In this article, I will show you several ways how to find a product for dropshipping—all of these are FREE methods that you can try right now.
I understand that one of the challenges in dropshipping is how to find a product that has a demand. Too many times, we choose products that we think are great, only to realize nobody wants them.
As we go along, you will learn:
- 12 best ways how to find a winning product
- The importance of a winning product
- The characteristic of a winning product
In the end, I am sure that you will be appropriately equipped with several dropshipping methods, particularly on ways how to find a product to dropship. So, do not worry about what to dropship in 2023 as we got you covered.
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Why Is Finding a Winning Product Important?
A winning product is your key to success in dropshipping. One problem I see with many dropshippers is this: they fall in love with a product, build a dropshipping store, and then they sell these products.
The result? No sales or poor sales.
Why? It is because no one is interested in what they offer. The way they choose their products is through their personal feelings, not through sales numbers and customer demands. I can say, from experience, that one of the worst things you can do as an entrepreneur is to make emotional decisions instead of informed decisions.
To explain further, below are the key benefits of finding winning products:
- Guaranteed Demand – a winning product has a guaranteed demand; the numbers say it, and the people want it. If you go to social media sites and notice (like if you discover a TikTok dropshipping review) that a product has more than a million views, it tells you that people are interested in it. If there is interest, there have to be buyers, right?
- Reduced Financial Risk – although dropshipping is not a financially risky business, marketing is. Just imagine if you advertised on Facebook or TikTok for a product that nobody wants. You would be spending hundreds of dollars on marketing and not generating revenue. Although you did not spend money on inventory, you surely lost money on marketing.
- Faster Business Growth – your business will only grow if you make sales. Revenue is the nutrient that every business needs. Winning products almost always guarantee that there is a market out there waiting to pay for what you offer.
It takes time to find a winning product, but I can tell you right now that it is worth it. It is much more practical to start your dropshipping business this way than through trial and error. There are many dropship ideas out there, but not every idea will make it big.
How to Find a Good Dropshipping Product: Characteristics of a Winning Product
Just what is a winning product and what are its characteristics? In this section, I will not show you examples of hot drop shipping products, but rather the qualities of a product that you should be looking for.
There are five qualities or characteristics of a winning product. These are:
- The product has a proven sales record
- People are talking about it
- There are reliable suppliers you can trust
- The product is of high quality and has a great design
- The product solves a problem
Let us go through them one by one.
1. The product has a proven sales record
A winning product has sales. There is no other way to categorize an item as a winning product if it hasn’t won yet.
How much sales should be looking at? There is no single answer to this because products vary in price. For example, a toy katana may only be worth $3, but if it sold over a thousand units, who are we to say that $3,000 is not enough to classify it as a winning product?
What matters here is that there is product movement. If a product you are looking at has little to no sales, then it only means no one is interested in it.
The exception, of course, is if it is a new product that has barely seen the light of day. It is why I would also say that you must also look at the product’s potential, not just its historical sales.
2. People are talking about it
Products make it big in the market for two reasons: good marketing and social buzz. Marketing is expensive, and as a dropshipper, you want to sell products that are already in the mind of people. you want other markets to spend money to produce viral dropshipping products, not you.
The trick here is to find products that people are talking about online. Here are a few ways to do it:
- Facebook comments
- Instagram shares and likes
- TikTok product demos by influencers
If you sell a product with no or little current social significance, it is you who will carry the burden of getting this product to the eyes of buyers. You would need to spend a lot of money to do this. However, this kind of expenditure is the last thing that should be on our minds as dropshippers—especially during start-up.
3. There are reliable suppliers you can trust
Even if the product you are looking at is great, it does not make sense if you cannot find a reliable supplier. I have tested many suppliers before from China, and my experience is not nearly as good as I expected.
I am not saying that Chinese suppliers are bad. All I am saying here is that we should not expect all suppliers to meet our expectations. It is why I always tell dropshippers to test, test, and test suppliers.
Surely, you will spend money. However, it is better to do it this way and know who you can trust and rely on rather than get burned later on. Bad suppliers can bring down your business quickly—before you know it, you have refund requests left and right.
