There are many ways to find winning dropshipping products, but this article will concentrate on mostly free methods. It is a list that works best if you do not have a budget for expensive dropship spy tools.

I have been in the dropshipping and e-commerce space for years. My exposure to the dropshipping world allowed me to take a closer look at various tools—I will only share with the best ones today. 

As a dropshipper, it is not a good idea to just take the business head-on without a plan. You must find a winning product to sell. Otherwise, you may experience severe losses not only financially but also in terms of time and effort. 

Today, you'll learn:

• 11 methods to find winning products
• What is a winning product
• Examples of winning products
• How to validate winning products further

Key Takeaways

• A winning product is any item that’s unique, reasonably priced, and valuable to customers.
• Fitness, pet, and beauty products are some examples of such items.
• You can find winning products on Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms.
• Seeing what other dropshippers are selling can help you find more winning products.
• Validating winning products comes down to factors like advertising eligibility and market saturation.

Let us start!

What is a winning product?

A winning product has huge demand and sales. The only thing that matters is its revenue. It does not matter if the product is merely a fad or if it does not add value—a winning product is something that will give you a lot of profit. 

As a dropshipper, the last thing you should worry about is inventory—you do not need to stock up. As such, you must not look at product selection in the same way that traditional retailers do. 

Instead, concentrate on the product’s past performance. In addition, consider where you are in the product’s marketability. For example, it does not make sense to join the fidget spinner bandwagon now because the trend is over. 

Remember: a winning product is profitable and has a huge demand. Later, I will provide you with a list of criteria for how to choose a winning product. 

11 Ways to Find Winning Products

Here are the best ways to find a winning product for dropshipping.

1. Dropship.IO – best for data-driven product research 

Dropship.IO is a tool that spies on data from Shopify stores. What we do here is provide you with statistical guidance on how products and stores are performing. 

Dropship.IO is simple to use. You can create a free account now, and then experiment on our tools as you go along this tutorial.

Once you get to your account, click on Product Database on the left. Next, click on Advanced Filters, then type the keyword of the product you are searching for. Finally, click on the Search button. 

Wait for the system to return a results page. The items are in no particular order, so you need to sort them out based on either monthly sales or monthly revenue. For this example, I clicked on the monthly sales tab, and this is what I got:

Looking at the top of this list, I can see that the first entry sold 7,273 units in a month, and the store had a revenue of $872,687. The store also has 77 products. 

What I can do now is click on the store’s link www.nomadandfashion.com so I can see what it looks like. Or I can click on the blue arrow beside the product name to see the sales data of this store. 

The next thing I did was go to the SALES TRACKER. Then, I pasted the URL of the store and clicked on START TRACKING.

This is what I got:

Now, I have a better view of what this store is doing. At the top, there is a summary I can review. The social buttons you see on the right will take you to the social media page of the store. The Facebook Library button will show you if they have ads on Facebook. 

I scrolled down further to see more stats:

Depending on the timeline you selected, you will see a chart of their revenue and units sold. The product list below the charts shows the store’s products. As you can see, they are selling a ton of these bags and earning millions.

From these data points, we can say, without a doubt, that these bags have a market, and that the customers are willing to pay more than $100 for each bag.

2. How to find winning products on Facebook 

Facebook is best best for casual product hunting, and now that it has a marketplace, you can use that to find products as a dropshipper. 

To start, go to Facebook Marketplace. To do this, click the “store” icon on Facebook. 

The next step is to toggle the control panel on the left. What I did first was type the keyword “handbag,” and then I clicked on the filter button. 

From here, I specifically searched for products in California and then clicked on the Apply button. 

Here is what I got: 

Now, you can click on a specific product and view more details. For example, let us take a look at this one.

The main challenge that you will have with Facebook is the lack of data. As you can see, there are no reviews or anything. Even the seller has no review. 

Why? 

Facebook marketplace is not exactly a dropshipping marketplace like Amazon or eBay. Most sellers here post pre-loved products. 

The best way to search for a winning product on Facebook is through the Facebook Ads Library. However, I must tell you right now that the tool is not user-friendly—I think that no Facebook tool is user-friendly, but it is merely my opinion. 

At best, you need a tool like our product database and our sales tracker to access the Facebook Library for free. Use our tool, and you can easily find winning products and their links to a Facebook ad if there are any.

