A Guide to Market Research for Selling Digital Products

If you’re thinking about how to start selling digital products and how to make money doing it, market research is your best friend. It helps you understand what the market wants, so you can create products that people are eager to buy.

You can collect data and do market research for free on sites like Etsy or Amazon. These sites can tell you a lot about market trends, popular products, and how your competitors are doing. In the same way, tools like eRank take market research to the next level by giving you a wide range of features. In this article, we discuss both methods of conducting market research to establish a solid foundation for successfully selling digital products, whether you are a beginner or an experienced seller.

1. Use the Etsy search bar to do market research. 

Etsy’s search bar is the best among marketplaces because it has suggestions and the biggest database. Here’s how to get the most out of it:

Start by typing the keyword that describes the item you want to sell into Etsy’s search bar. As you type, you will receive keyword suggestions to assist you in identifying relevant search terms. Use the keyword you picked to do a search.

Pay attention to these things:

• Number of reviews on the product card. Shows how many reviews the store has gotten and how popular it is according to sales.
• Rating. Products with good rating (4.8-5.0) and a star seller badge should be given maximum attention. This is the overall rating of the seller, which is a good sign.
• Price. Avoid products with unusually low pricing; they could have been cloned, resold or oversaturated. Especially if the seller’s rating is less than 4.6

Visit the seller’s store page to learn more.

Look for these things:

• The total number of sales. Even if a store has a lot of general sales, it’s important to look at how sales have been going lately. Looking at the store reviews area, see how many reviews there were on the last or next-to-last day. Regular daily reviews are a good sign.
• Number of listings. A high number of listings followed by low sales may suggest a lack of success. Unfortunately, a lot of sellers go down this road, making a lot of average or similar products so that they show up more often in searches. This doesn’t work well in real life, though, especially if you want to grow over time and build a business and reputation outside of Etsy.
• Date the store opened. To see how long the store has been functioning, go to the last store reviews page and look at the date. This information can help you figure out how trustworthy and experienced the seller is.

2. Researching the market with eRank.

eRank is a great way to get more information and dig deeper into market study. While you can sign up for free, access to advanced analysis requires a paid subscription. The good news is that the BASIC package, which costs only $5 per month, includes all of the features you need for a thorough study. This tool is the best value for money because it is easy to use and is known as the gold standard among similar ones.

This will offer you the following choices:

• Shop Info. This feature shows useful information like top listings, shop rating, sales over the last 7 and 30 days, and more. By looking at this data, you can learn more about how great salespeople do their jobs and what they do to be successful.
• Top Sellers. Find top sellers in your category and analyze their performance metrics. Sort your results by the year the store opened to find sellers who have been around for a long time or who are new and doing well.
• Trend analysis. Find new trends and hot topics in your niche. This will help you make your products fit what people want.
• Keyword analysis. You can make it easier for potential customers to find you by using high-performing keywords in your product names, descriptions, and tags.
• Additional Features. Discover listing audit and optimization tools, competitor analysis, marketplace commission calculators, and more.