Issue 02 - monkey feet, filament dryer, dog treadmill
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Issue 02 - monkey feet, filament dryer, dog treadmill
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Hi, and thanks for subscribing to The Garlic Press.
My first issue generated quite a lot of feedback, both negative and positive. Main negative point - if a lot of people receive the same advice on new Amazon product opportunities AND act on it then this advice becomes useless. Main positive point - the number of action takers is usually very low, 99.9% of people will read and ignore.
I agree with the positive approach, but of course after a certain number of subscribers there will be enough action takers to disrupt the whole thing. So here is what I decided to do:
Keep the newsletter free for a while, until I can see that there is enough value for paying subscribers, what that value is, and how much I should charge.
Add product opportunities that are less straightforward, that point towards a certain direction but require additional research. Examples: young brands that are killing it in their niche, new social trends that create a need for new products, fashion styles taking over TikTok etc.
Change the number of leads per email from 8 to 5, to make sure I publish weekly and do not burn out from the whole thing (I still have my Amazon business to run).
Anyway, here are 5 new Amazon product opportunities for this week.
1. Filament dryer
Filament is the raw material that is used in 3D printers. Apparently this filament string has to be completely dry before it is fed into the printer. High humidity environments can mess things up, so people use dryers to prepare the filament.
Google Trends is at an all-time high. Is this because the technology is new?
Amazon Brand Analytics data is similar: almost no demand two years ago, and gradual improvement in popularity after that.
Another thing to note: there are just 5 competing brands taking 100% of the market. There should be room for more players.
More data:
Top search term: filament dryer
Last month Brand Analytics search frequency rank: 46,691
Search volume growth past 360 days: 67%
Average sale price: $63.24
Number of competing brands: 5
Top 5 Products Click Share: 100%
2. Dog treadmill
My first question was - if your dog uses a treadmill then why not use a regular human treadmill?
As it turns out, human treadmills are too short and narrow, especially for larger dogs. They struggle to stay in one place and end up hurting themselves. Dog treadmills are longer and wider, as well as slower. Dogs don’t run on a treadmill, they walk.
Also, dog treadmills have blinders on the sides to minimise distractions.
My favourite option on the market is this one:
In fact, I am going to share a brilliant new business idea with you: get a dog, get the treadmill above, hook up an electric generator, and mine some Bitcoin on free electricity. The only thing that is left for you to calculate is if enough Bitcoin is being mined to cover dog food costs!
Anyway, back to Amazon.
Google Trends shows interest almost tripling over the past years and forecasts further rise.
Amazon Brand Analytics rank is also improving, and search volume is up 125% over last 360 days.
It is an expensive product, with just 6 brands competing at the moment. Definitely room to grow.
More data:
Top search term: dog treadmill
Last month Brand Analytics search frequency rank: 49,516
Search volume growth past 360 days: 125%
Average sale price: $181.66
Number of competing brands: 6
Top 5 Products Click Share: 93.6%
3. Fidget pen
This is more of a warning than a product opportunity. Even though this love child of a fidget and a pen looks promising on the first glance.
Google Trends data for '“fidget pen” looks quite optimistic:
Amazon Brand Analytics rank improvement is even better, from 100k in January to 5358 in May:
However, anything with the word “fidget” in it is probably a bad product idea. Remember fidget spinners? Here is how this one stood the test of time:
Not very good.
Also, I would expect lots of competition later on. This is an easy product to launch, with high demand, no customisation needed, small size and cheap freight costs. Lots of people will be attracted by this, and profit margins will suffer as a result.
Stay away.
More data:
Top search term: fidget pen
Last month Brand Analytics search frequency rank: 5,358
Search volume growth past 360 days: 159%
Average sale price: $21
Number of competing brands: 17
Top 5 Products Click Share: 72%
4. Monkey feet
This is basically a shoe that you can attach dumbbells to.
This is a patented product from a company called Animalhouse Fitness. One piece costs 80 USD and fits most dumbbell types, unless you want to treat yourself to a set of dumbbells from Animalhouse Fitness for 185 USD.
This is an expensive way to work out on your leg day, but the product is getting lots of coverage, including Joe Rogan show in April last year, and Google Trends data looks good overall:
Amazon Brand Analytics looks good enough, consdering that the company DOES NOT sell their products on Amazon, and there is nothing similar on offer.
This is not an easy product to launch.
First of all, the product is patented. Research needs to be made into what exactly the patent is for and if there is room for creating something similar in function without violating the patent.
Secondly, you have to then actually create the product. Design, prototyping, testing, molding, manufacturing - the whole thing.
But if you do this right you will have literally no competition. There is NO ONE selling monkey feet alternatives on Amazon at the moment.
More data:
Top search term: monkey feet
Last month Brand Analytics search frequency rank: 87,987
Search volume growth past 360 days: n/a
Average sale price: n/a
Number of competing brands: 0
Top 5 Products Click Share: 0
5. RV door lock
This is exactly what you think it is - an RV door lock.
My first question was - why now? Covid lockdowns are over, and demand for RV-related stuff is weakening, as can be seen from Google Trends data for “RV buy“:
But things are different for RV door locks. Interest is actually going up.
So why? I did a bit of research, and learned that most of RV door locks and keys are pretty much the same. Your RV neighbours can potentially open your door with their keys. This is obviously not good. And this is something that, I assume, became widespread knowledge only recently. And people started shopping for new locks.
Brand Analytics data shows steady improvement:
I also note high average sale price of $80 per product. People don’t just replace standard locks, they want to improve them.
More data:
Top search term: rv door lock
Last month Brand Analytics search frequency rank: 47,148
Search volume growth past 360 days: 30%
Average sale price: $80
Number of competing brands: 14
Top 5 Products Click Share: 78%
This is is for today, thanks for reading. Lets see if I can keep up the pace and make this a weekly thing.