Product Research with Dani Avitz of Algopix

Product research is very much intertwined with market research and keyword research. In essence, you need to analyse demand and profitability.

Algopix is a product market research tool for Amazon sellers. Algopix is a trusted data source for over 65,000 sellers worldwide. 
Which marketplaces are we talking about? (Amazon/eBay etc.)?
Amazon eBay Walmart

16 total marketplaces

Co-founder Ori and Dani built a seller agency

Biggest pain point was dead inventory - almost 20% of inventory $450 B dollars

Improved results of reducing dead inventory 12-7% 
Who are the different kinds of sellers on Amazon/marketplaces you work with? 

Resellers
Private Label sellers before investing - and invest competitors
Brands who want to understand their own catalogue 
Wholesalers

What is the difference, in your opinion, between “product research”, “market research” and “keyword research”?
Very much related and intertwined. 

Info is mostly related to different markets

Eg specific product - UPC, ASIN etc. 

Market level - demand level, competition, sales history. 

Sales history - sales performance - unit sales and revenue - important for research. 
If you have a specific product in mind
The product identifier is for a specific product. 
Searching more broadly
This is more about keyword research - broader keyword searches and gets relevant product listings. 

A new tool in Algopix for this. 
Which types of Amazon reseller need to focus on keyword research?
Private label sellers don’t have a specific product in mind - this is good for them. 

For brand owners to analyse their brand they need to be as general as they can so they don’t miss the competition. 

Whereas wholesalers have a specific product identifier to analyse. 

From the data analysis, they can see how.
What are the top 2-3 key factors for deciding what markets to enter? (Product research/market research/kw research) 
The three top factors are demand, profitability and competition. 

Sufficient demand is critical but doesn’t have to be huge. Sufficient is defined by profitable. 

Profitability - you need to consider ALL your costs

Not just purchasing, but shipping, taxes - marketplace fee - payment provider eg PayPal

Regarding Competition: the key is to avoid crowded markets to avoid price wars. This is usually connected to demand as well. 

Medium to high demand and low-to-medium competition is the sweet spot. 
How do you analyse demand?
Look at past info combine with common sense - or use machine learning and an algorithm which Algopix does for you. 
How do you go about competitor analysis?
Even in a market will low competition, you should never neglect them. 

Competitive analysis is critical. 

On Amazon, you look at the total number of competitors

Factors include: 

Buy box price - winners of buy box get 90% of traffic. 
reviews
Sales volume  

How do you define a competitor?
Firstly if you’re looking for a specific product using an identifier, this is simpler. 

But if a user uses a broader keyword term, you need to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant search results.

Algopix can do this, Eg “watch” won’t bring up “watch batteries".

Sometimes there are in-between things that could be or not relevant. 

This is where human judgement is still needed. 

Algopix also learns about how you work with results and results on the basis of what you do 
How does profitability come into your market/product choice?
It is obviously critical to running a good business. SO it’s also critical in choosing a market. 

If you’re selling a low and medium price product, you need to consider

- marketplace fees

Shipping
Payment processing fees (eg Paypal on eBay) 
Returns
Storage fees

Profitability mistakes
The classic error is that business owners fall in love with being an e-commerce seller

They get proud of making $10-20,000 a month in sales.