Want to know what to sell on Amazon? The better question might be what not to sell on Amazon. Amazon Marketplace sellers list more than 350 million unique products on the platform.
Think about your favorite products. They’re probably all on Amazon. Now, think about a product you wish existed. Search for it—there’s a good chance you’ll find it on Amazon.
Yet, you don’t want just any ol’ product to sell on Amazon. You want the best-selling products that’ll net you a handsome profit for the least amount of work.
Nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all.
However, that’s easier said than done because it turns out finding a low-cost, in-demand product is exactly what every other seller wants. Bummer.
You’re going to have to get more creative. Googling “what to sell on Amazon” was a good first step, but you need to go deeper. Fortunately, you came to the right place.
Below, we walk you through the top-selling items on Amazon (as of 2023). Woah, woah, woah—don’t skip down the page just yet. These aren’t necessarily the products you want to sell, either. We’re just looking for some inspiration.
Let’s look at the common characteristics of these best-selling products on Amazon. Then, you’ll be ready for our 9 tips to help you find what to sell on Amazon.
Table of Contents
Common Characteristics of Best-Selling Products On Amazon
9 Tips to Help You Find What to Sell on Amazon
What to Sell on Amazon FAQs
How can I find profitable niches or product categories on Amazon?
Start by visiting the best-sellers page and seeing what's trending in the top 10. Then scroll past the top sellers to see any emerging trends. Find if there are products that you can slightly iterate. You can also research customer reviews to see if customers have complaints or wish the product did something better. That slight differentiation can set your Amazon product apart.
Should I sell products that are in high demand but have low profit margins or vice versa?
Ideally, you need to sell products that are in the middle. If you have low-profit margins, you'll need to sell enough of them to make a return on your investment. If you're selling a product on Amazon with high demand, chances are your competition will be fierce.
What are the potential challenges or risks associated with selling on Amazon?
The biggest challenge with selling on Amazon is competing against Amazon. Stay away from product categories where Amazon Basics dominate. The main risk with selling on Amazon is not having complete autonomy to express and curate your brand. If you sell on Amazon, you must play by their rules.
Top-Selling Items On Amazon (As of March 2024)
You can find top-selling items on Amazon by visiting the Amazon Best Sellers page. Amazon updates this page hourly to maintain an up-to-date list of best selling items.
The bestsellers are broken out into 40+ departments, including Baby, Beauty & Personal Care, Electronics, Kitchen & Dining, Sports & Outdoors, and Video Games.
As of March 2024, the top-selling items on Amazon are:
- Bestsellers in Baby: Pampers Diapers Size 4, 150 Count (stocking up on diaper duty)
- Bestsellers in Clothing, Shoes, & Jewelry: Crocs Unisex-Adult Classic Clogs (the ultimate comeback story)
- Bestsellers in Health & Household: Bounty Quick Size Paper Towels (likely related to recent trends on TikTok Shop)
- Bestsellers in Camera & Photo Products: Occer Compact Binoculars for Adults and Kids (perfect for keeping an eye on what your neighbors are ordering from Amazon)
- Bestsellers in Software: TurboTax Deluxe 2023 Tax Software (It’s tax season baby!)
- Bestsellers in Video Games: $10 PlayStation Store Gift Card (summertime b-day gifts)
- Bestsellers in Kitchen & Dining: Stanley Quencher H2.0 FlowState Stainless Steel Vacuum Insulated Tumbler
Common Characteristics of Best-Selling Products On Amazon
Best-selling items come and go (apparently hourly) from Amazon’s bestseller’s page, but there are reasons they make it to the top. Let’s look at what these products have in common to see what we can learn:
- Low Price: All of these products are relatively inexpensive. Almost everything is less than $100. Investing in low-cost items also helps you mitigate risk. Imagine stocking up on 100 Beats by Dre—it’d cost you $15K+. However, stocking up on 100 packs of baby wipes might only cost you $1,500. Now, the profit margins on these items widely vary, but so does the level of risk.
- Recurring Purchase: A chunk of these items will likely be repeat purchases. People will need multiple packs of baby wipes, an annual renewal of antivirus software, the latest Echo accessory, and gift cards.
- Evergreen: Products can go in and out of season, but some are more evergreen. Parents are always going to need baby wipes, and households will always need safety items. However, check this list again in December, and you might find holiday decor and toys to be one of the top-performing categories.
- Positive Reviews: All of the products on this list have 4-star or higher reviews.
- High Review Volume: These products all have thousands of reviews, meaning they’ve had thousands of purchases and (given the feedback of) thousands of positive experiences.
Don’t Skip: 7 Proven Ways to Make Money on Amazon
9 Tips to Help You Find What to Sell on Amazon
Just because it’s a top-selling item on Amazon doesn’t mean you should sell it. Levi’s shorts are probably not going to be as popular come winter, and it would be hard to compete with Amazon in selling the Echo.
