying attention. But we are nowhere near placing an order just yet because we still don't know one of the numbers that can kill this opportunity immediately. What does the product actually cost to make? Because before we even think about branding or packaging, we want real supplier quotes. And until we know what this product costs to manufacture, we do not have a valid type of opportunity here. Because let's say we believe we can realistically sell this product for $29.99, and that might look great, but if a manufacturer tells us that it costs $18 per unit before freight, Amazon fees, advertising, this opportunity could be dead immediately. So I want to speak to several manufacturers. I want to know what the minimum order quantity is, the packaging costs, any customization or formulation costs, unit costs. Lead time, and anything else that materially affects the unit economics price of this product. And I don't just want one quote or one supplier, because the thing is, one supplier might tell us $12 per unit, and another quote can be $8 per unit, and another might tell you that they can't even produce exactly what we actually need. So this is all useful type of information before we even take the next step. Because the goal is not, this is my product, so now I need to make the numbers work. The goal is, this looks interesting, now prove that it deserves to keep moving forward. So let's just say that we've talked to multiple different types of manufacturers and we land on a realistic unit cost of $8 per unit. And for this example, let's say we've already confirmed that the product is the way that we intend to formulate it, market it, and sell it on Amazon. So that would pass the requirements. But if it didn't pass those requirements, that means that this actual step failed and I would stop there. But let's assume it passes. Now we have the demand, a potential gap, a viable manufacturing path, and an approximate unit cost. Next, we need to find out what happens after Amazon takes its share. So now I'm actually going to take that expected selling price, the dimensions, the weight, and I'm going to run it through Amazon's revenue calculator. And this gives us an estimate of the Amazon fees associated with a specific product. And the way to access this calculator is by simply searching this up on Google, Amazon revenue calculator. Click on continue as guest and then click on that second tab that says define products. Then take the expected selling price, the dimensions, the weight, and make sure to select the category when doing that and put anything for right now when it comes to shipping costs. This is not for our case right over here, right? I run these actual numbers and I combine those fees with the supplier quote and shipping. So for our example, we expect to sell for $29.99 and the manufacturer is charging us $8 and Amazon estimated fees are right around $9.70 and the shipping is going to be approximately $1 per unit. So this leaves us with roughly $11.30 $0.30 per unit profit before any type of advertising or any other operating expense. Or this can also be a 38% profit margin right now. But you saw how I just mentioned that it doesn't include advertising. So this is not our final profit because we still have to have enough margin for PPC and other costs of actually running this business. But at least we know we have room to investigate whether those economics actually work. Because now we have the demand, a possible gap, a realistic manufacturing cost, and enough initial margin to keep actually looking at this product. But I still would not order the actual inventory because once somebody sees a healthy number on that spreadsheet, it becomes very easy to start protecting the idea instead of evaluating it even further. So now I want to try and kill this idea. At this point, I stopped looking for reasons why the product could work, and I start looking for reasons why the product does not work, right? So I ask myself some questions. Questions like, what happens if the selling price comes down? What happens if manufacturing or freight cost increases? How strong are my actual competitors? How easy is this product to copy? And what are customers complaining about right now? And are there any compliance formulations or any platform requirements that we missed earlier. I also spend real time studying competitors, especially their negative reviews, because maybe customers repeatedly complain about the taste, the packaging, the serving size, the ingredients, or even the quality. And then I ask myself, can we actually fix that? And what does fixing it actually cost us? Because differentiating needs to be more than just my packaging is going to look better. I want a real reason customers would choose us over what's already available in the market today. And this is also where I watch for a dangerous pattern. Every time the market gives you a reason to walk away, you invent an assumption that keeps the product alive. And the only reason why I bring this up is because I've been in that position multiple times because the manufacturer can come back too expensive. So you tell yourself, I'll order more units and get the price down. And that can be a huge mistake on a first order because you know you're increasing your inventory risk just to make the spreadsheet work. And then competition is stronger than expected. So you tell yourself, my branding will be just a little bit better, or my product is organic, maybe. But that does not automatically mean that a customer will choose you over an established seller with years of experience and reviews already on their product. And then the perfect one, right? Margins are too thin, so you tell yourself, I'll be fine, or maybe I can charge a little bit more. Again, maybe you can, but if the market tells you that a product sells for $29.99, you cannot assume that a customer will pay $39.99 because this is what your model needs. Or let's say demand is weaker than expected, so you tell yourself, people will like my product because it's different. Once assumptions are doing more work than the actual evidence, you are not researching anymore. You are just defending your own ideas. And if your research process never gives you a reason to walk away, it's probably not protecting your capital very well. So now let's look at an actual amount of capital at risk. And this is where it's a crucial point, regardless if you're brand new or have been selling on Amazon for years, because this is the point where I don't treat this as a product. I start thinking about this as a capital decision because let's say the manufacturer has a minimum order quantity of 1,000 units at $8 per unit. Our inventory alone is going to cost us $8,000, and then we still have to add in freight, packaging, samples, potential inspections, advertising, and other startup costs just to launch this product. So now your all-in cost is approximately $12,000. And the question now changes. I'm no longer asking, can this product actually make money? I'm asking myself, is this strong enough evidence that I would put $12,000 of my own money behind it? And again, I don't want to make decisions using best-case scenario spreadsheets. I want the conservative version because what happens if our selling price drops by 10%? What happens if PPC costs more than I actually expected? What happens if freight costs eventually increases? What happens if sales ramp is very, very slow and our projections don't hit? And at this stage, one crucial thing gets basically misread because I want to look at the keywords and realistically what I would need to advertise and make sure that the PPC does not destroy the margin we thought we had. And I don't want a product that only works when every single assumption that we have goes perfect. If the conservative version still works, now we can actually make a decision. And at this point, what actually matters? Because the strongest reason why I would move forward is if we have a specific search with demonstrated demand where only 3 or 4 brands directly are serving that search, a realistic $8 manufacturing cost, an initial margin at a $29.99 selling price to give us room to launch and advertise this actual product. Because the strongest reason why I would walk away at this point in time is if a product is relatively easy to just copy, because when and if this market actually starts working, more competition is going to come and enter the space. And then we're still talking about a relatively small micro market. So I would not assume that demand is going to be unlimited. and those new competitors are going to steal away some of that market share. So those are real risks. But based on the evidence we have in this example, there are not enough for me to walk away from because we have a specific customer search, limited direct competition, healthy initial unit pricing, and a viable manufacturing path. And assuming our product-specific requirements have been properly validated I believe there is enough here to justify moving forward carefully with a controlled first test order. So after all of this, if this was my $12,000, would I wire this money to a manufacturer? My answer is yes after all of that. But I would not move forward because my branding will be better. I would move forward because the underlying numbers give me an opportunity. But still, after all of that, I would still use strong branding, positioning, and a solid launch strategy to compete for that opportunity. And that is the most important difference. The numbers have to give the brand something worth building on. And if the evidence had not supported that decision, I would walk away and run the same process on the next opportunity. And this is the purpose of product research, to reach a decision you can defend before any of your money is at risk. And the biggest lesson here is that you don't need to miraculously feel experienced enough to make your first move. You just need a process that you can actually start. And we went through it in this actual video. Start with real demand, look for the gap, get supplier quotes, run the fees and the margins, study the competition, account for PPC, and look for what you have missed. Then make the assumptions that worst-case scenarios can happen and ask yourself, is this still where I want to put my money? And again, this is not going to eliminate any type of uncertainty. Nothing will. But now you are not wiring $10,000 or $15,000 to a manufacturer because a product simply looked good inside some research software that you're looking at. And you can explain why you are making the decision and what could make you change your mind. And this is the difference between guessing and making a decision based on evidence. And I want to make one thing clear, because knowing the process and applying it correctly when your own money is on the line are 2 different things. Because I've given you the instructions on how to build this business here for free, and you take it, what I just showed you today, and start applying it on your own ideas. But the reason why I created The Brand Operator is because I don't want to see people do all this work and then fail. Fail because of one mistake they didn't know they were actually making. Because sometimes the biggest issue isn't knowing the steps, it's knowing whether you're making the right decision when your money is actually involved. And that's where proximity becomes very, very valuable. Because inside The Brand Operator, my team and I personally review every major decision with our students before they make a decision they might regret. And product selection is obviously one of those decisions.