Trending products have high demand, which can generate traffic and increase sales.

However, trending products are all about timing. You need to find trending products before they peak. This makes them one of the hardest products to find. 

In this article, we’ll share the 11 research methods we’ve used to identify and successfully dropship trending products.

Let’s get into it.

Key Takeaways

• Social media, product research tools, and Google Trends are the best ways to find trending products.
• Look at the sales and search volume of products. High searches and sales suggest a product is trending.
• To successfully sell trending products, you need to find them before they’re too popular and become too competitive. 

11 Ways To Find Trending Products For Dropshipping

Here is 11 ways to find trending products to dropship.

1. How To Find Trending Products Using A Product Research Tool

A product research tool uncovers hidden data, which gives you an edge over your competition when it comes to finding trending products.

Knowing how to use the tools gives you the best chance of finding trending products at the right time.

We’ll look at two product research tools. The first is Dropship, a Shopify and Facebook Ad Spy tool, and the second is Exploding Topics, a tool that analyzes behavior to identify trending topics.

Dropship

Dropship has several tools to help you find winning products by spying on Shopify stores and Facebook Ads, but we’ll focus on the Top Products tool for finding trending products.

Dropship’s Top Products tool shows a list of top-performing products sold on Shopify. The list is updated every 24 hours.

You can use the filters to narrow down the top products to find trending ones. We recommend using the dates and creation date filters:

• Days - We suggest using the shortest time frame, which is seven days. This gives us the most opportunity to find products before they peak and become too competitive.
• Creation Date - This isn’t vital, but we like to look at stores that have launched in the last month. Newly opened and top-performing stores show that the seller knows what they’re doing, as from launch, they are instantly making a high volume of sales.

If you have a preference for product price, you can also set this filter too. 

Once you apply these filters, you will be shown the top-performing products that match.

Scroll through the products and look at the charts to find products with an upward trajectory of sales.

The increasing sales suggest that the product hasn’t reached its peak yet, which means it's still possible for us to jump on the trend and make sales.

You can then look for products that you see multiple times or similar products that appear. Seeing the same products within the top-performing results suggests it's not a one-off winner but instead a trending product.

For example, when we searched the top products list today and used the filters, we found six G-shaped LED lamps with a speaker and charger.

However, several of the lamp’s sales were decreasing or steadying over the last few days. This suggests the peak may have already happened, and we were too late to the trend.

However, we also found that there are several portable projectors. All of the sales were shown to be increasing daily, and the stores were all created in the last 30 days.

The new stores and increasing sales suggest that portable projectors could be a winning and trending product to dropship.

If you want to use the Top Products tool yourself, use the 7-day free trial. As the Top Products update every 24 hours, you have seven chances to discover trending products without spending anything.

Along with the Top Products tool, you’ll also be able to access all of Dropship’s other features. These allow you to track the products over time, find your competition, and discover other winning products using the advanced filters.

Exploding Topics

Exploding Topics is a tool that helps you find arising trends before they become over saturated or too competitive.

The tool uses AI to search billions of signals to identify topics that are gaining traction. This includes Google Search, Spotify, YouTube, Reddit, other forums, social media, and more. 

Exploding Topics claims that using this information, as opposed to sales data like other tools, allows them to identify products that haven’t yet peaked. This allows you to find trending products at the right time.

You can access some of the topics from the Trends Database for free. You can filter these topics by time and category to find topics relevant to your dropshipping business.

When you click on the topic, you will see the search volume by month and the growth over the selected time period. It also shows the categories and related topics.

However, to access all the data and advanced filters, you need a paid plan. Paid plans start at $39 per month.

As well as the free topics available, the paid plans include a Trending Products feature. 

This feature is built to find trending products with long-term growth potential. 

This can help you find a trending product to dropship that is likely to continue making sales rather than one that will peak during the trend and then drop to zero. 