Choose a product where:
- The supplier ships the accurate items
- The supplier provides fast shipping services
Some suppliers ship the wrong products. For example, a supplier may send a blue phone case instead of the red one you ordered. This is bad for business, and I don’t think I need to elaborate on that.
In addition, your supplier must offer fast shipment, or at least offer several shipping options. I know that once the supplier has handed over the item to the carrier, the speed of shipping is no longer in his hands.
At the very least, a supplier must pick, pack, and ship an order in as little as two days. In my experience, some suppliers take a week to pack the item! Imagine that—a week lost to packing the goods!
4. The product is of high quality and has a great design
The only way on how to test products dropshipping is to order them yourself. You know a good product if you see it, but do not be carried away with great photography. Order the product and see the quality for yourself.
If it is bad, I do not recommend that you sell it. One can argue here that even bad products sell thousands of units on Amazon, such as fake chargers.
Yes, you can sell low-quality products, provided that your goal is to reach out to low-budget markets, which I do not recommend. Your margins as a dropshipper are very low, so what you want to do is to sell mid-range to high-quality products where you can make a decent profit.
For all you know, the people who sell low-quality goods on Amazon are the manufacturers themselves, not dropshippers. These are companies that have FBA accounts with Amazon. It does not make any sense to compete against them.
In addition, customers who bought your low-quality products will not buy from you again. What you want to do is to have repeat customers—or customers who will highly praise your products and share their experience on social media.
5. The product solves a problem
A winning product solves a problem. People spend money to solve a problem. Sometimes, it is a problem that they did not realize until they saw your commercial.
This problem does not have to be technical or physical. Sometimes, it is mental or emotional. For example, you can sell products that teach toddlers numbers or letters. You can also dropship winning products that solve the problem of boredom, such as toys.
There is always a problem that you can solve in any niche. It is only a matter of finding products that solve these problems. As such, I strongly recommend that you ask yourself: what problem is this product solving?
12 Ways to Find Winning Products
1. Sell the Trend
Sell the Trend is an all-in-one dropshipping tool that allows you to find winning products. You can also integrate Sell the Trend with your store, or create a complete store directly using Sell The Trend. Once you find dropshipping products you like, it only takes one click to import that product from Sell the Trend to your dropshipping store.
Sell The Trend Features
- TikTok Explorer – Find trending products on the hottest social network in the world. See accounts that are posting viral TikToks and grab their product ideas.
- Local Shipping – you can find suppliers that have local warehouses in different target destinations. Some examples are Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Spain, etc. Because the item location and shipping destination are the same, shipping will not take a long while.
- Store Intelligence – Just enter an ecom store’s url and gain access to their monthly revenue, traffic sources, winning products & apps they use to increase their sales.
- Integration – you can integrate Sell the Trend with Shopify or WooCommerce. Right now, these are the only two dropshipping platforms that they work with. But as mentioned earlier you can also build a store using the platform, so no need for a separate ecom platform.
- Trend Explorers – you can explore platforms and marketplaces to find winning products. These are Shopify, AliExpress, Amazon, and CJDropshipping & Tiktok.
Sell The Trend Pros
- They offer dropship courses to help you succeed
- You can find suppliers located in your target market
- You can easily find hot and trending products without doing a lot of work or research
Sell The Trend Cons
How to Find Winning Products with Sell the Trend
All it takes to find winning products on Sell the Trend is to go to the NEXUS tab and choose either HOT or TRENDING.
Here is a screenshot:
As you can see here, the rolling ball toy for cats sold over 52,000 units for $20.09. It made over a million dollars in sales. The same goes for the rest of the products on this page.
With Sell the Trend, you do not have to do manual research. The machine algorithm behind the tool does all the work for you. All you need to do is pick a product from the list, select a niche, or type the keyword of the product you want to sell and click the search button.
2. TikTok
To find winning products on TikTok, you must go to its advertising site. Although TikTok is a social media entity, it has entered the marketplace arena and is now one of the most dominant marketplaces in the world. It also has a strong marketing or advertising presence, and it is where you will find products that people react to positively.