You need to find products that are on-brand. It also helps if you like, care about, and use the items you sell. If you’re a 40-year-old balding man (which there’s nothing wrong with), shampoo products might not be your thing—and that’s OK.
Again, you don’t have to like or use the products you sell, but it helps.
With over 150 million (soak that number in for a second) Amazon Prime subscribers on the platform, you’re bound to find a healthy-sized audience for just about any niche—whether that’s Star Wars LEGO kits or crossfit foam rollers.
With that said, finding what to sell on Amazon isn’t quite as easy as Googling “Best Selling Products On Amazon” and clicking the first link you see.
Let us help you narrow down your search. Follow these tips to help you find the right on-brand, in-demand, not overly competitive products on Amazon:
1. Don’t Compete with Amazon. Just Don’t.
Amazon sells millions of its own products. If the monolith is selling a product, just leave it alone.
They’re going to be able to outprice you, and they’ll almost always have the Buy Box. Save yourself the hurt and go after a different product.
Focus on more niche items instead of generic products. You’ll have better luck dominating a market for ultrarunners than going after your typical runner. And you’ll likely face less competition selling products catered to vegetarian swimmers than vegetarians at large.
2. Find Demand with Keyword Research
When looking for the right product to sell on Amazon, you’re searching for the right Goldilocks balance between demand and competition. Ideally, you want to sell items with high demand and low competition—but you’re going to have to do a lot of research to find those golden opportunities.
To find demand, you’re going to need to look at specific keywords. Here are popular tools you can use:
Amazon Search Bar
Begin typing a product into Amazon and see what comes up. Amazon pre-populates the text with options based on search volume. If other people frequently search for the same thing, it will appear higher on the list. These are the products you want to go after.
For example, “dog toys for large dogs aggressive chewers” is a very specific product. It’s not just a dog toy—nor is it just a dog toy for large dogs. It’s a dog toy for large dogs who happen to be aggressive chewers.
Once you find an in-demand product, you want to search to see what other sellers list on Amazon. If you find a popular search term that doesn’t have products catering specifically to it, then you’ve likely found a golden opportunity.
Google Keyword Planner
Another tool you can use to gauge interest is Google’s free Keyword Planner. Use Keyword Planner to find what people are searching for online.
We could double-check the keywords for dog toys to find if they have a significant search volume.
Looking at the results, it does. However, you’ll also notice it has “High” competition. If you plan to go after this product on Amazon, be ready to fight for it.
3. Avoid Categories Dominated by Big Brands
Amazon isn’t the only brand you have to worry about. Big players dominate plenty of consumer goods, and they’ll typically have the reputation, marketing, manufacturing, and budget to beat you.
Avoid them.
Running shoes? Yeah, Nike and Adidas got that covered. Toothpaste? Sorry, Crest and Colgate dominate. Mobile devices? Please, we already have iPhones and Androids.
Remember, niche down. If you want to sell toothpaste, find a niche product where the big players won’t run all over you—like glow-in-the-dark flavorless toothpaste. Sounds good. Now you just need to make sure there’s enough demand.
4. Crunch the Numbers. All the Numbers
Your product needs to be profitable. It doesn’t matter if you beat out the competition and win all the sales if you’re not making enough to cover your expenses.
Crunch the numbers to see if it works. Factor in your manufacturing expenses, storage fees, packaging costs, and shipping fees. Add it all up.
Even if you find a golden opportunity on Amazon, you might not be able to make the numbers work. It happens. Consider using Amazon FBA to lower your overhead—it may be the missing link you needed to make the math fit.
Don’t beat yourself up. Move on to the next product idea.
5. Pay Attention to Amazon Customer Reviews
Reviews are everything on Amazon. Even the most affordable products won’t survive if they’re not consistently bringing in positive reviews.
Look at the feedback before you invest in an item. Customers who love products will likely make more repeat purchases and fewer returns—and those are the kind of customers you want.
You’ll also want to pay attention to the review volume. Ideally, you want to find products with thousands of reviews—that’s how you’ll know it’s a safe bet.
However, some other excellent options might not have as many reviews yet. They may only have 50 or so reviews. Read the feedback and see if they’re fake reviews or genuine. If they’re real, the product still might have great potential.
6. Consider the Dimension and Weight of the Product
Large, heavy items will cost more to store and ship. Consider this when you’re researching products.
Think about selling athletic shorts—these are lightweight and can be compressed into the size of a tennis ball. They’re cheap and easy to ship, which is exactly what you’re looking for.
Now, think about selling picture frames. These come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and weights. They also require protection to ensure they don’t get damaged in storage or transit, which makes them a bit more expensive.
Looking back at our list of best-selling items, most of the products are lightweight and durable. You won’t have to worry about shipping or storing items like Crocs or batteries.
7. Pick Products That Cross-Sell Well
When you’re choosing what to sell on Amazon, take a step back and think of the big picture. If you find success on the platform, what’s going to be your second or third product? What about your tenth?