2. How To Find Trending Products Using Google Trends

Google Trends analyzes the popularity of Google search terms in various regions and languages. 

You can look at the popularity of terms to help you identify and confirm you’ve found a trending product. 

We use Google Trends in two ways, these are the following:

Use the Filters to Find Trending Products

Google Trends allows you to find products using filters. There are four filters:

• Country
• Time frame
• Category
• Search type

We usually start by doing a worldwide search over 12 months. Then, we change the category.

When you search for a category, it will show a graph with the interest over time. 

Underneath the graph, it shows both search topics and search queries. This is what we’re looking for. 

Next to each suggestion, it’ll show the growth compared to the previous time period. And if it shows Breakout, this means the search term grew by over 5000%.

You can use these topics and query suggestions to find trending products. To confirm a product is trending, you can look at the graph.

If the product is trending, the graph will have an upward trajectory. We’ll look more at identifying trending products with the graph in the next section.

Use the Graph to Check Trending Products

Looking at the graph can show us whether a product is trending and if it’s a good product to sell.

For example, we can look at the infamous fidget spinner. Google Trends shows it was a huge trend in 2017, and since there has been some interest, but nothing like the peak in 2017. 

Instead of looking at products with a graph, like a fidget spinner, you will want to find a product with a steadier increase in interest. For example, let’s look at the heatless curler.

The term is slowly but continually increasing in interest. A slower peak usually means the peak hasn’t been reached or the product has more longevity and is more likely to make sales over a longer period of time.

3. How To Find Trending Products On Facebook

Most e-commerce stores run Facebook ads when they launch products. Looking at these new launches can help us discover new and trending products. 

You can do this on the Facebook ad library if you have a brand in mind. Just type the name of the brand, and it will show all the ads the store is running. Look at the products advertised to identify trending ones.

However, to confirm a product is trending, you will need to know several stores that could launch a similar product. 

For example, if you want to know if a specific type of leggings is trending, you will need to know or find multiple retailers and see if they’re all running ads on the same leggings.

The main downside is that you need to have a product or brand in mind. 

However, to overcome this, Dropship has an Ad Spot tool. 

Ad Spot allows you to search for Facebook ads using advanced filters. You can search by copy, engagement, type, domain name, and more. There are also quick searches, including Weekly Winners and Best Performers. 

Using the advanced filters, you can find trending products to dropship.

4. How To Find Trending Products On Instagram

Instagram is expected to hit 1.4 billion users this year [1]. 

The number of users means that trends often start and spread quickly on Instagram. 

You can use Instagram in several ways to discover trending products to dropship.

Instagram Hashtag Autocomplete Feature

Instagram allows you to search by hashtag. Hashtags are used to describe content so Instagram knows what it is and who it's relevant to.

When you start typing a keyword into Instagram, it will offer hashtag suggestions. 

These suggestions are offered based on popularity. You can look through the hashtags to identify trends.

Instagram Influencers

An influencer's job is to promote products, services, and lifestyles to their audience.

Therefore, they usually keep up with trends in their niche to stay relevant and keep their audience engaged.

You can look at what they’re using, promoting, and posting for inspiration. You can also look at the hashtags they use, accounts they engage with, and brands they collaborate with for trending product ideas.

Create a New Instagram for Your Niche

If you have a niche in mind but haven’t found a product to sell yet, we recommend creating a new Instagram for research.

On the new Instagram, we recommend you follow 200-250 influencers in the niche and like, comment, and share only content in that niche.

The reason we recommend creating a new Instagram is so you can use the Explore Page to find trending products. 

The Explore Page is formulated based on how you interact with other posts, so on your own Instagram, the posts you see will be targeted to you. 

On the new niche-focused Instagram, the Instagram algorithm will create an Explore Page full of posts and reels related to your niche. 

You can look at the Explore Page and hashtags that are frequently being used to identify trending products.

5. How To Find Trending Products On TikTok

TikTok is currently the fastest-growing social media app, and its huge boom in popularity has made it the home of new trends.

