How to choose products for e-commerce

In the field of e-commerce, product selection is a key factor in determining the success of a business, and how to select products has become an important skill in e-commerce operations. This article will explore the methods and strategies of product selection from multiple perspectives to help businesses stand out in the fierce market competition.

What is the most important thing in e-commerce? Of course, it is product selection. As the saying goes, product selection determines life or death. If you choose a good product, and you do the same things as making materials, putting it on the shelves, and driving, the result may be that one product has a huge number of orders, while the other has no exposure at all.

Do you think this is a technical problem? That's not necessarily the case. In fact, it's just that the quality is not good enough. With good quality, even a pig can make it. With poor quality, even a great artist can't get exposure. This is the magic of quality.

Since product is so important, it is crucial to choose a good product. Well, the question is, how to choose a good product? This is a technical job. This article will share with you the ways and methods of product selection from the following aspects. I hope that you can also choose products that are easy to sell according to these methods.

1. Product selection method 1: experience-based product selection

The most accurate and efficient way to select products is undoubtedly experience-based selection. Experience-based selection means that you have been working in a certain category for more than five years. You know how many manufacturers there are in this industry, what the bosses are called, how big the market space is, and what was popular last year and what will be popular this year. After you have these experiences, do you think product selection is difficult?

I'm not bragging. Based on my three months of experience in the skin care industry, when I get a product, I can accurately tell whether it is a steamed egg just by weighing it in my hand. Just kidding.

If you want to choose products based on experience after only three months of experience, that's a joke. There is a high threshold for choosing products based on experience. A new e-commerce person asked me how to choose products in a certain category. I said that based on your current understanding of this category, you should just look at what others are selling well and sell them accordingly. Don't choose products by yourself because you can't choose.

The most valuable point of product selection based on experience is the ability to detect products that are about to explode but have not exploded through a keen sense of smell. This is a skill that can be converted into money. When you lay out white horse links before your competitors, you will make more money earlier than your competitors. When even novices know that this link can make money, you have already made a lot of money and are leaving the market to play with the next product.

You said that since experience is so good for selecting products, I also want to select products based on experience. Then look at the chief physicians in the hospital and see if there are any who have taken up that position just a few months after graduation.

You have to persevere and delve deeply into a category for a few years. Only then will you have a little experience advantage over the newcomers. Time is equal to everyone. If you invest time, you will get something in return. If you don't invest, don't play with experience in product selection.

2. Product selection method 2: data selection

This is the favorite method of every e-commerce newcomer. Everyone asks right away: Does Pinduoduo have any third-party data platform? I will check the category data to see what products are selling well.

To be honest, if there really was such a platform a few years ago, you would have been able to reap the benefits of being a new leeks. But now, there are no such platforms anymore, as they have all been crushed by the platforms.

Although I don’t know why the platform wants to defeat the third-party data platform, one thing is certain, the data on the third-party platform is inaccurate, because the platform does not open the data interface, how can the third party have data? I have compared the store I run with the third-party data platform before, and the data is completely inconsistent. Therefore, I basically don’t look at the data of third-party platforms now.

Is it possible to do data selection? Not necessarily. My knowledge is limited, and the third-party data platforms for Pinduoduo that I have come into contact with are gone. However, e-commerce is not just Pinduoduo, there are also Taobao, Doudian, etc. There are quite a few third-party data platforms for Taobao and Doudian. When we do Pinduoduo or other platforms, we can also refer to the third-party data of competing platforms.

For example, if you are working on Pinduoduo, you can look at the data analysis platform of Doudian to see what products have suddenly become popular on Doudian in this period, and then search on Pinduoduo to see if anyone is doing it. If no one is doing it, then congratulations, you have found a treasure.

Don't doubt it, there are indeed such products. For example, a certain card is selling very well on Taobao and JD.com, and there are only 2-3 companies doing this on Pinduoduo. As long as you have this product, it will be a big hit.

3. Product selection method 3: list selection

This is my favorite and currently used product selection method. It is simple, reliable, and will not go wrong. Take Pinduoduo as an example. Pinduoduo's sales ranking is absolutely true and reliable. The products that can be ranked first must be the best-selling products in the same category.

I have a habit of checking the list every day to see if there are any new products on the list. Then I search for keywords and filter the links according to the sales ranking to see if there are any new links or new products that have recently sold hundreds or thousands of orders a day.

When I see a new face, I check if I have similar products. What is a similar product? It means that everyone has similar functions. After all, the probability of having exactly the same product is too low. As long as the products are similar, he can use it, so why can't I use it?

The selection of products for the list depends on your resources and capabilities. If you have a more advantageous supply chain, you can go for the top one. If your technology is not that good, then look at new links. Even if your price is a little cheaper than the other party, you can quickly grab the other party's traffic.

You don’t need any experience to select products from the list, and you don’t need to spend money to buy a third-party platform account. All you need is one word: diligence. Just read the list once or twice a day, persevere, and you will know what products you want to make without doing anything else.

4. Product selection method 4: follow the product selection

There are some weak creatures in the ocean, and their way of survival is to rely on other creatures with hard shells. Since we don't have the ability to select products, it is also a good way to follow the powerful big guys to select products.

How to follow the big guys to select products? First of all, we need to know which stores the big guys have, such as the merchants on 1688, and what new models they have launched. You know, they have a dedicated purchasing team, and their product selection is supported by scientific methodology, so their product selection accuracy is naturally beyond doubt.

There are also stores of the first and second companies in the same category on Pinduoduo. You can follow them all, and then open Pinduoduo every day and check the store follow-up page. It will tell you truthfully which products the competing stores you are following have recently put on the market and which ones are hot-selling.

There is no lack of beauty in life, what is lacking is the eyes to discover beauty. Potential hot products are right in front of you, it depends on whether you can notice them.

Following the product selection also requires some knowledge of the industry. At the very least, you need to know which stores are doing well in your category and which companies they are from. Furthermore, it would be even better if you could know how the other party established the link.

How to get links from competitors? In the same way, there is never a lack of methods in life, but there is a lack of brains to come up with methods. As long as you think about it, there is always a solution.

5. Final Thoughts

Product selection is both difficult and easy. The easy part is that you can just pick a product and put it on the shelf to promote it. Maybe if you are lucky, it will really go viral. The difficult part is that you want every link and every product you choose to go viral, which is also difficult to achieve.

In my opinion, if you select products frequently and build links frequently, as time goes by and you gain enough experience, your success rate in selecting products and building links will get higher and higher. Product selection cannot be rushed.