Don’t pigeonhole your brand into selling products that don’t easily scale. If you start selling baby wipes, you could brand off into diapers, lotions, toys, and baby bags. However, if you start selling glow-in-the-dark toothpaste, your options will be a bit more limited.
8. Weigh One-Off Purchases vs. Recurring Purchases
Customers only need one squatty potty (usually), but they need monthly refills of shaving razors or dish sponges. Your audience may only need a single pair of Crocs, but they’ll likely need to get a new pack of batteries every year or so.
Consider this when choosing your items—do you plan on selling single products to many customers, or do you prefer to sell many products to recurring customers?
9. Take Advantage of AI
Unfortunately, ChatGPT can’t tell you exactly what will be successful on Amazon (yet, anyway!), but it can be beneficial in several other ways, especially when it comes to fleshing out potential ideas.
Let’s say, for example, you decide to create a Croc’s accessories company that focuses on creating cool Croc shoe charms. ChatGPT is a great tool for expanding that idea, coming up with new design ideas, highlighting potential issues, and so on.
Here’s an example prompt:
“We’re considering launching a Crocs accessories company that sells small accessories that you can attach and detach from your favorite Crocs. Please can you come up with 10 design ideas that are tailored to a target audience of 18-24-year-olds (male and female), and also list out 10 bullet points on potential issues we need to be aware of?”
And here’s what ChatGPT recommended.
Design ideas:
1. Retro Vibes Jibbitz Set:
– Includes nostalgic symbols and icons from the ’90s and early 2000s.
– Appeals to the love for vintage and pop culture among the target audience.
2. Customizable LED Charm Pack:
– Attachable LED charms with customizable colors and patterns.
– Perfect for adding a trendy and vibrant touch to Crocs during nighttime events.
3. Nature-Inspired Charms Collection:
– Botanical-themed charms like flowers, leaves, and butterflies.
– Appeals to the eco-conscious and nature-loving young adults.
4. Glow-in-the-Dark Galactic Set:
– Celestial-themed charms that glow in the dark.
– Ideal for those who enjoy night activities and festivals.
5. DIY Graffiti Marker Kit:
– Plain white charms with a set of graffiti markers for personalization.
– Encourages creativity and self-expression.
6. Emoji Expressions Pack:
– Emoticon-shaped charms reflecting a range of emotions.
– Appeals to the social media-savvy generation.
7. Sustainable Material Collection:
– Charms made from recycled or eco-friendly materials.
– Targets environmentally conscious consumers.
8. Tech-Geek Gadgets Set:
– Charms inspired by tech gadgets like headphones, game controllers, and emojis.
– Appeals to the tech-savvy and gamers within the age group.
9. Minimalist Geometric Shapes Kit:
– Simple and modern geometric charms for a minimalist look.
– Caters to those who prefer understated fashion.
10. Collaboration with Local Artists:
– Limited edition charms designed in collaboration with emerging local artists.
– Fosters community engagement and supports young talents.
Potential Issues to Consider:
1. Trademark and Licensing:**
– Ensure that your designs do not infringe on existing trademarks or copyrights.
2. Quality Control:
– Maintain consistent quality to avoid issues with durability and customer satisfaction.
3. Supply Chain Management:
– Establish a reliable supply chain to avoid delays and stockouts.
4. Market Trends:
– Stay updated on fashion trends to ensure your accessories remain relevant.
5. Online Presence:
– Build a strong online presence for marketing and sales to reach the target audience effectively.
6. Regulatory Compliance:
– Adhere to product safety and compliance regulations in the regions you operate.
7. Customer Feedback:
– Actively seek and address customer feedback to improve product offerings.
8. Competitive Landscape:
– Analyze competitors regularly to stay ahead in terms of design and marketing strategies.
9. Sustainability Practices:
If eco-friendly products are promoted, transparency in sustainable practices should be ensured.
10. Distribution Channels:
– Strategize effective distribution channels to reach your target audience efficiently.
You can also use AI to optimize your product descriptions with relevant keywords, which is something Melisa Vong touches on in great detail in our recent interview.
“We’re seeing a lot more AI-generated descriptions. People are optimizing their bullet points with more keywords.”
“We’re seeing a lot more AI-generated descriptions. People are optimizing their bullet points with more keywords.”
Melisa also uses AI tools for valuable customer insights. “GenieAI for example, gives us customer insights, basically summarizing all of the different reviews for a single product.” She explains.
Instead of spending hours and hours reading through every single review, tools like GenieAI can aggregate it all into one page.”
Keep Learning: Is Selling On Amazon Worth It?
Become an Amazon Power Seller
Ready to start selling on Amazon? Watch our training course, where instructor Melisa Vong shares how she started and sold 2 multi-million dollar brands using Amazon FBA’s infrastructure. Get her formulas for selling success on the platform and take advantage of the largest selling platform on the planet.
—
This article was updated with support from Graeme Whiles.