There are several methods we can use to find trending products on TikTok before they become too competitive.

TikTok Creative Center

The Creative Center is a free resource for TikTok creators. It includes tools to help creators create better content and ads.

There are two tools that we use to find trending products.

Top Products 

The Top Products tool is designed to help advertisers find products to feature in their content. 

You can search the Top Products list by region, date, and category and sort by popularity, popularity change, and clicks, conversions, and cost per acquisition. You can also click on Details to find more information, related hashtags, and related videos.

You can search through these products to find trending products to dropship, as well as influencers that might be interested in marketing your products.

Trends

The Trends tool is what it says it is. It shows the trending content on TikTok.

You can find hashtags, songs, creators, and videos that are currently trending. This can help you discover products that might be related to the trending topics and understand what's happening on TikTok. 

You can also use the Trends tool to create content that’s discoverable and can reach your audience.

TikTok Influencers

Like Instagram influencers, TikTok influencers create content to encourage customers to make purchases based on their recommendations.

You can look at TikTok influencers in the niche you’re interested in and see which products they’re promoting and recommending.

The products they’re promoting are usually ones that are trending or will trend in the niche due to the influence the creators have.

TikTok’s Explore Page

TikTok has an Explore feature that has all the most popular and relevant videos.

You can look through the content, explore the tabs, and use the search bar to find trending products in your niche.

Look for products that are frequently mentioned in the content. This can help you find trending products to dropship.

6. How To Find Trending Products On Amazon

Amazon is one of the biggest e-commerce sites, and there are tons of ways to find winning products to dropship. Usually, we’d recommend looking at the best-seller lists and the autofill search bar. 

However, for trending products, it's different. By the time trending products reach the best-selling list or become an Amazon suggestion, they’re already too competitive.

That’s why, to find trending products to dropship, you need to use other methods.

These are our two favorite methods to find trending products to sell from Amazon.

Movers and Shakers

Amazon Movers and Shakers is a list of products that have increased in sales rank the most over the past 24 hours. 

The sales rank is how well a product is selling in its category. For example, if you’re selling the most in the pet category, you’d be sales rank 1, and so on.

Each product in the Movers and Shakers list shows the original and new sales rank, along with the sales rank percentage increase.

Look into each category and find the products with the biggest change in sales rank. The products with the biggest boost in sales are usually trending or soon to be trending.

You can then investigate these products further to find ones to dropship.

Product Research Tool

Jungle Scout and Helium 10 are two of the most popular Amazon product research tools.

We used both tools to help us find winning products to sell on Amazon. If you’re not sure which to choose, Jungle Scout is more beginner-friendly, but Helium 10 has more advanced filters for targeted searches.

Both platforms give you data that can help you identify trending products before they start trending.

However, knowing the data to look for is essential. 

Jungle Scout Opportunity Finder

The Opportunity Finder is a tool that allows you to search through Amazon’s catalog using filters. You can select a category, units sold, monthly price, search volume, competition, and keywords. 

The Opportunity Finder will show products that meet your criteria. You can search through and see product sales and much more. 

Trending products will have a high volume of sales and an even higher demand. Jungle Scout shows you the sales each product makes, as well as allows you to analyze and track sellers.

You can use these insights to work out if a product will be a winner for your dropshipping store.

Helium 10 Black Box

Black Box works in a similar way to the Opportunity Finder. It is a database of millions of Amazon products that you can search through.

You can use Black Box’s advanced filters to search for products that will potentially start trending by looking at products with high demand and sales. 

Helium 10 does have more advanced filters, including amount of competition, age, review count, size, weight, and more. The age filter is super helpful when it comes to identifying trending products. You can look for new product launches that already have high sales.

These additional filters can help you discover trending products more quickly.

We have an entire article on how to find winning products on Amazon if you want a few more methods. 