Please note that you cannot find products for dropshipping here, as the ads are from retailers like you. However, you can find winning dropshipping products based on the performance of the ad.
TikTok Features
- Analytics – with TikTok ads, you can view the availability of the product in which regions, the brand name (if any), the number of likes, comments, and click-through rate of the ad, and many more.
- Ad Creative – the platform allows you to view the ad creative, even if it is a video. As such, you can get ideas on how to run your ads for your products. Should you decide to sell the same product, you now at least know what kind of marketing works well for it.
- Keywords – the TikTok ad platform will show you what keywords the advertiser used. It is an important factor in making your product appear in search results, not only on TikTok but other search engines, too.
TikTok Pros
- The ad platform is easy to use to finding products to dropship
- You have access to many stats that help you determine if it is a winning product
- You will get ideas on how to market specific products
TikTok Cons
- You may be limited to your region only; TikTok is not like Facebook where you can access content worldwide.
How to Find Winning Products with TikTok
Once you are on the TikTok ad platform, you have an option to type the keyword of the product you want to validate. You will see something like this:
Below each ad is a button that says SEE ANALYTICS. Click that, and you will see this:
It is on this page where you can now assess if the product you are looking at is a winning product or not. As you can see from this example, its CTR is in the top 12%, which means that people who see this ad click it.
There are also 2,000 likes for this ad, but no comment. In this case, I would say that we need to keep on looking. In TikTok, I can say that a winning product has a high CTR, a high number of likes, and a high number of comments.
3. Pinterest
Pinterest is one of those weird social media platforms. There is not a lot of commenting going on here, but there is useful information for dropshippers on this platform. Pinterest is one common way how to get products for dropshipping.
Pinterest is a social media board. Remember when you were in school and there was a literal board where people posted announcements? Pinterest is like that, albeit digital. Each post you make is a pin, similar to pinning papers on literal boards.
Pinterest Features
- Saving and Sharing – users can save your pins or share them on their boards. Because of this, there is a likelihood that a product can go viral. It is also how you will come across winning products on the platform.
- User Base – believe it or not, there are 445 million Pinterest users. Most of these are bloggers looking for traffic to their websites. There are also many sellers here, including manufacturers who share their product images and videos with users.
- Stats and Metrics – you can view the stats of the pins, and it is how you can determine if a product is worth selling or not.
Pinterest Pros
- It has millions of users; most of these are entrepreneurs
- You can view the product descriptions (get ideas on how to write yours)
- The pins have links to the product’s selling platform (you can contact the seller for more details)
Pinterest Cons
- It is not as socially active as other social media sites; it is rare for people to comment on pins
How to Find Winning Products with Pinterest
On the home page, type your product keyword, and you will see something like this:
From here, you can choose an image. Click it, and you will see this:
Now, you can see the stats of this product. As you can see from this screenshot, there are six comments here, which allow you to learn more about the product. In addition to this, you can also make use of the other stats and information on the pin. Take a look at this:
From here, we can see that this “pinner” or user has more than 15,000 followers. That says a lot of things, right? You can check out that pinner’s page to see more ideas. Please note that the more followers a pinner has, the more likely that the product has a demand.
For this particular pin, you can see from the top that this product is available on toysace.com, which you can visit to find more details. Although there are stats here that we cannot see (like re-pin stats and share stats), the follower count can at least give us ideas on what to dropship.
4. Instagram
Instagram to find winning dropshipping products? Really? Instagram used to be a place for social media influencers, but it has now evolved into a platform for sellers, too. Here, you will find not only people showing their skills or their looks but also people who sell products.
For instance, I have seen some folks who share videos of their fishing activities—these are people who sell fishing lines, rods, etc. If you look for influencers like this, I am sure you will find great dropshipping product ideas.
Instagram Features
- Instagram Shopping – you can shop on Instagram and use it as a baseline to decide if a product has a market or not.
