Generally speaking, there are three basic ideas for product development.
(I) Starting from the perspective of consumers, meeting market demand
The Amazon platform emphasizes products. Regardless of whether the seller has resources and is familiar with the product, it is necessary to consider whether the product at hand is needed by the market and whether the market space is large enough. Therefore, the primary idea of product development is to start from market demand, explore and discover whether there is demand for a certain type or product in the foreign market, and then choose this type or product to enter the market. Although some products are not popular in my country, it does not mean that they will not sell well in other countries. For example, if the seller wants to enter the Japanese site, then he should further understand what kind of products Japanese consumers need and what kind of products they pursue. Only by fully conducting demand research in foreign markets, thinking about demand from the perspective of foreign consumers, and filling market demand with practical actions can you get a piece of the pie. At the same time, for keen sellers, when new demands appear in the market (such as the popular mobile power bank), timely follow-up and development of products that meet the new needs of consumers is a successful product development idea.
(II) From the perspective of sellers, focus on category value
Sellers on the Amazon platform come from all over the world. Some are local sellers who understand the needs and habits of local consumers better; and more sellers come from other countries, who bring more creative and practical products. For Chinese sellers, more belong to the latter. In the early stage of opening a store, due to very limited resources in all aspects, new sellers can choose to focus on a certain category of products and take root on the Amazon platform. If it is impossible to judge the market trend, sellers can browse the sales of sub-categories on the Amazon platform and conduct market research on stores with better operating conditions or products with higher sales, and learn from the market conditions of a certain category to provide ideas for product development for the store that is about to open. For example, click “Departments” on the front end of Amazon, enter the sub-category where the target product is located, and then click “Best Sellers” to see which products are the best-selling in a specific category.
(III) From the product perspective, gain market share through differentiation
There is no shortage of good products on the Amazon platform, and many sellers have established brand moats, making the market look like a red ocean. Some sellers simply give up and turn their attention to the blue ocean market. But in fact, there are business opportunities in the red ocean market. The reason why it has become a red ocean market is that the market size of this category or product is large enough or the profit margin is large. If you can differentiate your products in such a large market, then there will eventually be opportunities for profit.
No matter what product, as long as you make differentiated changes that are suitable for local consumption habits, there will be a market. Let’s take a look at a category that has been selling well all year round – power strips.
The market capacity of power strips is very large. Currently, ten small categories can sell 200~ a day. 300 orders. After several rounds of violent promotion of this most common white, multi-hole power strip, the seller has taken the supply chain and product quality to the extreme. Since then, new sellers have appeared in the market and started to make upgraded models to achieve the purpose of differentiated competition. At the same time, it can be seen that such sellers have also divided up a part of the market in this category.
The same product is placed in different scenarios, and there will be many areas worth developing. Some products on the market today compete with differentiation in quantity and function, and some compete with differentiation in different usage scenarios. This is also the biggest feature that distinguishes Amazon’s US site from other markets. Therefore, when you don’t know how to choose a product, sellers can try to vertically innovate existing products, which may create the next hit product. In addition, vertical innovation of existing products also provides us with new ideas for product development to gain market share through differentiation.