If turning a profit is your main motivation for starting a side hustle, you may not be particularly concerned with what you sell, just as long as it, well, sells!
So why is it that some products fly off the virtual shelves while others gather dust?
How do you determine what the next ‘hot’ product will be?
For eCommerce stores, hot products are defined as products with the largest growth in orders period over period.
In this newsletter, we’ll show you how to comfortably research online behaviors, consumer demands and trending products.
Keeping ahead of the game with what products will trend may seem complicated but we have some tips and tricks up our sleeve that will;
- Help you figure out what the next hot product will be.
- Help you identify trending niches on social media.
- Help you see what’s trending on Amazon.
What you can expect this week
- Trends. Curious to know which ecommerce niches have seen the most growth in the past couple of years? We’ve analyzed the data and ranked the top trending categories for you.
- Strategies. This week’s strategies will show you how to research trending products and gain the necessary knowledge to track online shopping behaviors.
- Tool of the Week. This week we put the spotlight on a tool that will help you explore shopping habits of consumers and assess product selling potential!
Trends
Which eCommerce categories are hot right now? Is selling online still a viable option? We’ve analysed the data for you!
While this data alone shouldn’t be the only reason you choose a niche for your side hustle, it can guide you on which categories have seen consistent growth in sales over the past few years.
Below are five graphs that summarize our insights.
US Retail Sales Online Vs Offline
After two unusual years, US retail sales have returned to pre-pandemic growth trends in 2023. Annual ecommerce sales surpassed $1 trillion for the first time in 2022.
US Retail Sales Growth
US ecommerce sales grew 14.1% in 2022. That annual growth rate will remain in the low-to-mid teens over our forecast period, as it did in the years leading up to the pandemic.
Similarly, non-ecommerce retail growth will return to an annual growth rate of low single digits, increasing by 1.3%.
US Retail Ecommerce Sales 2022
Together, the computer and consumer electronics and apparel and accessories categories will make up more than 40% of all US ecommerce sales in 2023.
US Retail Ecommerce Sales Growth 2022
Changes to consumer behaviors during the pandemic – including online car buying and digital grocery shopping – make auto and parts and food and beverage the fastest-growing ecommerce categories in 2023. Interesting!
Trending Products on Shopify
Records were one of the best performing products in the second half of 2021. Indie retailers sold almost half of all vinyl LPs in 2021. In that year, one out of every three albums sold in the US (physical and digital formats combined) were vinyl records.
Strategies
This week’s strategies will show you how to research trending products and gain the necessary knowledge to track online shopping behaviors so you can predict the next hot product!
Google Trends.
Google Trends allows you to explore what the world is searching for and gives you a head start in seeing popular topics.
Whether you want to see what’s trending in your selected niche, or want to find a niche to focus on, Google Trends will help you stay up to date with consumer movements.
How do you use Google Trends to find hot products?
To find popular topics and discover what could potentially be the next hot product, you can see search queries by following these easy steps!
- Head on over to Google Trends.
- Click on the Google Trends menu button on the top-left hand corner and then click the explore button.
- Select your desired region that you wish to explore. You can also focus on a whole country or narrow it down to a state or city, depending on your wants and needs.
- Choose the time period in which you would like to research. If you are wishing to see more overarching topics in your industry, it would be best for you to choose a longer time frame than if you were wanting to research newer topics, in which case a shorter period of time should be selected.
- Choose the category you wish to focus on. If you are wanting to research what people’s online shopping demands are, then you might choose shopping. Or if you are a side hustle focusing on supplements, then health maybe your preferred category.
- If you wish to see what other topics your potential audience are searching for, click on the Rising category. It shows what other things people who are interested in your chosen category are also looking at. Some of this information may not be relevant to you but it could hold little nuggets of information that could be highly beneficial. Giving you insight into your potential customer’s interests and what other aspects they are investing their time and money in.
Not only is Google Trends beneficial in discovering trends within niche categories, but it also allows you insight into patterns within the online community.
Patterns can be useful when deciding what product to invest in for your side hustle and when to start planning your advertising and promotional campaigns. By determining the optimal time for specific search terms to increase and decrease, you can anticipate and determine when to start selling and marketing.
Unfortunately, Google Trends does not allow you to research beyond the past week with hourly data. Therefore researching regularly throughout a couple of months should give you insight into popularity patterns. By researching monthly patterns, you will also be able to see seasonal patterns and what trends fluctuate or diminish over certain months.
For an in-depth look into the benefits of Google Trends, check out this video by Stewart Gauld.
