2020
Product
Research
Guide
A comprehensive guide of product research
methods and ideas to steer those looking for
"winning" products in the right direction.

Jesse O'Brien
www.JesseJerome.com


JJXOBII

JJXOBII

JJXOBII


2

CONTENTS
What to expect of this eBook?
Facebook
Instagram
Amazon
AliExpress
CJDropshipping
Product Research Web Tools
Thought Strategies
Final Word

3
4
8
10
13
16
18
25
28


3

What to expect
of this eBook?
Finding products to dropship or
sell can be frustrating. The pages
of this eBook are dedicated to
provide you with industry wide
used tools and knowledge to go
on and find products yourself.
This is NOT a winning product
list where I give you winning
products on a platter. Its like the
old Italian proverb. Give a man a
fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach him how to fish and you
feed him for his life time.


Word from the writer
I will tell you right now this E-book is not going to be of use to
everyone (hey, there is a reason its free). All of these methods are
out there somewhere on the internet already! All I have done is;
compiled them in one place, briefly expanded on them and added
some of my own ideologies. If you follow even a small number of
drop-shipper youtubers, podcasts, blogs etc the odds are that you
know most of these methods already. Like any informational tool, its
up to you to sift through the content and take away the information
that resonates or applies to you. With that said, if only one person
reads this and finds a bit of useful information from my eBook I will
consider my job done.


4

Facebook

1

Facebook orientated methods
are well documented but I will
go over them first as they still
rate as some of the best and
most used methods of product
research. These methods will be
broken down into 3 sections.

1


Facebook News Feed (Turbo Ads Search)

2

Facebook Post & Video Search

3

Facebook Ad Library


5

FACEBOOK NEWS FEED
(TURBO AD FINDER)
This is one of the most effective methods to find winning products, and
the method I would say people use quite often.
It is simple to set up and can yield a variety of different product types,
ranging from how popular the product is, to the niche it is in.

Turbo Ad Finder & How To Set It Up
Turbo Ad Finder is a free Chrome extension that can toggle your Facebook news feed
between showing only sponsored posts and its normal showing. This will save you time
scrolling through an assortment of posts just to find ads and make the process of finding
products easier.

1

Install
Install the Turbo Ad Finder chrome

plugin

2

Find

Click on the Turbo Ad Finder icon on
your browser bar. Usually located in
the top right

3

Activate

Click the Toggle to activate Turbo Ad
Finder. Your Facebook news feed will
now be showing only ads.

Populating Your Facebook News Feed
If initially, you are not seeing many ecommerce related ads in your news feed. You need
alter your position in Facebook's logarithm. Engage with the ecommerce ads that you can
find; by liking the post, commenting, and clicking on the ad to get to the landing page of the
site. Once there, scroll around and look at the product page(s), and add the product to your
cart and initiate a checkout (but obviously don't purchase). Once you have done so,
Facebook will place you into a category of people who are likely to engage or purchase, and
you will then find that Facebook will begin to promote more ecommerce product ads on
your news feed.


6


FACEBOOK POST & VIDEO
SEARCH
Another great way to find products, especially if you find that the
Facebook news feed is not giving you any ecommerce ads. Using this
method and interacting with the results you get, you will find that your
newsfeed will populate with more relevant advertisements as well.

Facebook Post & Video Search Method
The method is super simple: all you need to do is hit the search bar on Facebook and search
for common dropshipping copy writing terms. Sort the given search results by posts and/or
videos (I find most times videos gives better results). You can then further filter the search
results by date posted or location if you wish. When using this method you want to look at
the dates and engagement. Most importantly how long an ad has been running, number of
views and what people are commenting.
Common dropshipping
copy writing

Showing search results of
video only

Further
filters

Example Search Terms

Dropshipping product
advertisements

Some terms may yield more ecommerce product results so its best to test out a few.

Limited Stock Only
Flash Sale
Limited Time Offer
Off Today Only

Free Shipping
People are going crazy
The perfect gift
Tag someone who needs this

24/48 hour sale
50/60% Off
Closing store sale
Get yours now


7

FACEBOOK AD LIBRARY
Probably the least reliable method in terms of finding winning products
without any leads but it is extremely valuable for product research when
used in conjunction with the previous methods or when you already have
your niche or idea for a product.