3. How to find winning products on Instagram

Instagram, as we know it, is the best place to find inspiration from people who exude beauty and strength.  Now, there are Instagram accounts that provide lists of winning products. However, I would caution you against these as most of these are also marketers—they also do not back their claims with data like we do.

There is no data-driven way to find winning products on Instagram. Although there is an Instagram Shop, it is not as huge as other marketplaces, so nobody is paying much attention to its data.

Your best bet is to look for an influencer, such as Kylie Jenner. The influencer you are looking for must be popular in your product niche. In this case, Kylie is a great influence on the fashion and beauty niche. 

From here, you need to start browsing the content of the Instagrammer, especially the reels. The videos and photos should show you some products that they endorse. Kylie is a special case, as she has her line of cosmetics. 

For other influencers, you will find some products that they like based on their sponsorship activities or their casual choices as individuals. Once you do find one, start digging deeper if this item has sales. Of course, I would recommend our product database for this activity.  

The other option is to use Google. For example, you can type “fishing page Instagram” on Google Search. From here, you can visit these Instagram pages and validate your ideas. 

For example, the link I highlighted took me to this Instagram page:

The next step is to browse the images and reels. Furthermore, I strongly recommend that you read the comments. It is from these comments that you can find what fishing enthusiasts want. Suffice it to say that you may find a demand for a product that you can fulfill. 

4. How to find winning products on Pinterest

Around 80% of Pinterest users are females. Overall, 46% of all users in the US are women. As such, it is a great place to find products that the female market responds well to. 

Although Pinterest is not a marketplace, it is a place where people post millions of photos of just about anything. There was a time when I thought that it was a successor to Instagram, but then Pinterest took a different turn. 

To start, you must create an account and choose boards that you like. Pick boards related to your niche. From here, you can save and pin posts from other people—posts that have something to do with products that you can sell. 

Like Instagram, you have to use the search bar and type keywords for the products you are looking for. The thing with Pinterest, however, is that you will never find a lot of social signals. 

For example, I went to Pinterest and searched for “wristwatch.”  Here is what I got: 

As you can see, there is no comment on this post. Although this user has 54,000 followers, no one said a thing! Because of this, it is impossible to assess whether there is a huge demand for this product or not. 

At best, I recommend that you use some of the best spy tools to dig deeper. We have a lot of blog posts about spy tools and alternatives that I suggest you read.

5. How to find winning products on YouTube

There are hundreds, if not thousands of dropshippers and dropshipping gurus on YouTube. Even software companies have their channels where they show how to use their tools to find winning products. 

These are not the channels we want. Instead, we are looking for channels that demonstrate retail items. To start, go to YouTube and search for a product in your niche. 

For the example below, I typed “best drill bits,” and my goal is to look for product reviews. While the videos may show branded products, I still get an idea of what people want. 

If you look at the comment, you can see that people are looking for drill bits made of black oxide, titanium, etc.

From here, I can go to my product supplier tool, like AliExpress, and find a supplier for that specific kind of drill bit.

The second method is to search for “how-to” videos. In this example, my keyword is “how to choose a handbag.”

As you can see from the top two results, these influencers or experts give us tips about bags for the right body type and bags for work. 

What do we learn from content like this? Based on the number of views alone, we can see that there is an interest in these tips. As such, we can use these tips to create a product standard. 

Once we have that list, we can go back to our supplier database and look for handbags that meet these criteria. 

Finally, the comment section also provides us with lots of information about the market. See below:

One commenter said that cream-colored bags are not a good idea. As a seller, we now know that we should not sell this bag if our target market is women who work. Another commenter said that college students prefer tote bags. As such, we can also consider that when choosing a bag to sell.

6. How to find winning products on Amazon

Finding a winning product on Amazon is a straightforward process. Type a keyword as shown below and go through the results. 

Amazon’s algorithm typically shows the top-selling products for a keyword you type. From here, you can see the number of reviews, the star rating, and how many people bought the product in the past month. 

To check for a supplier, you can take a screenshot of the item. In this case, let us use the first image. Then, do a reverse image search on Google, and you will see this: 

There are many sellers of this bag. You can contact them and ask if they dropship. In this case, the bag is available on Alibaba. 

Although Alibaba is a wholesale marketplace, many sellers work with dropshippers—you can buy their items in retail, and they will ship the item to your customer. The other option is to search for a similar product in AliExpress.

The third way to do it is to use CJDropshipping. CJ is a dropship supplier and importation tool. One feature they offer is supplier support. You can file a sourcing request in your CJ account, and they will contact this supplier for you. 