- No Geographical Limit – unlike TikTok, there is no limit to the content you can access; you can access international posts and videos on Instagram regardless of where you are located.
Instagram Pros
- There are over 2 billion active Instagram users
- The stats can help you find winning products
- You can see different marketing approaches
Instagram Cons
- There are too many users; it can be difficult to narrow your search
How to Find Winning Products with Instagram
To start looking for products, type the name of the product you are looking for. What you will see in the results are the names of Instagram users. It looks like this:
It is up to you now to choose a user, and it will look like this:
From here, you can scroll through their posts one by one. Then, you can check the stats of that post.
In this example, we can see that the lipstick product has over 2,000 likes. We can also see that several people expressed support for this product. If we scroll up a little, we can find out about what this product is about.
You can do this for any niche. It is just time-consuming if you ask me. However, it guarantees you that there is a demand for this lipstick—specifically, many people love this lipstick shade. Overall, Instagram will not tell you how to find products to dropship or sell. Instream, you will have to make assumptions about how viral a product has become.
5. AliExpress
If you are looking for where to find products to dropship, look no further than AliExpress. AliExpress is the main source of products for many dropshippers, so it makes perfect sense to look for winning products here.
Scrubbing AliExpress is one the best methods on how to find a good product to dropship that I can share with you today. Currently, there are over 100 million products listed on the site.
There was a time when AliExpress had a best-seller category like Amazon. It was easy to view random products that had the highest sales. You cannot do that anymore today, but there is a simple way how to find winning dropshipping products on the platform.
AliExpress Features
- International – all sellers here ship to hundreds of countries. In addition, you will also find winning products located outside of China. These are suppliers who operate warehouses in various countries.
- Product Volume – with over 100 million products listed on the platform, it is virtually impossible not to find a product that fits your niche. The products are also super affordable, which makes it more reasonable to order the items before listing them in your dropshipping store.
- Shipping Options – the platform has a tie-up with many shipping carriers. As a seller, you can offer multiple shipping options to your customers. Most sellers in AliExpress also offer free shipping, but this method can take up to 60 days to complete the delivery.
AliExpress Pros
- Millions of products to choose from
- Almost all sellers support the dropshipping model
- Prices are affordable
AliExpress Cons
- The sales data can be misleading as this includes numbers for wholesale and not just retail
How to Find Winning Products with AliExpress
Finding a winning product on the platform could not be easier. All you need to do is type the keyword and wait for the results. You will see something like this:
As you can see, each thumbnail has stats about the product. The very first one has over 10,000 units sold, which tells us that this product is in high demand. The rating is also a factor, and this particular drone (the first one) has a rating of a little over 4 stars.
Click on a thumbnail, and you will see this:
This is where you will find the number of people who “loved” this item, the number of units sold, the rating, how many people left a review, and more.
Do this several times, and list down the links or URLs of the product pages for the ones that you like. Before long, you now have a list of winning products for your dropshipping store.
7. eBay
eBay, like Amazon, is an excellent place to find winning products to dropship because of its size and credibility. I will show you how to find a dropshipping product in a bit.
eBay has been around for a long time, and it has a strong and positive reputation. Reviews are authentic, and there is a thing called “watch count,” which is an important factor that we will look into.
eBay Features
- Demand Metrics – the product pages immediately show you the demand for the product, like rating and number of items sold.
- Watch Count – this number tells us how many people are watching the product. These are people following the listing to see the development in the auction/bidding status of the item.
- No Branding – unlike Amazon, eBay does not ship the item. It means that you can probably work out a deal with the eBay seller to dropship the items.
eBay Pros
- The stats you see are credible
- Lots of product categories that allow you to narrow your search
- Easy to view stats in the search results
eBay Cons
- Unlike Amazon, eBay has no bestseller list
How to Find Winning Products with eBay
Begin your search by typing the keyword in the search box. Here is an example:
From here, you can immediately see the stats of the product. The two key metrics I would look at are the number of ratings and the actual star rating, plus the number of items sold. Keep scrolling until you find something that has a lot of sales, then click that listing.
