Choosing products from Avasam

When you’re getting started with Avasam and picking your products, it can feel a little overwhelming, especially if you haven’t yet chosen your product strategy. But if you’re brand new to DropShipping and you’ve got this far, don’t give up because it appears complicated – once you have your strategy in place, it really doesn’t have to be. Follow our guidance, make use of our YouTube videos and it will all become clear pretty quickly.

We’ll start out with the basics – how to source your products on the Avasam platform, and then we’ll talk about strategies you can use to choose the right products for your business.

Sourcing your products on Avasam

When we say sourcing your products – we simply mean finding the ones you want to start selling, and then adding them to your inventory, so you can start listing them.

This might seem like an obvious statement, but the first thing you’ll need to do is log into your Avasam account. Once you’ve logged in, there are a couple of ways that you can find the products that you want.

If you’ve already got an idea of what you’re looking for, you can use the search box to search for a keyword. Once you get more familiar with the Avasam catalogue, you’ll be able to search for SKU numbers (Stock Keeping Units) and supplier codes. You can then use the drop-down menu to filter using price, stock quantity, margin and date added.

Alternatively, if you haven’t yet formulated a plan or you’re simply looking for inspiration to expand your product line, you can browse using the categories, or simply scroll through the product catalogue, which will load more products as you scroll.

When you find a product you want to add to your inventory and start selling, you can simply roll the cursor over the product to reveal the blue source product button, and click it. You’ll see a green confirmation message in the top right hand corner of the screen, and you can continue your search uninterrupted. You’ll also notice that a green tick will appear on the listing in the catalogue, so you won’t need to remember which products you have sourced already.

This should all be pretty clear, but we’ve put together this little video (it is less than 4 minutes long, so you don’t need too much time!) to demonstrate how sourcing on Avasam works.

When you have found the products you’re looking for, click on My products and Inventory to see the products in your inventory. From the inventory, you will be able to manage your products, sorting your items and removing any that you no longer want to sell.

There is no limit to the number of products you can add to your inventory, but once you list more than 100 products you will need to move your subscription up to the Starter package, which is just £9 per month. In addition to being able to process more orders each month, you’ll benefit further by being able to integrate with an additional four sales channels, which increases the potential to make more sales. Talking of making more sales – let’s take a look at those ways you can choose the products for your business.

Choosing your products

We’ve talked about how to decide what to sell online and finding the best products for your business before, but we know there are many new Avasam sellers that have joined the platform recently, so we thought we’d cover it again here. Establishing your strategy can help you to identify the products that are right for your business, so let’s take a look at that.

Strategies for choosing products

If you’ve already been selling for a while, you’ll have your strategy set up and it will be working for you. If you’re new to the world of eCommerce and DropShipping, then there are a few strategies you can use to decide what to sell. Many businesses use one, or all of these approaches, so as a new business, pick one and then as you make sales, layer the other strategies on.

If you’re already an Avasam seller, there are a few places you’ll already know about to find the best-selling, and trending products for your business. You’ll probably already be signed up for our emails (if you’re not, you can set your email preferences in your Avasam account in Settings and Email notifications)

Selling to your niche

We’ve talked about finding a niche on the blog before, and for good reason. Deciding exactly who you’re going to sell to, or choosing a certain product category to sell in will help you to select your products more efficiently. That’s especially important if you’re going to be working towards building a brand that your customers come to know and love.

A niche is simply the unique selling point for the products that you are selling, with the market niche being who you are aiming to sell to. So if you’re selling products to fans of a certain sports team, a hobby, or a certain demographic like first-time mothers or older people who suffer with arthritis, that is your niche.

Identifying your niche can take work, but on the whole, it is pretty simple. Start by looking at your own hobbies and interests, or one that you know members of your friends or family talk about a lot. Identify how much people are likely to spend doing it, or indulging in it, and go from there. Then, do your research in depth – we’re talking target customer research, product research, how many other sellers appear to be in your niche, and so on.

Then, it is time to look at the data – all the evidence to show that your products are going to sell, and that your chosen niche will perform in the way you want it to. Checking the data is absolutely essential if you’re going to avoid wasting your time. There are loads of places you can get data from, but here are a few places to get started:

Selling seasonally

This is a great way to add to your DropShipping sales, and one that the retail industry has used for years. Adding seasonal items to your inventory means that you can capitalise quickly on hot weather, religious holidays and so on. And the beauty of DropShipping with a marketplace like Avasam means that you can start selling items like these quickly, and remove them from your sales channels as soon as demand drops.

Selling what is trending

Drop surfing is a pretty trendy term at the moment and there are a couple of methods that the term is being applied to, but the main one is simply to sell what is trending. There are a number of ways you can do this, but if you’re going to rely solely on trending items to fill your sales channels, you will need to look carefully at the amount of work that is required, as well as your profit margins. Although demand will be high initially, a lot of competition will spring up quickly – and that means your profit margins will end up needing to be smaller in order to keep making sales. Selling what is trending can be a useful aspect of your business, but it is more effective when used as a complementary strategy, rather than the whole strategy.

Sell items customers order regularly

Having customers that turn to you for repeat orders – whether that is weekly, monthly, bi-annually or even after longer periods of time is a great way to make sales. If you can identify those products that people want regularly, then your customers are more likely to think of you and return to you when they need the refill – assuming that they have received great customer service, of course!