7. How To Find Trending Products On YouTube

YouTube’s average video length is around 12 minutes. Creators use YouTube to post more in-depth videos, compared to TikTok and Instagram. Longer videos allow the audience to get to know the creators on a more personal level.

This can build trust, which can increase the likelihood the audience will buy based on the creator's recommendations.

Therefore, we can look at the products YouTubers post to see if we can identify a product that might start trending based on their recommendation.

You can do this in a variety of ways, including the following:

• Consume Content - Watch creators with a large following in a niche you’re interested in. When they talk about a product they use, note it down. You can then research it, see if others are talking about it, and whether it might start trending. 

• Unboxing Videos - An unboxing video is when a YouTuber buys a product and unpackages it for their followers. These are all new products that the YouTuber has bought and is recommending to their audience. Look for trends in unboxing videos to find products that are frequently unboxed by creators. This can suggest the product is trending or will be soon.

• Review Videos - When a YouTuber has an opinion on a product, they will likely create a video where they share their thoughts to help their audience decide if it's a product they should buy. Look for positive review videos with high engagement, as often the products will be trending.

• Tutorial or Demo Videos - There are tutorials on almost everything on YouTube, from cooking to building homes. Watch popular demos or tutorials and pick out products that are used. The audience might purchase it so they can replicate the demo. 

For example, let’s say you’re watching a makeup tutorial, and the creator uses a specific brush or sponge and really recommends it. You can research that tool to see if it’s trending, and you can dropship it.

8. How To Find Trending Products Using Customer Feedback

Customers know what they like about a product, as well as what’s missing. 

Look at feedback you receive on your own store or questions you receive from customers. If you don’t have a store, look at Amazon reviews of products you might be interested in selling. 

You can look for patterns and frequent requests in the comments or feedback to discover a new product that customers want to buy.

Taking on customers' feedback completely changed our first Amazon FBA store. We sold a product designed for pets, and it sold well but wasn’t trending. 

That was until we noticed a customer had left a review saying they didn’t have a pet but used the product in their garden. We had no gardening knowledge, so we never would have considered selling the product to gardeners until we received that review. 

We then updated our listing and created ads to reach a whole new audience, which helped us gain traction in the gardening niche.

9. How To Find Trending Products On Supplier Marketplaces

AliExpress, CJDropshipping, and other marketplaces commonly used by e-commerce sellers can be a goldmine when it comes to trending products. 

Many sellers source their products from these supplier marketplaces. 

If lots of sellers are sourcing the same trending product, the supplier marketplaces will receive many orders, which will boost the visibility of the products. 

This allows you to identify trending products easily. 

Many sellers, like traditional e-commerce stores, will also buy the stock in bulk, and once it arrives at the seller's warehouse, they can list and sell it.

As a dropshipper, you don’t need to wait for the inventory to arrive before you start selling. This gives you an edge over traditional e-commerce sellers, as you can instantly list the products available for sale and stay ahead of the peak.

How To Find Trending Products On Alixpress

On AliExpress, you can search for products using the search bar or the categories. You will then be shown the results. You can sort the results by Orders. 

Orders arrange the product results by the ones that are making the most sales.

Products with a high order volume suggest they’re in high demand.

Look for trends in the product results. When multiple of the same product appears in the results with high orders, it suggests it could be trending. 

For example, we opened the Outdoor Decor category and sorted by Orders. On the first page, there are six sellers who all sell Outdoor Glowing Decorations. This suggests they are all making a high number of sales.

AliExpress also gives you insights like Top Selling badges and how many items have sold. You can use this information to confirm that the products have demand.

AliExpress DS Center

AliExpress has a built-in product research tool. This is the DS Center. Anyone with an AliExpress account can apply to join the DS Center. You can access it through your dashboard.

To find trending products, look for products with a large amount of growth in a short period of time.

For example, The DS Center shows us that a pair of sunglasses has grown 61.9% in 7 days.

When you find a product you’re interested in, you can click Go To Analyze.