If the Alibaba supplier agrees to dropship, CJ will add that product to their database. Once available, you can import that product to your Shopify store. 

Not all Alibaba sellers offer dropshipping services. However, there is no harm in trying. If you want to compete against Amazon sellers, your best bet is a Chinese supplier. Most Amazon sellers do Fulfillment by Amazon as a process, but their products all come from China.

The other method by which you can find winning products on Amazon is by going to the site’s bestsellers list. Once you get to this page, click on the categories on the left and start looking for winning products. 

7. How to find winning products on eBay

The process for finding a winning product on eBay is the same with Amazon. The thing is that eBay does not show sales volume, and it does not have a product review section. Instead, you will only see a seller review. 

The screenshot above is the result of my search for handbags. Like Amazon, eBay’s algorithm will naturally show the best-selling items, especially those from sellers with high feedback scores. 

The assumption here is that the top products you see on the result page of a search are the best-selling ones, too.

From here, we can do that same thing with what we did for Amazon, which is a Google reverse image search. The closest model or design I found is this:

Upon further investigation, I found out that the AliExpress seller offers a similar bag for only $68—less than the price of the eBay seller.

On eBay, the seller’s asking price is $89, plus a shipping cost of $66. If you dropship this item on eBay, you can sell it for $80, and make a profit of $12. 

Unlike Amazon, eBay does not have a link for their best-sellers. What you can do is use the filters on the left panel during your product search. 

If you are willing to spend money on tools, I can recommend several tools that can help you spy on eBay products. Some of these are: 

• Terapeak
• ZIK Analytics
• Algopix
• ShelfTrend

You can also use our tool to validate sales. For example, you can go to our product database and use the keyword “brown handbag” to see if Shopify store owners sell a lot of it. 

8. How to find winning products on AliExpress

No dropshipper has not heard of AliExpress. When dropshipping got big, it was always AliExpress that experts touted as the best marketplace to find suppliers. Today, AliExpress makes billions of dollars a year, with more than 500 million site visitors for the same period. 

To start, go to AliExpress and type a keyword. Toggle the ORDERS tab in the SORT BY section. 

Now, it is easy to spot the bestsellers for the product of your choice. Looking at the first product, we can see that this seller sold 10,000 units of this phone case, and it only costs $3.29.

Now, you can go to Amazon and compare this price against your competitors. Based on the screenshot below, phone cases of the same material sell for $13.99, giving you a huge profit of $10.70. 

The next step is to check the reviews on AliExpress. This one has more than 3,000 reviews with a rating of 4.8 stars.

If you are lucky, the seller may even offer the other units for a lower price. The white one sells for only $0.99. The screenshot below shows the review section.

You need to watch out for fake reviews. Over the years, I have seen several sellers who have fake reviews, and the telltale sign is that the product has a 5-star rating, but no text. Some fake reviews also do not make sense—I mean the review comments are too generic. 

Since AliExpress products are cheap, I strongly recommend that you buy a sample. A product test is important if you get your supplies from AliExpress. I am not undermining the sellers here—it’s just that cheap products are generally of lower quality. 

Test the products and gauge the trustworthiness of the seller. Measure the time it took for the seller to respond, pack, and ship the item. 

Finally, I also recommend that you check the seller’s performance rating. Just hover the mouse on top of the seller’s name and check the stats. Anything that is less than 4.5 is a red flag. 

9. How to find winning products on TikTok

Nobody ever thought TikTok would become a dominant force in the social media industry. Today, TikTok has about one billion monthly users, and that is why many merchants advertise on the platform.

It is from these advertisements that you can find ideas on what to sell as a dropshipper. To start, you must create a TikTok account. 

Then, you need to go to the TikTok marketplace. The issue with TikTok is that its marketplace has limitations. They do not offer this feature to all countries. So, if you are from the US, you will never be able to access the marketplace for the UK or other countries. 

The only alternative you have is to visit TikTok videos of the products you like to sell. You can do that by typing a keyword, after which, you explore the results. 

Here is an example: 

What I did here was type the keyword “drone for sale.” The next thing I must do is investigate each top video and check the price, type, and comments from the users. 

This process is too manual. If you want to find a winning product on TikTok, I recommend that you use a software program that specializes in it. 