Here is an example of the product page:
The two things you want to see here are the number of items sold and the number of people who watched the item. These two metrics are key indicators of product demand. From our screenshot, we can say that there is a massive interest in this portable Bluetooth speaker, and then we can look for suppliers for the same or a similar product in AliExpress.
8. Facebook Marketplace
The Facebook Marketplace is where you can find winning Shopify products. The people who post on the Facebook Marketplace are likely Shopify sellers because you can integrate your Shopify store with the Facebook Marketplace.
Facebook Marketplace Features
- Worldwide – you can access products based on countries, regions, and cities. This allows you to find winning products only for specific markets that you want to sell to.
- Min-Max Price – there is a toggle bar at the left side of the panel where you can enter minimum and maximum prices for our search. This option can help you search for winning products within a specific price range.
- Date Listed – there is an option to show listings based on the last 24 hours, seven days, or the last 30 days.
Facebook Marketplace Pros
- Global product search
- Lots of product categories
- Optional filtering options
Facebook Marketplace Cons
- There aren’t many product stats to see
How to Find Winning Products with Facebook
The first step is to type the product keywords in the search box, and you will see something like this:
Next, click on an item that grabs your attention. In this case, I will click on the first item. Here it is:
From here, there is little to see. The only metric we can use to validate if it is a winning product or not is the seller’s rating. Here is an example:
From time to time, you will come across products that have a link to their online selling platform. If you do, you may find yourself on Amazon or Shopify, and it is how you can further investigate if this product is worth dropshipping or not.
9. Google Trends
Google Trends is a keyword research tool, not a product research tool. It tells you the popularity of a search term, or a keyword, over time. Essentially, Google Trends tells us the interest level of people for a specific term.
Google Trends Features
- Filters – you can narrow your search per country or worldwide
- Timeline – you can do your research as far back as 2004. What I recommend is the last 12 months or the past 90 days.
- Suggested Keywords – the tool will show you related keywords that have a breakout, or keywords that are trending on Google Search.
Google Trends Pro
- To tool is so easy to use and interpret
- You can do a comparison of different keywords
- You will get data from Google Search, the biggest search engine in the world
Google Trends Cons
- There is no other data but the search interest score
How to Find Winning Products with Google Trends
To use Google Trends, type the keyword and then hit EXPLORE. Once the results are in, make adjustments to the filters. Here is an example:
To interpret this data, it is important to understand what the Y-axis numbers mean. The numbers to the left are from 0 to 100. These numbers represent the interest score. A perfect score of 100 means that there is significant interest in that keyword for that particular period.
What you want are products that have a consistent trend score of at least 50—it means that there is a regular influx of searches for that keyword, and if people are searching for that keyword, it means that there is a demand for it.
10. Thieve.Co
Thieve is a product research tool that works like a dating app. It will show you products, and you have to swipe left or right based on what you feel about them. It is like Tinder where you swipe left if you do not want the profile on your screen.
Thieve.Co Features
- Chrome Extension – if you use a desktop, you will find the extension helpful. You can go to online stores and if the product in that store is in the database of the Thieve platform, the app will automatically give you an option to save it for later viewing.
- Supplier Database – this product research tool has a database of suppliers. If there is a winning product that you like, you can contact that supplier and make arrangements.
- Image Search – if you have a product image and you want to know who the supplier is, you can upload that in the tool and it will show you a list of suppliers who have the same product or something similar.
Thieve.Co Pros
- They offer a free account
- The tool can create advertising copy for your products
- There are many suppliers in the system’s database that you can work with
Thieve.Co Cons
- There is no transparency about the price of their services
How to Find Winning Products with Thieve.Co
All it takes to find winning products is to click on the SWIPES link on the website’s menu. Then, you will see this:
From here, you can either click on the X button or the LOVE icon. If you click LOVE, this product will be on your list, and there is an option at the bottom right to learn more about it.
After clicking the product link, this is what you will see:
It is now up to you to decide if this product is worth your time or not. As you can see, it has stats like reviews, the number of items sold, and a link to the AliExpress supplier.
