Hunting For Trends With Merch Informer: A Step-By-Step Guide To Being First On Merch by Amazon
Trends are powerful.
They can help you enjoy popularity, grab opportunities, and more. In terms of selling Merch on Amazon, awareness of current trends simply translates into making more money!
Without a doubt, there are a ton of different buyer segments that you can target as a Seller. But the reality is that with time, certain trends are bound to spike up interest from many different buyer segments all at once. Being able to identify upcoming trends can put you one step ahead of the competition and can help you attract a diverse group of buyers as a result.
So, is there a way to spot trends and take advantage of them for your strategy for selling merch on Amazon?
Yes, and you’re about to read about it. There are two key tools for hunting trends on Merch Informer – Movers and Shakers and Trend Tracker.
Let’s see what they can offer.
Merch Informer’s Trend Hunter Tools Explained
There are different types of trends you can take advantage of in order to sell more merch on Amazon.
Some trends are evergreen and will be popular throughout the whole year, while others are influenced by certain events like holidays, politics, or others. They’re both important for Amazon Sellers, as we’ll see later on. This is why Merch Informer offers two separate tools to help you discover both types of trends.
Movers and Shakers
Movers and Shakers is a gem if you want to spot the trends that are currently popular and actively being sold. How? By showing you the products that have had dramatic spikes in Sellers rank over a time period of your choice.
You can find the tool on the left-hand menu of Merch Informer, under “Product Research”. Once you click on the tool, you’ll be able to choose three separate filters to search by:
- Type – You can receive daily, weekly, or monthly results
- Category – Choose from the categories available on Merch by Amazon
- Marketplace – Select from US, UK, or DE
You’ll also see a section with a summary of the information you’re presented with. For example, the tool will tell you how many products it’s displaying (it will show 300 results), the lowest, average, and highest prices of the displayed products, and the average BSR. It will also confirm the chosen period and category. This summary section is extremely useful to get an idea of how the shown products are priced and whether or not they’re worth your time and effort.
The more interesting part comes once you get to the actual products. You can see the design of the product along with information about the title, the Seller, the ASIN, reviews, price, and more. Most importantly, you can see the changes in BSR over time and any price changes. Remember that the lower the BSR, the more sales a product has recorded.
Let’s look at an example.
We used the Movers and Shakers tool to run a search on the t-shirts that had the highest swing in BSR over the last week. In other words, we wanted to see what t-shirt designs started selling extremely well in this time period. Unsurprisingly, we saw a number of Easter designs, which is normal as Easter is just around the corner.
Interestingly, these shirts started selling around the 10th of March, which means that if you were to tap into this niche, you should have your designs ready around the start of the month. On the other hand, a top-selling t-shirt with a “Happy Easter” design dropped in BSR from 3.5 million on the 28th of March to around 300,000 on the 29th of March. This is a tremendous difference in sales over a single day and a huge opportunity for Sellers.
The sooner you spot a trend using Movers and Shakers, the quicker you can adapt your strategy and create products around a certain niche. This is why it’s advisable to use Movers and Shakers routinely to search for trends that are just now starting to appear on Amazon. It’s the perfect tool if you want to discover designs that are starting to sell like hotcakes so you can tap into the niche and enjoy returns.
Trend Tracker
On the other hand, some trends are evergreen and popular all year round. You can identify them by using the Trend Tracker. The Trend Tracker allows you to run searches over a longer period to discover products that are consistently selling or have an average BSR of a range of your choice.
With Trend Tracker, you have similar search options. The difference is that when using this tool, you can select a period of one, two, or three months. You can also select an average BSR for the products you want to see. Naturally, if you’re looking for best-selling designs, you’ll want to choose an average BSR of 1 – 100,000. Once you get the results, you’ll be able to see the full information about each product, like the price, title, Seller, ASIN, expected monthly sales, and more. Again, you’ll also be able to see the changes in BSR over time, along with any price shifts that have been recorded.
Trend Tracker will reveal the best Sellers from a given category over a longer period, showing you trends that sell day in and day out. For instance, when we run a search for shirts and choose three months, the first product that appears is the old but gold t-shirt design of an authentic car model and a sign that reads “I’m not old, I’m classy”. The product has a consistent price of roughly $16. In the late days of December, it had a BSR of around 11,000 (which is pretty great), while at the start of February it lowered to around 2,000, which is simply outstanding. It’s certainly a trendy product throughout the whole year.
The conclusion here is that you can use Trend Tracker to get started with your designs and choose trends or niches that you are certain will be popular among buyers. Why? Because this strategy will ultimately result in more sales.
The Benefits For Your Merch by Amazon Seller Strategy
As a Merch by Amazon Seller, you probably want to see your efforts pay off. It takes time and energy to choose a category, tap into a niche, create an amazing design, optimize your listings, and get your products seen by buyers.
By using Merch Informer’s trend hunter tools, you can skip the idea-browsing step and focus on the niches and trends that you can be certain to perform exceptionally well.
The Movers and Shakers and Trend Tracker tools can also help you create diversity in your product portfolio with merch that is bound to sell. You can observe if there are trends specific to a product category, you can get ideas on how to price your products based on the trend you’ve chosen, what monthly sales you can expect, and more. In other words, you can be prepared for every scenario and have peace of mind knowing that nothing is left to chance.
The Financial Impact Of Being On Top Of Trends
Let’s not forget about the financial implications of spotting trends on time. Being aware of what’s about to start selling can dramatically improve your returns from Merch on Amazon.
How? By giving you a competitive advantage and allowing you to please buyers demand ahead of others.
Let’s say you’ve recently started selling shirts on Amazon. You have around ten designs that you’ve created based on your hobbies and interests. Some of them sell well in certain periods throughout the year, while there are months when you are literally left with zero sales.
By identifying upcoming trends, you can make sure that your profits are never on the low end.
This approach can also allow you to sell your products for a higher price as you’ll be among the first Sellers to satisfy an uprising demand. The sooner you enter the niche, the better chances you have of making sales quickly. On the other hand, if you start selling designs from a trend that has already passed or is saturated with products, the only way to be competitive is to offer a lower price.
Super Combo: Trend Hunter Tools With Other Merch Informer Modules
Movers and Shakers and Trend Tracker are two useful tools that can help you spot trends as they’re just starting to develop or to identify evergreen designs that sell all year round.
However, simply creating designs to fit in with these trends won’t be enough to guarantee the sales you’ve after. You’ll also need to optimize your listings with the right keywords to make your products visible, you’ll need to set the right price and more. We highly recommend using trend hunter instruments in combination with other tools from Merch Informer, like Keyword Research, for example.
Wrapping Up
Just like with any other business, selling merch on Amazon requires rigor and a bulletproof strategy. Merch Informer is here to help any Seller, whether beginner or expert, gain insights from Merch by Amazon and use them to up their game.
The trend hunter tools we discussed are an intelligent way to guarantee consistent sales in different niches. Use them together with other features from Merch Informer to design a complete and reliable strategy for your merch designs on Amazon.
