 In the previous lesson, we talked about the dropshipping business model, which is the business model that we will be working with. In this lesson, we will be talking about product research. Product research is one of the most, if not the most important part of running your online business. And that is because if you don't get your product research done correctly, and if you don't work hard enough on it and really know how to find the products that will sell for you, then it doesn't matter how neat your site looks. It doesn't matter how much time and effort you put into it. And it won't matter how much budget you put into your marketing. Nothing will work and everything will fail if you don't get the product research done correctly. That is exactly what we're going to be talking about in these lessons. We're going to start with the first lesson in product research, the six criteria for finding a good product to sell. By the way, you guys don't need to write anything down. I got you all covered. The first criteria that you need to know in order to be able to conduct product research is that the product needs to be hard to find in stores. For example, check out this product. This is a toothbrush sanitizer, UV toothbrush holder, and a toothpaste dispenser. It sanitizes your toothbrushes. This is what people are looking for, especially this year with the pandemic that we have going on. Now let's check if this is a hard to find product at local shops that people usually have near their homes. For example, let's take a look at Costco. As you can see, Costco has no idea what this product is when searching for UV toothbrush holder. Same thing in Home Depot. Home Depot has no idea what this product is, but we can see that it is available and even trending through other suppliers. So that's the first criteria that the product needs to be hard to find in stores. Now the second criteria of finding a good product to sell is that it should be hard for customers to guess the price of this item. For example, that UV toothbrush sanitizer. It's not a product that people usually buy. I'm sure that you've never had such a product before, so it's hard to guess the price of a product that you've never bought before in your life. You can guess around how much you'd want to spend for such a product. For example, I wouldn't spend $100 or $150 on this product, but if it costs $30 or $40 or maybe even $50, sure, why not? It's for the health of my teeth and it's worth that much money. So with the second criteria being that it's hard to guess the product's price, you can actually make great profit on such products. You can price them up to three times their worth and even more. It really depends on the situation, but that's why the second criteria is that it needs to be hard for the customer to guess the price of this product. The third criteria that you need to keep in mind when doing your product research is that the product needs to solve a problem and make your customer's life easier. For example, that UV sanitizer toothbrush holder that we saw solves a few problems. It cleans and sanitizes the toothbrushes, it holds and dispenses the toothpaste, it organizes the toothbrushes in an orderly fashion, and it takes care of your personal hygiene. So there's a few problems that this product solves and it's hard to find in stores and it's hard to guess the price. These are the criteria that we're looking for in a winning product. The fourth criteria is that your drop shipping suppliers need to have fast shipping and delivery times. Customers do not want to wait more than one week to get their orders. That is why I don't recommend to work with Chinese suppliers. Many people do it and it's fine. It is not a wrong method. Do not get me wrong here. But if you want a higher quality store, higher quality products and satisfied customers, you need to work with American suppliers with fast shipping times. We're going to get to the suppliers soon, but keep this in mind for the fourth criteria that you need to work with suppliers, drop shipping suppliers with super fast shipping times, super fast delivery times, and good customer support when it comes to returns. Now this brings us to the fifth criteria that you need to know before starting your product research. And this one is talking about the fact that your customers need to be able to buy the product impulsively without doing much product research before. For example, if you're selling something that has different weights and dimensions, then there's a good chance that the customer will need to go and do some research before buying from your store to see if it's the right size, the right measurement, and so forth. And you might lose them because they may never come back to your shop. This doesn't mean that you can't sell products that have different sizes and dimensions, but do keep in mind that it will make them log out of your store, see if it's what they need, and maybe come back a day later after talking with their wife or friend or relative if they would even remember to do so. You want to look for impulse buyers who will simply buy the product as soon as they see it in your shop, do not give them a reason to get out of your site and maybe come back later. So that's the fifth criteria that the customers need to buy the product impulsively and not get out of your site and start doing some research and maybe come back later. The sixth and final criteria before starting your product research is that the products that you are adding to your stores should not cost more than $30. And there's a reason for this. Yes, you can drop ship products that cost $100, $150, $400, and even $1,000. There's no problem with that. But if you want to have a much higher chance of making sales and profits, especially in the beginning of your journey, do not go for expensive products because you're going to have to work much harder to convince the customers to buy this product from your shop. And when your items are cheaper, when they cost you up to $30, then you can sell them for $60 or even $100, make some good profit along the way, and have a much higher chance of selling. Start with cheaper products up to $30. And this is the sixth criteria that I have for you guys. Now, before we move on to the next steps of conducting product research, you need to know the difference between a general store, a niche store, and a one product store. And which store should you have? As a beginner, it is much better to start with a niche store. And that is because when you have a niche store, you can start narrowing it down once you have a winning product. You can start narrowing down your niche and seeing exactly what's going to go well for you. And when you have a niche store, it simply looks much better than a general store, which just has a whole bunch of randomized products which have nothing to do with one another. So it looks unorganized and unprofessional. And as for one product stores, this can also be a good idea, but only once you have vast experience in the dropshipping industry, in the dropshipping world, and you know exactly which product you need to sell and which product is going to sell well. One product stores are really challenging because you only have one product and you're relying on that. So do not start with one product stores if you haven't dropped shipped yet. Start with a niche store which you will be able to brand professionally and slowly you can start narrowing down the winning niche. For example, if you're going for the pet niche, you're not going to sell a dog collar and only dog collars in different sizes and colors. You want to sell a whole bunch of pet accessories and start to slowly notice which ones are selling well and which ones aren't and then start narrowing down your products from there. So start with a niche store and I will show you exactly how you can do that and how you can narrow it down to winning products. Remember how I told you guys that you don't need to write anything down because I got you guys covered? Well, if you look now in the resources center of this course, you will see a spreadsheet called Product Research Dropshipping Spreadsheet. Download it now, save it onto your computer and I'll talk to you about it very, very soon. Now let's move on to the next lesson, how to spy on successful dropshipping stores. There you will learn exactly which stores are selling well, which ones of them are using the dropshipping business model so that you can learn exactly which items are going well and start your product research from there. See you in the next lesson.