The DS Center then shows similar products and product information. These include the number of orders, logistics, shipping, and price. We can use this information to confirm the product is trending.

It also makes it easy to find a supplier to source the products.

We have an article on How to Find Winning Products on AliExpress. It includes tons of methods and tips for AliExpress research. 

How To Find Trending Products On CJDropshipping

CJDropshipping’s homepage has a selection of trending products.

From the homepage, we can click View More. This will open the trending products page.

You can search through the products by category, date, price, and number of lists. 

For example, let’s say we select the Phone Accessories category. CJDropshipping will then show us all of the currently trending phone accessories. 

Look through the products and identify any products that repeatedly appear. If lots of the same products are shown on the trending page, it suggests they are very popular. 

For example, we see that there are three astronaut phone cases on the first page. We can research these products in more depth to see if they are winners.

CJDropshipping also shows us the number of lists. Lists are how many sellers added the product to their storefront. This instantly tells you how competitive the product might be.

10. How To Find Trending Products On Reddit Forums And Facebook Groups

Online communities like Reddit and Facebook Groups can give you a real insight into what customers are looking for and what products they’re interested in.

There are groups and subreddits for every industry and niche imaginable. 

We recommend joining subreddits and groups in the niche you’re interested in. You can look through the posts to help identify trending products.

For example, if we look at Reddit and want to sell kitchen items, we can look at the subreddit KitchenConfidential, which is the largest community of food service workers. There was a post today about how to take care of a knife.

The comments were full of tips and product recommendations. 

We can look into these product recommendations and see if any of the products could be trending.

Facebook Groups work in a similar way to subreddits. You can join groups, read posts and comments, and write posts to get feedback on your ideas.

On Subreddits and Facebook Groups, look for patterns and products that are frequently mentioned to help you identify trending products.

11. Shopify’s Trending Product Blog Post

Shopify has an article on trending products.

The post is regularly updated with current trends. So every time you check the article, you’re up to date with the latest trends.

Shopify uses real data to create the list, which is a huge benefit. The products are added to the list based on the popularity of the product category on the Shopify platform. 

However, the Shopify trending products article is super popular, which usually means that even though the products are trending, they usually get competitive very quickly. 

Before you start selling one of Shopify’s recommendations, make sure to check how competitive the products are.

Dropship has the Competitor Research tool. You can search for the trending products, and the competitor research tool will find every Shopify store that lists the product. You can analyze these stores and your competitors to see if the product is worth launching.

There is a 7-day trial available if you want to check it out for free.

What Are Trending Products?

A trending product is one that is currently popular with a large audience. 

Trends are usually short-lived and experience a high volume of sales, demand, and interest.

Some recent trending products include:

• Fidget Spinner
• Desk Vacuum
• Ice Roller
• Pop It Toy
• Vegetable Chopper
• Heatless Curling Rod
• Stanley Water Bottles
• Star Projectors
• Dyson Airwrap
• LED Strip Lights
• Car Trash Can
• Ice Ball Maker
• Matcha

If you want more product inspiration, Dropship has an article on the 14 Best Trending Products for 2024.

How Do I Find Out What Products Are In Demand?

Google Trends, social media, product research tools, and online marketplaces are the best ways to find which products are in demand.

Google Trends will show you how popular a search term is, which can give you an indication of the amount of demand it has.

However, the way to confirm how much demand a product has is by checking sales.

You can do this by spying on sellers' sales and revenue using a product research tool. If several stores selling the product have a high volume of sales, you know it's in demand.

Dropship is a Shopify spy tool. You can see the approximate sales and revenue any Shopify store is making. 

For example, let’s say you want to find out if the Heatless Curler has demand.

Start by finding stores selling the curler by searching on Google. Find the top 5-10 stores and copy the URLs. 

Next, open Dropship and enter the URLs into your Sales Tracker.

Dropship will show the sales history of each product.

