As an Amazon seller, most of you will probably be doing the private label business, where you sell products with your own labels on them. Many private label Amazon sellers focus on making product improvements – that is, by making your own unique tweaks to the everyday products so that it becomes something better, perhaps with additional beneficial features, to attract the consumers’ attention.
This is a good method for beginning private label business owners, but truth to be told, product improvement can only get you so far. To grow your business and brand, I will highly encourage you to go for product innovation instead – develop your own products that solve real-world problems. Get it right, and you will be able to build a great business for the long term, instead of just copying one product after another.
In this series of posts, I will be introducing you to a step-by-step method to develop your own products to sell on Amazon. It’s definitely easier said than done, but then again, remember the old proverb, ‘Every success begins with a first step.’ So let’s embrace the challenge, and here I go!
Step 6: Research problems in the niche
Keep finding problems and create more products that solve them so as to grow your business in the selected niche.
Step 7: Make sure you can access the market
Consider carefully if you can reach your target audience and customers before you jump in with the product development process.
Step 8: Listen in and ask questions
Be active in one or two communities within your product niche and really listen to what your audience prefers.
Step 9: Know the attributes of successful products
Find a product idea that provides a solid solution for your niche’s problems, is user-friendly, and has the quality that you can trust.
Step 10: Have a reality check
Always remember to take a step back and find out if there are any big barriers to going ahead with the product.
Don’t forget, there will always be problems along the way on any long journey. Sometimes you won’t make any progress, and sometimes you’ll go backward. But then other times, results will come much quicker and in a way that you didn’t anticipate.
Developing your own products to sell on Amazon is a personal journey as well as a business one. However, I assure you, this will definitely be a fulfilling process when you turn and look back on all the challenges you have come across.
I wish you all the best, and see you soon!

Step 1: Start by finding your niche
Find your niche first, and make sure it’s one that you have at least some level of personal interest in. It will be hard to innovate with a new product if you have no knowledge or opinions at all in that area. When doing this, do ample research on the market conditions for your niche as a whole. There are many examples of people who start with the idea of a product first, and then notice that the market entry level is too high (either dominated by brands or too much capital needed). This can be a real dampener on their business ventures, so do research carefully before you are sure you want to focus on that particular niche.Step 2: Keep your brand consistent
The main aim of developing products is to create one or more rockstar products that define your brand and guarantee the success of your company. Think about it like a seed that you plant for the future. It takes time. Normally, the first product is what defines your brand, so I will advise you to stick to your selected product niche and branding strategy. You can sell underlying product groups and assortments, but do focus on just one core product range. With this, you can then develop a clear branding and marketing strategy as well as a product-market fit, which is one of the most important concepts in business today.
Step 3: Go for an established market
Most people often think their business will definitely be successful once they get onto trends like selfie sticks and fidget spinners early enough. Truth is, that seldom works, While trends are great for helping you to gather income in a short period of time, to remain an evergreen business, your ultimate goal should be to build a brand for yourself on the Amazon marketplace. As such, I will advise you to look for an interesting market that is already established, instead of following trends blindly. Find an existing market that has reached a mature size, so that you have enough base of customers. This is because mature niches give you the best feedback. If you don’t have an established market that you can collect feedback form, you will have to establish a whole new market by yourself. That’s very difficult, and usually very expensive.Step 4: Narrow down to niches that you can innovate in
When developing a new product, you can make a list of your interests, and split it down into smaller subcategories. Only list general interests at first and research each one. This could be something that you identify with, a hobby, expertise, part of your profession, or similar. With that, you can then narrow down to niches that will lead you to passionate communities on Facebook, forums, or Reddit. I will advise you to connect with these guys and understand what problems they face. Attempt to solve the problems for them – and this can be a breakthrough on your way to innovate a new product for your business. Below is an example of how you can go about this process. For example, if you are into outdoor sports, you can go down into sub-niches like these:
Step 5: Have the right mindset
When trying to come up with your products, do remember to leave your ego out of the equation. Though I encourage you to start with your interests, it is also equally important for you to look at your business objectively and don’t let your personal emotions or preferences interfere TOO MUCH. Only concentrate on what the market needs and not what YOU think the market needs. Always keep the product-market fit in mind. I will advise you to try something that you aren’t comfortable with. Step out of your comfort zone, and perhaps go into higher-priced or more novel categories. You may be surprised to find that sometimes you can find more success in such markets, rather than the saturated markets for low-priced and everyday items.Step 6: Research problems in the niche
It is impossible to achieve success without ample research. Therefore, always remember to find out what are the problems in your niche, and focus on creating solutions for them. Simply ask yourself: are there products that aren’t around, but people wish they existed? Sometimes, innovation is just some simple things that make a product easier to handle, or just more pleasing in its design. Basically, your first rockstar product should be something that you can sell over and over again for a long time. Create a genuine new product with a great feature that makes people’s lives easier. Keep finding problems, and creating more products than solve them, and your business will grow in no time.