Facebook Ad Library Method
The Facebook Ad Library is a great free tool to see the ads Facebook pages are running. You
can access it here and search for the pages/ads you want to view or you can get access
through Facebook pages via the transparency tab (pictured below). The information from ad
library can help you decide on a product. Keep in mind advertising costs money so the
longer an ad has been running the more chance it is making money back or hitting their

intended result.

1

Click See More
Find a dropshipping page or business and
find the page transparency tab then click
See More

2

Go to Ad Library
Once you click "See More" on the page
transparency tab, page information will pop
up including whether or not the page is
running ads. If they are, click Go to Ad
Library to get more information on them

Facebook Ad Library Method
Additionally, you can use the Facebook Ad Library to research what products competitors in
your niche (or not) are advertising and how well they are doing. Giving yourself a product to
add to your store that you know already has interest.


8

Instagram

2


Instagram can be used as a tool to
find products or get ideas for
products if you know what you're
looking for. While we won't be able
to see as much overall engagement
and other data behind most
Instagram posts you may still find it
useful.

1

Instagram For Product Reseach


9

INSTAGRAM FOR PRODUCT
RESEARCH
Yes, Instagram does have ads but these are not how we will be monitoring
the gram for product research. Instead, we are going to be turning our
eyes to influencers and popular fan pages. This method may be a little bit
more tedious than others but its a nice way to see what some competitors
in your niche's market are trying to sell. So yes, this method will mostly
rely on you having a niche already or having a general idea of the type of
product you want to sell.

Method To Instagram Product Research
If you have a niche or type of product in mind already, this is going to make the process a lot
easier. If not, I guess its still an easy process for you to see what other people are selling.
What you want to do is go to Instagram and search for popular accounts (those with a

decent amount of followers) within your niche or possible market.
These could be - influencers, fan pages etc. You may even want to use an influencer tool to
find them, up to you.
Once you find said influencer or fan page with a good following, you want to check their stories
and/or gloss over their feed to see if you can locate any posts that are advertising products.
Usually its quite easy to tell and will have a link or swipe up to an ecommerce stores landing
page. These posts are usually paid and are only up for a selected time, they may also have a few
products being promoted at once depending on their rates and ethics. Unfortunately we don't
have a lot of data behind these posts in terms of engagement, but if its feed post it doesn't hurt
to check the likes and comments.


10

Amazon

3

Next we have Jeff's baby, Amazon.
Common use of Amazon is to spot
selling trends and/or cross
referencing trending products with
alternatives on dropshipping
supplier sites. These methods will
be broken down into 2 sections.
Though I'm sure there are more.

Amazon Movers & Shakers

Amazon Search Bar Auto Fill


2

1


11

AMAZON MOVERS & SHAKERS
Similar to Amazon's best sellers page (which warrants using also), the
Amazon Movers & Shakers page shows products with the biggest sales
improvements over the last 24 hours on Amazon (the best seller page
shows a time period of a month). This information can be useful to spot
buying trends and give you insight on possible winning products.

Using Amazon Movers & Shakers
Free and easy to use, simply go to the Movers & Shakers page and you will be shown a list
of top products that have improved sales over the last 24 hours. You can then filter results
by specific department. The list is updated every hour, which makes it useful to spot
buying trends. You can cross reference with the best seller list to see how top selling
mainstay products compare.
Some things to be weary of when using the Movers & Shakers information to source
products is timing and speed. Timing - you need to catch a fad at the right time before it
passes. Speed - you need to act on a fad before it passes (or explodes to maximise sales) and
if you see a product trending you want to get on it before your competitors. So, it pays to
monitor the Movers & Shakers page regularly. Familiarize yourself with the items so you can
tell the difference between the ones that will stay popular for a while and the flukes.

Identifying Potential Buying Trends With Movers & Shakers
One of the main appeals of the Movers & Shakers page isn’t the actual products, but what the

products say about customer shopping patterns. Think bigger picture - what types of products
are selling.
As an example, let’s say the Camera & Photo category is full of binoculars and telescopes.
Rather than selling the products that top the list, you can look at the trend of long-distance
photography. If the pattern continues for long enough, that is evidence to deduce long-distance
photography as an upcoming trend. Giving you a head-start on sourcing a similar product from a
dropshipping supplier or some other long-distance photography product that hasn’t even
appeared on the Movers & Shakers page yet.


