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What are the best things to sell on Amazon and eBay for an easy profit?
While achieving success requires effort, selling these products has proven extremely lucrative for countless drop shippers a lot like you. Here are some of our top picks:
- Clothing and accessories
- Health & beauty products
- Home goods
- Sporting goods
- Collectibles
We all know deep down that the notion of “easy” is a relative one, so working with the “easiest” or “best” products to sell online may catch you by surprise if you don’t have realistic expectations.
But that’s no reason to shy away from starting a dropshipping business. After all, experience is truly the best teacher.
You can watch videos and read blogs until you think you know everything there is to know, but there’s no substitute for just jumping in and getting your hands dirty. Will you experience some frustration and failure? Probably. But you also have the ability to overcome adversity and succeed.
When I started using Shopify for my dropshipping business several years ago, I’d done all the things-read the blog posts, watched the Youtube tutorials, and talked to successful drop shippers.
Now that I have years of experience, I realize how little I knew when I started and how much I’ve learned since.
So I want to share that experience with you by providing my top recommended products and best-selling categories to make it slightly easier for you to be successful dropshipping online.
Whether you want to find the best products to sell on Amazon, eBay, or your own Shopify store, any of the items below are a great place to start.
Don’t forget to stick around for the 6 things I wish I knew when I started out.
10 Easiest items to sell on Amazon and eBay
1. Clothing and accessories
Selling things like dresses, bracelets, or sportswear on Amazon or eBay is a great way to reach a wide audience and generate more revenue. With these two popular marketplaces, you can provide customers with detailed product descriptions and pictures so that they can make an informed purchase decision. Clothing and accessories are a great impulse purchases that can draw in different types of audiences.
2. Health & beauty products
Health and beauty products are some of the most sought-after items on Amazon and eBay. Think face creams, health drinks, or bath bombs. These two popular eCommerce sites provide sellers with an easy listing process so that they can quickly get started selling their items to a wide range of potential customers who may be looking for the latest cosmetics, skincare products, hair styling tools, or other types of health products.
3. Toys
Selling toys such as plush dolls, puzzles, or other toys for toddlers on Amazon or eBay is a great way to make money, as these two marketplaces are some of the most popular and highly trafficked websites in the world. By listing your items on these platforms, you can reach a wide variety of potential customers who are looking for the latest and best toys for their kids.
4. Jewelry and watches
Selling jewelry and watches, whether branded or not, on Amazon or eBay is a great way to make money as they are highly sought after items with a strong demand. Jewelry and watches are often seen as luxury items, and with these two popular marketplaces, you can reach potential customers from all walks of life.
5. Home goods
Selling home goods on Amazon or eBay is a great way to make some extra money. Home goods are always in demand, and with these two popular marketplaces, you can reach a much larger audience than if you were to just sell locally. Furthermore, customers will appreciate the convenience of being able to purchase items such as home decor pieces or small furniture items from the comfort of their own homes without having to go out and shop for them in person.
6. Sporting goods
Selling sporting goods on Amazon or eBay is a great way to make money and reach out to a wide range of potential customers. These two popular marketplaces provide sellers with the opportunity to list items such as tennis rackets, soccer balls, and other sporting accessories for sale in an easy-to-use manner, allowing them to quickly create listings and get started selling right away.
7. Art/craft supplies
There are ones of arts and crafts aficionados out there! Selling arts and crafts supplies on Amazon or eBay to target them is an excellent way to make money, as it provides a great opportunity for creatives to reach a wide audience of potential customers who are looking for unique, hand-crafted pieces.
8. Books
Selling books on Amazon or eBay is a great way to make money. With these two marketplaces, you can reach a large number of potential customers looking for the latest releases and bestsellers. By selling used books, you can also offer customers affordable options that will still provide them with the same quality reading experience as buying new. Additionally, Amazon and eBay both have easy-to-use listing processes so that sellers can quickly create their listings and get started selling right away.
9. Electronics
Selling electronics such as stereos, electric homeware or other gadgets on Amazon or eBay is a great way to make some extra income. By taking advantage of these two popular marketplaces, you can reach a much larger audience than if you were to simply sell locally. With Amazon and eBay, you can provide customers with full technical details about the electronics they're interested in.
10. Collectibles
Selling collectibles on Amazon or eBay is a great way to make money for both novice and experienced sellers as this niche is highly targeted. With the vast selection of collectible items available, there is something to appeal to every type of collector. Collectibles are unique items that often hold sentimental value, making them highly sought after.
6 things I wish I knew when I started dropshipping
1. Nothing is as simple as it sounds
When you start learning about dropshipping, you’ll often hear and read about how simple it is.