11. Etsy
Etsy is a huge marketplace where you can find tons of unique, hand-crafted items. Although Etsy has a strong policy against mass-manufactured products, there is a loophole in this rule: they allow print-on-demand products.
Print-on-demand (POD) is a business model where you design a “blank” product, and then place an order from a supplier once a customer orders from you. On Etsy, you will find tons of ideas on what dropshipping products have a huge demand, particularly in the POD niche.
Etsy Features
- Product Uniqueness – Etsy is one of the few marketplaces where you can get bright ideas. It is not a place for mass-producing products and, as such, you can get inspiration from the items that you see here.
- Categories – Etsy has several product categories that you can browse. The categories allow you to drill down your search based on your niche.
- Stats – each product page gives you the data you need to determine if it is a winning product. Some examples are review count, review score, and review comments.
Etsy Pros
- This marketplace is where you can get real ideas because all items here are unique
- You can see the supplier in the listing (if the seller is doing POD)
- You can dropship Etsy products; just talk to the seller to make arrangements
Etsy Cons
How to Find Winning Products with Etsy
To find a winning product on Etsy, type the keyword in the search box and hit search. Once you see the results, just keep scrolling until you find a product you like.
Here is an example:
From here, you can immediately see which ones are the best sellers. You can tell that by looking at the number of reviews.
Click on a thumbnail, and you will see something like this:
It is on this page where you can see more data about the product. I suggest that you go through the reviews to find out what people say about it. In addition, the top right section will also tell you if the product is in demand or not.
12. Walmart
The last on our list is Walmart, a giant grocery chain that went online and is probably one of the biggest competitors of Amazon. Walmart is not exactly a marketplace like Etsy or Amazon, but there are many items here that can give you ideas of what winning products to dropship.
Walmart Features
- Product Categories – Walmart pretty much has it all, so you will get a good grasp of what items are in demand. Use this knowledge to your advantage to find winning products.
- Tags – the listing has a tag of whether it is a best seller or not. This tag allows you to easily assess the product’s market strength.
Walmart Pros
- Walmart’s primary customers are in the US; you can get a good idea of what US customers want
- It carries thousands of kinds of products
Walmart Cons
- Not a lot of data to go by or analyze
How to Find Winning Products with Walmart
To find a winning product in Walmart, type your product keyword, and hit the yellow search icon. You will see something like this:
Next, click on an item that catches your attention and reviews the details. Here is an example:
There are three important sections that we need to look into. The first one is the number of people who bought his item recently, which is at the top right. Second, if the product is tagged as a “popular pick” or “best-seller,” then you have a winning product. Lastly, check the review score and the review count. I also recommend that you read the reviews to learn more about what the customers loved about it.
Frequently Asked Questions: Ways to Find Winning Products in 2024
How do you come up with a winning product?
To find winning products, you must do a lot of research on social media sites and marketplaces to determine if your drop shipping ideas have a demand. It is a lot of hard work, and I would recommend that you use a program like Sell the Trend to make it easier for you.
How do I find hot-winning products?
The best way to find winning products dropshipping quickly is by using software that already gathers data from around the world. An example of this is Sell the Trend. There is no guesswork if you use such a tool. You will get hard data that will help you make an informed business decision.
How do you know if a product is a winner?
You will know if a product is a winner if it has a lot of sales, or if there is a lot of interest in it. if you do not have the budget to spend on spy tools, take the time to browse social media sites and list down the numbers you see.
How to find winning products for dropshipping 2024 for free?
You can find winning products for dropshipping in 2024 for free if you use tools like Sell the Trend. An alternative to this is by using social media and online marketplaces.
Summary: Ways to Find Winning Products in 2024
The first course of action in dropshipping is to find a winning product. If you do not do this, you are taking a big risk. You may be displaying goods on your website that nobody is interested in. There is a saying that goes, “Trend is your friend.”
And for good reason—it is rare for products to have a long-lasting dominance in the market. As such, you are better off if you keep yourself updated with current events and demands—sell only products that people are already looking for, and conversion rate should not be a problem.