12

AMAZON SEARCH BAR AUTO
FILL
This method can apply to many websites that have auto fill settings on
their search bar. While not the best tool for pure product research and
sourcing, it can be useful source of product inspiration.

Amazon Search Auto Fill Method
A super simple tool that you have definitely encountered at some point and time. All you
need to do is go to Amazon and start to type a term into the search bar. As you're typing
Amazon will begin to show the most searched terms using what you have typed. Now, there
are much better methods to product research than this one but it can be helpful for certain
niche sellers or as inspiration for a product to research.


13

AliExpress


3

Particularly the free Aliexpress
Dropship Center and the API they
(and many other paid product
research sites) are using. They will
provide you with extra product
research tools for free. Great if you’re
running you're on a tight budget or
don't want to spend money on
product research tools.

1
Product Analysis

2

Hot Selling Items


14

ALIEXPRESS
HOT SELLING ITEMS
The Hot DS Item section gives you a list of items that are currently doing
large volume of sales on AliExpress, based on the product category you
provide/filter by.

How To Get To The AliExpress Dropshipping Center


Log into your AliExpress account, then click into your account drop down menu, where it
says "Hi, (your name)", from the drop down menu click into either "My AliExpress" or "My
Orders" and the Dropshipping Center should be in the banner menu on either of those pages.
If the dropshipping center tab does not appear for you then its just a matter of registering for
it. Here is a link to do so.

Hot Selling Items
The Hot Selling page on the Dropshipping Center is a database of the big sellers on
AliExpress. Checking through the hot selling section can give you an idea of products that
are selling and you can even categorize the products to help narrow down products for
niches.
There are a few things you want to look at with these products in terms of how well they
are currently selling. Orders & DS Orders - Orders is the total amount of consumer orders,
and DS is the number of orders from dropshippers.


15

ALIEXPRESS
PRODUCT ANALYSIS
An extremely useful tool that the AliExpress Dropshipper Center offers,
especially when it comes to finding products that are currently successful

The Analyze Action

Once you have found a product you're interested in selling on from the Hot Items list or
anywhere on the AliExpress Dropshipper Center you are going to want to click the "Analyze"
link under the "Action" column on the product row. This will present to you a graph with the
sale volume rating for the last 14 days of your selected product. As well as the logistics
reliability of the particular supplier. You can analyze products by copying their URL and

posting them into the Product Analysis tab.

Analyzing The Product Analysis Graph
AliExpress does not show the real sales numbers, but places the sales volume on a graph
ranging from 0 to 100. Meaning, the higher the number is, the better the product is
selling. This may not be useful if you're looking at a product no one has capitalized on yet
or is specific to your niche but if you're looking for a "hot" product that is already proven
to be selling well then this graph is important.
When looking for a hot product you want to see how steady the sales volume is or if its
growing. Random jumps to 100 and then no sales the next days most likely indicate
someone just bought a mass shipment, as inventory or for whatever reason. So,
soemtimes these products can be hard to read.


16

CJDropshipping

4

Essentially a logistics company,
CJDropshipping have an online web
app that also shows which products
they stock, allowing you to directly
place orders from them. They offer
competitive prices and faster shipping
times than Aliexpress (although there
are questions about their reliability).

CJDropshipping App


1


17

CJDROPSHIPPING APP
CJDropshipping may seem similar to AliExpress but the good news is that
all of the products that you find on here are making sales - there is a MOQ
requirement for stocking any product with them. Just browsing around
and looking at products, you’re bound to find a winner.

Using The CJDropshipping App
Free and easy to access from the CJ Dropshipping website. You will find its similar to
AliExpress or Amazon in that you can categorize by niche/department. The one thing I really
like on CJDropshipping is that you can filter results by having a video (if you need creative
content), and by their warehouses as well. Giving you their hot selling products out of
specific areas of the world. CJDropshipping provides a lot of other nifty tools if you decide to
dropship with them but as far as product research thats pretty much it.