All you have to do is find a great product, a reliable supplier, and choose a selling platform to start making money.
There is some truth in that. Dropshipping is a lot simpler than traditional retail business models.
But let me get this straight: It’s not as simple as it sounds!
You’re not going to launch your Shopify store and then sit back and watch the money start rolling in from day one.
The thing is, the concepts are simple, but executing them well is not. And in business, execution is everything.
Everyone can succeed with dropshipping on Shopify, but not everyone will succeed.
Go into it with realistic expectations and be prepared to put in hard work and you’ll have a much better chance of succeeding.
2. Don’t waste money on Facebook ads (unless you’re a whizz!)
When I started my dropshipping business, Facebook ads were relatively new.
I had read about them, but didn’t really know how they worked.
Despite my lack of expertise, I buried thousands of dollars in Facebook ads that never paid off.
Unless you’re a Facebook ads whizz, I would avoid them when you’re starting out.
This is especially true in 2020 when Facebook’s algorithm restricts the reach of businesses.
If you know a lot about Facebook ads, then by all means use them. I’ve just found them to be successful than other marketing tactics.
The strategy that worked best for me in the early days was posting high-quality photos on Instagram and paying small amounts for shoutouts from influencers.
You don’t have to do the same. The lesson here is to play to your strengths. Find what works best for you and the products/niche you’re in and invest in that.
3. Test, tweak and test again
Data is your best friend in business, especially when you’re starting out.
I wish I had paid more attention to data and run more tests to refine my Shopify store.
When you first launch a store, it will be far from perfect - and that’s ok!
You need to test different web copy, sales copy, fonts, colours, product photos, keywords etc to continually improve the performance of your online store.
You can copy other stores, or use them for inspiration, or come up with a unique formula that works for you.
Testing and tweaking your store will ensure your store is always improving.
Even when you find a sweet spot and sales are rolling in, there will always be areas that you can seek to enhance. Testing will help you to identify the areas that need work.
4. The best products to sell are not the ones you think
I really wish I knew this when I started.
Have you ever stayed up late at night dreaming of great products to sell?
You think you’re onto something that’s going to make you a heap of money, but it doesn’t actually sell that well.
I’ve learned that the products you think are going to sell the best, often don’t sell at all.
Why? It’s because you can’t just think a product is going to sell, you need to know that it’s going to sell. There’s a big difference.
You need to let go of your biases and preconceived ideas and trust the market research and data to identify great products for you.
Often the most crazy product ideas that you’d never “think” of organically are the ones that will make you the most money.
That’s because the products that we think of are usually influenced by trends we observe, our own interests, and items that we see others selling.
These things can cloud your judgement. You’re much better off putting in a lot of market research to validate your product ideas, rather than trusting your intuition.
You can use a tool like SaleHoo Market Insights to help with this process (I wish this was available when I started!).
5. Nothing is random (strategy is everything!)
What you see and hear about dropshipping online often makes success seem random and magical.
The Youtube videos in which dropshippers talk about making thousands of dollars a month in their sleep can give you unrealistic expectations.
No successful dropshipping business happened by chance. Behind every one of those success stories are tried and tested strategies.
I wish I had cared less about frontend factors, such as my website design, and put more effort into developing a powerful strategy when I started.
A well-designed website is important, but it is nothing without a solid business strategy that brings in leads, converts customers, and makes sales.
6. Never stop learning
You can get to a point in your dropshipping business journey when you think you know it all.
If you ever get to that point, you’re wrong. There’s always more to be learned, especially with the speed at which technology is advancing.
The online tools, apps, and marketing strategies that are successful today could be redundant in six months time.
It’s important to always be learning. Seek out the best mentors. Follow the best Youtube channels. Sign up to mailing lists. Read books and blogs. Go to industry events and learn from the guest speakers. Connect with others who run dropshipping businesses. Find people who add value to you and your business, and share your knowledge with them.
The more you learn, the more you can apply to your business.
At the end of the day, running a dropshipping business on Shopify is no get rich quick scheme.
It’s a business just like any other business.
While there are some advantages to dropshipping, you still need to develop and test strategies that will set you up for success.
You will no doubt learn a lot of these lessons through experience, but I hope that I have helped you to avoid some of the mistakes I made when I first started dropshipping.
What do you wish you knew when you started dropshipping? Let us know in the comments below.
For even more profitable product ideas, don’t forget to explore SaleHoo Market Insights—your ultimate resource for finding trending products, analyzing market trends, and connecting with reliable suppliers. If you're already selling any of these items or have your own suggestions, share them with us in the comments below!
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