If the product has a high volume of sales, you know there is demand. 

In this example, we can see that some stores are still making sales. However, the volume of sales suggests the product isn’t trending. 

To find out if and when the product trended, you can click on Insights. Dropship will show up to a year of sales history in a graph. Look at the peaks and dips to see when and if the product was trending.

Although we think Dropship is the best product research tool, we are pretty biased. If you’re looking for other options, we have an article on 20 of the best dropshipping product research tools.

Should I Dropship Trending Products?

If you catch the product at the right time, then yes, trending products are great to sell.

Trending products that aren’t oversaturated will give you huge demand and a high volume of sales.

However, they can quickly become too competitive and dip in sales quickly after the trend is over.

If you’re not sure if trending products are right for your store, these are the benefits and risks to help you decide.

Benefits of Dropshipping Trending Products

• High Demand and High Sales - If a product is trending, it means the product is popular and in demand. High demand means high sales, which will usually mean a lot of profit for you.

• Proven Winner - Trending products with low competition are winners. All trending products have high demand, which will make it easy to find customers to buy from you. 

• Easy to Get Started - Dropshipping gives you an edge over traditional e-commerce stores. You can start taking sales almost immediately. Traditional stores have to buy stock and wait for it to arrive before they can add it to their store and start making sales. With dropshipping, you only order from the supplier when a customer buys from you. So you can list your trending products as soon as you find them.

• Quick Return - If you manage to find a trending product before it becomes too competitive, you’ll likely earn high profits very quickly. 

• Low Risk - Dropshipping doesn’t require you to buy stock. You only buy stock as you receive orders. So, it doesn’t require much investment other than paying for samples and marketing. Therefore, if the trend ends or you don’t receive the expected sales, it shouldn’t leave you with huge losses or ruin your business.

Risks of Dropshipping Trending Products

• Competition - Trending products are popular. That means everyone knows about them. Other sellers will quickly jump on the trend, which means you’ve got a lot of competition. Try to find trending products before they become too competitive. It’ll give you a chance to establish yourself in the niche.

• Time Limited - Trends are over as quickly as they begin. Customers move on to other trends, which means your trending product has a limited window for sales. If you only want to sell trending products, you’ll need to stay up to date with the latest trends.

• Price Driven - As soon as other sellers jump on the trend, it’ll become a price war to win customers. To compete, you’ll probably need to lower your price, which can leave you with low margins and limited profit.

• Difficult to Keep Up - Trends are ever-changing. It takes a lot of research to keep up and continue evolving. If you’re not careful, the trend will move on without you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where Should I Sell Trending Products?

Our preference is our own Shopify store. 

But you can also sell trending products on other e-commerce platforms, like Wix and WooCommerce, or marketplaces like Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Walmart, etc.

Why Sell Trending Products?

Demand. Trending products are in high demand, which translates to lots of customers wanting to buy them and potentially big profits. 

However, trending products can be difficult to find, as you need to find them before they hit their peak and before other sellers find the products, and it becomes too competitive.

Which Website Is Best For Checking Trending Products?

Google Trends and Exploding Topics are great sites for finding trending products. 

You can also find trending products on online marketplaces like Amazon and social media. TikTok is one of the best places to find current trends.

What Products Have The Highest Demand?

Necessities like food, drinks, and personal care products have the highest demand. 

Clothing is also one of the most sold items worldwide, along with electronics, beauty, shoes, pet suppliers, toys, and homeware.

Final Thoughts

Trending products aren’t the best option for everyone to dropship. You need to find the right product at the right time and be able to take immediate action to stay ahead of the peak.

If you want to dropship trending products, hopefully, the methods above can help you find a winning one.

To confirm you’ve found a winner, make sure to check out Dropship’s product research tools. The Product Database and Sales Tracker that will help you find and confirm you’ve found a winner. Check it out for 7-days completely free. 

https://www.dropship.io/blog/best-trending-products