Extras With CJDropshipping
Along with the app, CJDropshipping has a lot of content such as videos and blogs on
trending products and top sellers. I'm not saying you are guaranteed to find an absolute
winning product or that they don't market these products without ulterior motives or
anything, but if you are stuck for inspiration or ideas, you may pick something up from
their content.


18


Product Research
Web Tools

5

Product Research Web Tools standout over
the aforementioned methods purely because
the majority of the diligent work will be done
by the apparatus itself. In essence, you're
given trending and top selling products but at
a cost (or sometimes free). These tools will
usually provide the product, product
relevant information and extra tools for
dropshipping.

Foreword

Thieve.co

SellTheTrend

1
3
5

2

EcomHunt

4


SaleSource

6

Seller-Pulse


19

PRODUCT RESEARCH WEB
TOOLS FOREWORD
Just a little foreword before I touch on the various Product Research Web Tools/Apps
or whatever you want to call them.
First, I want to acknowledge the fact that I haven't covered every website. If you don't
see a certain product hunting website or tool, it doesn't mean they are not good, nor
does it mean the ones I have covered are better. If i'm being candid a lot of these types
of tools are the same. However, the ones listed are just the ones I have experience
with myself, and feel fine to vouch for. Ultimately, whatever you use, the choice is
yours.
Second, for the most part, these tools are delving from the same data to get their
products. Because of this, I personally would advise to sticking to only one paid tool if
you are wanting to go down that route.
Third, you do not need to pay. A couple of these tools are free or have free
memberships. All these tools do is analyse information that is freely available and serve
it up nicely. What you're really paying for is the time you save by having this done for
you and the convenience of the added features.
Fourth, do your product research outside of these platforms. Test products, cross
reference with google trends searches, facebook searches, product reviews etc. A lot
of these are integrated functions of Product Research Web Tools but be sure to

research products properly if that is not the case for whichever one you're using.
Fifth, some of the tools I have written about have affiliate links attached and some do
not. I promise I haven't let affiliation judge these processes.
In saying that I will end with my recommended tools for anyone just starting out Ecomhunt free membership & Thieve.co - both are free.


20

ECOMHUNT
Ecomhunt is one of the better product research methods. This is a curated
list of products that has several new submissions every day. Ecomhunt
offers both a free and paid plan; the free plan has limitations on what
information you get alongside the product, as well as a delay on the new
products that are listed. I find the paid subscription to Ecomhunt isn't
necessary. All the extras are cool, but all that matters is the product. For
that reason (it being usable freely), I'd recommend EcomHunt most out of
all of these tools.

Less Obvious Way To Use EcomHunt
One way of using Ecomhunt (and a lot of these other product research web tools) is to go back
a year or two through their listings. You will be surprised to find winning products that people
are currently running, or have ran in the past. The posture brace, mosquito trapper, and random
gadgets that have been scaled to 7 figures are all there, years old.
99% of people are only testing the products on the first few pages, and then find that there’s a
ton of competition. That’s not to say that you can’t win in a competitive market, but it makes
things more difficult when everyone is running offers for the same product to the same
audience

Extras With EcomHunt
Some of the other services, data and tools EcomHunt provides alongside its curation

of winning products include -- Profit data, analytics, engagement data, links to
Facebook ads, product videos, Facebook targeting suggestions, blogs, live training
and more. However, some of these are only accessible with their paid subscription.

Check Out EcomHunt


21

THIEVE.CO
If I had to summarize Thieve I would describe it as Pinterest for
AliExpress. Free to use, but bare bones in actual product data, Thieve
gives aesthetic looking products a platform to shine and be discovered.
Making it a good tool for someone doing product research.

Thieve & Product Data
Thieve has its own dropshipping specific tool named ThieveSupply but I have yet to
use it so I won't speak on it. In terms of what we are given on Thieve.co its quite
basic, yet there are numerous products and thus product ideas provided free, which
can be helpful.