Here are some examples: 

• PiPiADS
• BigSpy
• Minea
• FlowSpy
• AdFlex

These tools allow you to type a keyword and search for TikTok ads. These ads come from merchants who advertise on TikTok. 

Your goal in this exercise is to find out which ads:

• Have the most views
• Generated the most comments, likes, and shares

From here, you can trace the product listings to their original marketplaces or websites. You can also find out how the ads performed. Here is an example: 

As you can see, the search results show:

• Ad impressions
• Ad cost
• Like rate
• Audience demographics
• Device
• Categories

These data points can help you track winning products based on how the market responded. While searching for TikTok-winning products is free if you do it the manual way, I can say that it is a terrible proposition. 

You are better off spending some money for a month only for an ad spy tool. Then cut off the service after your research is over.

10. How to find winning products on Etsy

Etsy is now the best place to shop for handcrafted items. The good news is that Etsy allows merchants to sell print-on-demand items.

Print-on-demand (POD )is a dropshipping process where the dropshipper creates designs and mock-ups on a POD tool the two best POD systems are Printful and Printify. Then, the dropshipper will upload the mock-ups on Etsy. 

To start looking for winning products, go to Etsy and search. Take a look at this: 

You can immediately notice that there the designs are unique, or that the shirt is empty. It is up to the buyer to submit the design to the seller, and then this seller will process the personalized printing. 

The first shirt, the pink one, has more than 10,000 reviews and a rating of 4.8 stars. That, I can say, is a winner. 

Knowing that it is a POD product, there is no need to search for suppliers. Both Printify and Printful can do these shirts for you. 

You do not need to limit yourself to shirts. POD companies offer many product types that you can personalize. 

The key here is the design. You need to take note of the top products on Etsy and what their designs are. Create your version of these designs and sell them on your platform. 

You have an option to dropship on Etsy, but I can tell you that your products will drown in a sea of competition. It is much better if you build your store on Shopify. 

11. How to find winning products on Google Trends

The last method we have is Google Trends. It is a free tool from Google where you can find out how people feel about a topic based on search activities. 

To start, go to Google Trends and type a keyword. In this example, I typed “phone case.” 

You have the option to toggle the filter, and I can say that it works best if you want a drill down. I used worldwide results to see the demand for phone cases globally, and also for the last 12 months

The numbers on the left side, or the X-axis, represent a score of 0 to 100. A score of 100 means there is peak interest in the search term. We can say that a score of 50 means that there is enough search volume for this keyword. 

As you can see, the search score for this keyword is above 50 month-on-month in the last 12 months. It peaked in December of 2022, probably because it was a time when people wanted to buy a gift for loved ones or themselves. 

Although Google will never disclose the actual search numbers, look for a score that is above 50 consistently. This score means that there is enough search volume for a keyword. If there is enough interest, we can say that there is also a market for it.

How to Ensure a Product is a Winner

A winning product has demand. However, there are nuances that you must consider, which I will describe below.

Sales and Revenue

A viral ad does not always mean sales success. Always make it a point to check if a product sold many units. From here, you can calculate your potential profits. 

A product is a winner if it is profitable. It does not make sense to sell 1,000 units if you only make a $0.50 gross profit for each sale. It is why I do not recommend that dropshippers sell stickers—there is little profit in these things.

The margin you should be looking at is at least 30%. If the capital of the product, including shipping, is $100, you should be able to sell it for $130. The $130 price should be the prevailing rate that your market can afford.

Shipping Performance

I encourage you to test the product shipment before making any commitment. Sometimes, a product may seem like a winner because of sales and revenue. However, what you did not know is that this same product has many cancellations and refunds. 

AliExpress and many other marketplaces do not show refund data. You can only read reviews. The thing is that refunded products do not entitle the buyer to leave a review. 

Test the supplier’s performance. Understand that long shipping times can destroy your business. People want their products at the soonest possible time. Failing to keep up with this expectation will result in cancellations and chargebacks.

Market Saturation and Relevance

Finally, look for a product with low market saturation or competition. One of the best tools you can use to do this is Ecomhunt. You can also use SaleHoo.  

Tools like these two can show you how many stores carry the same item. Believe me, you would find it so difficult to sell a product if you were competing against 100 stores that sell the same thing.  

Market relevance refers to trends. For example, there is no sense in selling fidget spinners nowadays as it is no longer trendy. Kids have moved on and they are now looking for new toys.  

The best way to find winning products is to use tools designed for this purpose. I know that you can also do it guerilla style, but it takes a lot of hard work.