Step 7: Make sure you can access the market
Before you even get started with a product idea, you should consider carefully if you can actually reach your target audience and customers. You need to know clearly the connections, such as certain suppliers or marketing agents, of the specific markets you want to tap into. For example, if you want to sell renowned products from brands like Nike, Adidas, Sketchers, etc, make sure that you have connections to the original manufacturers, and also the correct people who can help to promote your products brands. Sometimes, certain markets require you to have years of marketing and essentially a lot of money as investment capital (for example, branded goods like women’s bags from Gucci, LV, Armani, etc). If you cannot reach these connections, this can quickly be the end of your e-commerce career. Some more, in niches with high competition items like women’s bags, you also have high PPC costs that can quickly evaporate your profits. Thus, make your decisions wisely, otherwise, you will find your business constantly in survival mode, needless to say, any development.Step 8: Listen in and ask questions
Be active in one or two communities within your product niche and really listen to what your audience prefers. What brands are popular in those niches, and what are those brands doing or not doing at the moment? A great indication of whether a product is needed is when people say that they have to use other products in combination to make it work how they want. You can then seize the opportunity to innovate a new product that meets those needs. The trick here is to listen carefully to a problem and solve it by offering a good solution.
Step 9: Know the attributes of successful products
You always see the following in successful new products:- A great solution
- Quality that you can trust
- Easy to understand
- Easy to use
- The functional part: what problem does it solve? Why does someone need your product?
- The emotional part: how do people feel when they buy or use your product?
- The social part: is your product a conversation starter? Does it show a certain social status?
Step 10: Have a reality check
After you did all the steps required, always remember to take a step back and find out if there are any big barriers to going ahead with the product. Here are some questions you may want to ask yourself.
Industry-related
Some industries are tied down with all the suppliers working for a few major customers. Ask yourself honestly: do you have the chance to work with the suppliers that you need? Or are there patents, licenses, or royalty fees that you need to invest in first? Sometimes the costs, licenses, or certifications required are simply too high, and it may not be worth it, especially when you are just a small start-up.Technical-related
Do you have the technical know-how to develop such a product? It’s true that you can engage engineers and designers to help you with the bulk of the developing process, but then again, you need to understand enough to collaborate on prototypes and make decisions based on their advice.Business-related
Can your target audience actually afford your product? Your solution might work perfectly but be way out of their price range. Talk to the community groups and ask what they would pay for a certain product. You can also validate a product or its price by starting a PPC campaign on Facebook with a “buy now” button that leads to a page where people can buy samples of your product. This is a good way of gathering data from potential consumers and hence get sensing of whether people are interested in your products at all. Remember, your ultimate goal for developing your own products to sell on Amazon is to scale your business. Do ask yourself – will your product be that “one-hit wonder” that there is no way to ever repeat, or can you see other problems in this niche just waiting for a solution? Here’s a quick summary of the steps involved: Step 1: Start by finding your niche Find a niche which you have some level of personal interest in so that you will have the motivation to innovate a new product Step 2: Keep your brand consistent After creating one or more brand-defining rockstar products, stick to your selected product niche and branding strategy. Step 3: Go for an established market Look for an interesting market that is already established, so that you have a strong base of customers and can receive feedback readily. Step 4: Narrow down to appropriate niches Narrow down to niches that will lead you to passionate communities on social media, which can keep up your motivation during the business ventures. Step 5: Have the right mindset Look at your business objectively and always keep the product-market fit in mind.
A note on Developing Your Own Products to Sell on Amazon
Many Amazon business owners are easily overwhelmed by all the work ahead when they start out, and some will even think that the day where they can finally see a satisfactory product might never happen. However, here’s a piece of advice: good things take time, and you don’t need to rush. Developing and growing your business is like a long hike that you have to plan ahead of time. With your product development, there will be days when you are super excited about your idea, and can’t sleep because your mind is racing with all the things you want to do. The next day, a difficult situation will bring you down and make you feel that your idea is nothing special. Give it time, and sometimes you just need to take a break. Go on, there’s no shame in stopping for a rest – but the important thing is, don’t give up!