Thieve Functions
Thieve hand selects products from AliExpress and then vets them through a tinder like
swipe system that they use. The first thing you may notice is how aesthetically pleasing their
product photos look.
Thieve has standard filters to list products into niches or specific categories, direct links to
the products on AliExpress which is super helpful and they also display the product price
from AliExpress onto their product pictures which can be useful also.

Check Out Thieve



22

SALESOURCE
SaleSource is a paid tool & one I would recommend if you did want to dip
money into a product research tool. They do offer a free trial however.
SaleSource is very robust and overall offers a ton of functionality. I’m only
going to gloss over a few of the functions offered that are most useful
when looking for products. You can learn more about their other offerings
by clicking here.

Top Stores
SaleSource Top Stores function uses machine learning and AI functionality to estimate the
revenues of various stores, providing a list of them based on their assumed volume. While its hard
to vouch for the accuracy of their revenue estimation, the sheer amount of high-volume
dropshipping products and niches you will get exposed is more important than the estimates.
Be sure to select ‘Dropshipping Stores’ when searching so that you don’t get a bunch of high-end
brands and their products (unless you’re looking for niche inspiration).

Product Center
The Product Center section of the app has several features: All of which provide you
with great information and value that will help you find winners. Relatively easy to
use; you just click on the relevant section and SaleSource will provide you with a list
of products that correspond to that category. The 'New & Trending' feature is one I
really like - it shows a curation of products that are newly posted/trending, that will
refresh every 12 hours (supposedly to prevent over-saturation).

Chrome Extension
The SalesSource chrome extension is pretty handy. It allows you to visit any

ecommerce/dropshipping store, and analyze the store & product.
The amount of information you get back from the tool is pretty incredible; including a list
of competitors that are selling the product, vendors with the cheapest price and highest
volume .

Check Out SaleSource


23

SELLTHETREND
SellTheTrend is very much like SaleSource. It is a newer Product
Research tool but is filled with a huge array of functions and data.
Unfortunately the quality of SellTheTrend is also locked behind a pay
wall like the some of the other sites mentioned in this section but you
can get a 7 day trial to test out its functions first by clicking here.

Product Research Tools
If you haven't noticed the trending theme about all these sites let me make it clear now. They
are all offering something pretty similar. I do find that SellTheTrend has really nifty tools
pertaining to other areas of dropshipping or selling but in terms of Product Research its more
or less the same as SaleSource, also in the fact that they also claim to source their winning
products via data based predictive dropshipping AI technology. If you're heart set on using a
paid tool I would probably flip a coin for SellTheTrend and SaleSource, you could really do no
wrong with either.

The Nexus
The Nexus is pretty much SellTheTrend's version of the SaleSource Product center.
It has all the regular filters and categories. One thing it has that some of these other
sites may not is the ability to filter by trends on AliExpress and Amazon. Some of the

features include links to facebook videos and creatives for products, links to shoppify
stores selling the said product, data on average selling price, average profit and much
more.

Check Out
SellTheTrend


24

SELLER-PULSE
Yet another paid tool that has a great amount of functionality. Unlike
SaleSource or SellTheTrend, Seller-Pulse is a bit different in that it
relies much more on the search parameters that you feed it; it has less
of that ‘show me random products to give me inspiration’ vibe. Their
biggest selling point within the dropshipping tool market is that they
can help you find products that aren't being oversold.

Database Search

Though Seller-Pulse has a few tools that you might find useful, lets focus on the
Database Search, which lets you specify specific parameters to find products.

1

Navigating The Interface
Select the product categories that you wish to
explore with your search. There’s a convenient
‘Select All’ if you don’t have a particular type in
mind.


2
3

Filtering Parameters
You have the ability to put in specific keywords,
feedback scores, price and orders.

Additional Filters

Additionally, you can also segment your results
based on a time-window, as well as whether or
not that product listing on Aliexpress has a video.

4

Search
Once you’ve done that, go ahead and hit search to get your results. You can further
filter and order based on the Category, Price, Feedback, Rating, and Order Volume.

Check Out Seller-Pulse


25

Thought Strategies

6

Now, the value of this section could range

from - a bunch of bullshit to a goldmine,
depending on the way you think about
things. Basically, i'm just going lay out a
few thought strategies that have proven
to identify winning products.

1

Annual Trends

2

Order of Consequence