Social Listening
Social media listening tools allow you to build a solid understanding of exactly how potential customers think about certain brands and products by analyzing what they say on social channels.
You can also learn what they think about your future competition. This is incredible market research readily available in real-time—as long as you know how to access it.
So, how do we uncover what’s trending and what could be the next hot product?
Native analytic tools on different social media platforms will be able to give you some idea of what conversations are trending as well as what hashtags could be relevant to your business.
Below are a few ways you can use social listening to discover trends and see what products are on the rise.
Explore the “For you” tab on Twitter
Twitter is a social platform that has one of the best native trend analysis tools. This is a great place to discover new audience interests and see what is peaking in discussions online.
On the desktop client or mobile app, you will see “What’s happening”. This gives you a real-time update of trending topics and hashtags that could be of benefit to you.
If you click on the “Show more”, it shows you a personalized list of trending conversations and topics that you specifically may be interested in and shows you the number of Tweets found for each topic/hashtag you are searching for! These can also be filtered by categories to make it even more niche.
This is an excellent way to uncover what users are talking about as well as see topics that could align with your future brand.
If you wish to look at other interests you can check what is trending by region as well as subtopics. You can find out more great info on looking for trending topics on Twitter HERE.
Look into trending hashtags on Instagram
The great thing about Instagram is that rising trends are easily discoverable. However, it can be tricky to find hashtags that revolve around your chosen niche.
A great tool to figure out what is trending on Instagram is Inflact. This free tool simplifies the process of sorting through hashtags by letting you sort based on niche, topics and categories.
Inflact is also a helpful tool once you have your side hustle up and running, so you can benefit from hashtags that can help elevate your social audience. You can filter the most popular hashtags on various topics and categories including health, animals, news and home as well as generate hashtags to suit your business.
A free tool to get you started
Need some help with social listening? Click on the picture below for a social listening cheat sheet. This will help you build a strategy to find a hot new product for your side hustle.
Amazon Trending Products
When thinking about ecommerce it’s only natural that Amazon springs to mind. Amazon is arguably the biggest ecommerce platform in the world right now.
If you’re thinking about selling on Amazon, there are an array of resources to find out what is performing well.
A place to keep an eye on is Amazon’s Best Sellers category. Viewing this resource will help you determine the sales performance of products within a particular category with a product’s current ranking being a good indication of how well it is selling.
Graded on a bell curve, with Amazon’s best sellers, every product has a numerical sales ranking with the lower numbers being more profitable. A product’s rank, like many purchases around the globe, can often be subject to trends and seasons.
It is important to note that categories that have hundreds of different products, ranking can be dramatically different from a genre with far fewer products. Amazon’s Bestsellers are updated hourly so it’s a great tool to check frequently to identify trends and spikes.
Another tool to keep a close eye on is Amazon’s Movers & Shakers list. Here you can take a look at products that have shot up the charts over the course of 24 hours.
Products that may have been average in sales, may shoot up and see a sudden surge in demand. Although this is a great way to see trends in popularity of products, make sure you are clear on the reason why the products have risen so quickly.
For instance, if a product starts being used by a celebrity that can be enough to send sales shooting through the roof. The problem with chasing a faddish hot product is that the demand can dissipate quickly, therefore the appeal for the product is fleeting.
So when doing your research, be conscious that you are wanting to invest in a product that is at the beginning of a durable change, rather than a short lived fad.
Now although viewing these pages are a good base for learning and understanding the sales opportunities, it can be somewhat time-consuming.
But, never fear!
You know we love to give you links to sites that can help you make your research simpler and smoother. And that’s where CamelCamelCamel comes in! (Yes,it is a real site name).
CamelCamelCamel is a free Amazon Sales Rank tracker that gives you access to ranking information on thousands of products.
It allows you to look up current and historical sales rankings of any particular product through its online search engine.
If you’re an Amazon FBA seller you can also use it to watch products and prices and be notified if price products drop or any anomalies arise.
CamelCamelCamel aso features a “popular predicts” tab that gives you at-a-glance product ideas and inspiration.
Tool of the Week
Another great tool to help you uncover the next hot product is Jungle Scout. Jungle Scout allows you to explore shopping habits of consumers and assess product selling potential, as well as discover potential hot product opportunities.
Jungle Scout helps you make informed data-driven decisions, enabling you to build a profitable business on Amazon.
Not only does it allow you to see what products are in high demand, but it also shows you what keywords are needed to boost the sales of your products, automate your inventory, review requests and more!
Organize, explore and elevate products and leverage data with confidence. And with a 7-day money-back guarantee you can see if it is the right tool for your business. Check it out here.