Instead of spending time searching manually, use that time to do more impactful things for your business. Paying $30 for a tool and using it for a month is much better than spending hundreds of hours looking for winning products manually. 

To understand how paying makes sense, sign up for our 7-day free trial. Use the tool. I am telling you right now that you will find the tool amazing—you can save thousands of hours of manual labor with our product database!

What are some examples of winning products?

There are many winning products, and I must say that you should not limit your options to our list. Winning products are always about revenue, demand, and profitability. 

Here is a quick list:

• Fitness products – some examples are dumbbells, exercise mats, yoga products, etc. 
• Kitchenware – sell unique kitchen items that make the cooking process easier 
• Clothing and apparel – this is a huge niche, and I recommend that you start small. For example, if you sell women’s clothing, sell only yoga clothing. Do not attempt to build a big store as it will only drag you down. 
• Pet products and supplies – sell food trays, collars, alarms, etc. If possible, concentrate on one pet only. If it’s a dog, then sell dog products only.  

I advise you to gear away from the big stuff like furniture. These products are too heavy and expensive to ship. Customers who buy furniture are also a lot more difficult to please. A single request for a furniture refund can cause massive headaches. 

Aim for small, cheap products. Look for products that you can sell for at least twice the original cost. This way, you can easily cover your losses should something go wrong. 

How to find best-selling products from other dropshipping stores

Dropship.IO is the best tool I recommend if you want to spy on other dropshipping stores. We provide data not only for revenue but also for other critical factors that affect a store’s success.

I showed you earlier how to find best-selling products from other dropshipping stores using our tool. In this section, what I want to show is why Dropship.IO is the tool you need.

Dropship.IO Key Features

Store Apps

Our application detects what apps a Shopify store uses. It is an excellent spy tool since you will have visibility into what your competitors are doing.

For example, if you see the CJDropshipping app in a store, it only goes to show that their suppliers come from the CJ platform. If this store is making a lot of money, you can begin your exploration with CJ. You no longer need to experiment on multiple supplier tools knowing that a competitor is making big profits from one tool.

Product Database

Our product database is your best ally in looking for winning products. With it, you can immediately see the performance of a product, like how many units the seller sold in the previous month. 

Any product that has no sales is likely to fail. If there is no demand, there is no reason to sell that same item. Our product database can tell you not only the sales volume but also the revenue, which you can use to assess if a product is profitable or not.

Store Tracking

One powerful tool that we offer is the store tracking feature. With it, you can track stores by saving them on a list. This list gives you data for that store, and it is how you can track their sales performance. 

The store tracking tool only works with Shopify for now. However, we offer you the option to search for stores and products that dropship. In our search tool, you have the option to search for dropshipping stores only. 

Chrome Extension

Our Chrome extension automatically detects if a store you are currently browsing is in our database. If it is, it will gently ask you if you want to track it or not.

The extension app, which offers free, can also detect Facebook ads. You can save these ads in a database, 

which you can access later for review. 

The Chrome extension is a tool that makes it impossible to miss opportunities. If you see one that you can track, just do it and review the data later.

Facebook Ad Library

Once you track a store, you will find a link that takes you to the store’s Facebook Ads Library. From here, you can check the details of the ads, and learn from your competitor’s strengths.

There are many other tools inside our platform, so many that I cannot explain all of them here. The best thing to do is to sign up for a free trial account and test it.

FAQ: Ways to Find Winning Products

Where can I find popular dropshipping products?

You can use AliExpress if popularity is your primary concern. The other tools you can use are software programs like Ecomhunt and Sell the Trend. These tools focus primarily on “hot products.”

How do I find my winning product on Facebook?

You can do this by going to the Facebook Ad Library. However, the Ad Library does not show you sales data. Only a product database tool like ours can tell you if a product is a winner or a loser. 

What products are most successful to dropship?

There is no such thing. If you sell something popular, expect that everybody is also selling it. Sell what you want, provided there is a market for it. 

Where can I find new winning products every day?

You can find winning products every day from our tool. Our product database provides fresh data daily. In addition, we also have a product portfolio where you can browse products that we curated. 

Summary

The next logical step is to try these methods according to your target market. I recommend that you sign up first with Dropship.IO, as we offer a 7-day free trial.

Our tool is the best one to use to see sales and revenue data. There is no need to second-guess if a product is a winner or not. Sing up now and see the difference!