Issue 03 - jelly roll, wild ducks, neuropathy
and more...
1. Jelly roll
This is what Google Images gives me when I try to find out what a jelly roll is.
Jason DeFord, AKA Jelly Roll, a rapper from Tennessee, US, with over 2.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify. I listened to some of his stuff while writing this and it is actually not bad.
But this is not what we want today. What we want is this:
A jelly roll is basically a bunch of pre-cut 2½” x 42″ fabric strips of different patterns. Also, the patterns are matching in style, so that when you sew them together they look good.
People do all kinds of stuff with jelly rolls, such as quilts:
And here is your typical jelly roll customer:
Google Trends data looks really good, number of searches this year is up by 26%:
And if you look at Brand Analytics data you can see that in July last year search term popularity went from non-existent to 1638 across the whole of Amazon USA.
There are several other things that I like about this product.
Even though the number of competing brands is relatively high (25), the nature of the product makes it easy to create an offer which can stand out from the rest. You can do a different set of patterns, make strips longer, include a free PDF with DIY project ideas.
There are no established brands, your brand can be as good as any.
The number of reviews is not going to be as important here as the product is very straightforward, several strips of fabric tied together. It is hard to mess it up.
The product is very easy to make. If you are looking for something to manufacture at home then this is a perfect opportinity.
More data:
Top search term: jelly roll
Last month Brand Analytics search frequency rank: 18,617
Search volume growth past 360 days: 126%
Average sale price: $29
Number of competing brands: 25
Top 5 Products Click Share: 49%
1. Duck food
It is not as easy as you think to feed a duck. They are very specific about their diet - they can not, for example, eat any kind of bread (certain types of bread moulds can be fatal to them). Also, ducks don’t chew - they swallow. Imagine that, every breakfast is a game of Russian roulette, you trying not to accidentally swallow a nail.
Duck food popularity is at an all-time high:
My initial idea was that more and more people keep ducks as pets, and this is what drives the demand for duck food. But no. Brand Analytics data shows that most people buy duck food to feed wild ducks:
Demand on Amazon is clearly seasonal, and does not actually show a lot of year on year growth:
But the potential is there I think. First of all, average sell price is quite high, at $22. Secondly, I assume that customers do not care that much about established brands. They are not feeding a dog or a cat that they truly care about, they are feeding a bunch of wild ducks. Thirdly, there are just seven competing brands.
This is one of the products which can be perfect for Amazon beginners: low competition, can be manufactured locally in the USA, is cheap and requires little investment.
More data:
Top search term: duck food
Last month Brand Analytics search frequency rank: 54,193
Search volume growth past 360 days: 1%
Average sale price: $22
Number of competing brands: 7
Top 5 Products Click Share: 95%
A bonus piece of totally unnecessary information: if you are like me and want to know what is more popular, feeding ducks or eating ducks, then I have an answer for you: people generally prefer feeding ducks, at least in the USA:
3. Gel X nail kit
Gel-X is a new thing in the world of nail extensions.
Most artificial nail extensions basically mean attaching a piece of acryllic to your nail tip. Lots of people are unhappy about that as this damages your natural nails.
Instead, Gel-X is made from soft gel that covers the entire nail and helps it grow in a more natural way.
Gel-X is a trademarked name of a company called Aprés Nail. The product is on the market since 2017 and is growing rapidly, both on Google Trends:
and Amazon:
The technology itself is no longer a secret and there are cheaper alternatives on Amazon.
However, I do think that this is still a good opportunity. It is a complicated product, with lots of moving parts, just look at the range of things that Aprés Nail offers: apart from actual nail tips, they sell kits, gels, bonders, primers, LED lamps etc.
You can create your own unique product out of all of this, a product that people will want to buy. Just be prepared to spend your time on research, particularly if your nail expertise is like mine, limited to cutting them twice a month with kitchen scissors.
More data:
Top search term: gel x nail kit
Last month Brand Analytics search frequency rank: 3,836
Search volume growth past 360 days: 280%
4. Neuropathy socks
Neuropathy, in short, is nerve damage. It usually affects your limbs and results in numbness, tingling, cramps, muscle weakness and extreme sensitivity to touch.
People with diabetes are affected more than others, as high blood sugar often damages small blood vessels in hands and feet.
The condition is permanent - once you have it you learn to live with it.
One of the ways to live with it is to wear neuropathy socks. These socks have certain features that make them different from your regular socks:
compression to stimulate blood flow;
padding to relieve pain;
moisture-absorbent fabric;
In the USA, 37 million peopele are diagnosed with diabetes. This number is constantly increasing, and interest in neuropathy socks is going up, both on Google:
and Amazon:
I like this opportunity a lot. It is simple enough, yet there are many options to customise the product and make it unique.
There are quite a few competing brands (24), but top 5 brands only account for 63% of all sales, and there are no well-known brands that dominate the niche.
More data:
Top search term: neuropathy socks
Last month Brand Analytics search frequency rank: 33,682
Search volume growth past 360 days: 97%
Average sale price: $17.34
Number of competing brands: 24
Top 5 Products Click Share: 63%
5. Rearview mirror phone holder
This opportunity is a bit of a surprise. I mean, this is a car phone holder, I would expect this niche to be supercompetitive and hard to make money in, five years ago.
Yet here we go - Google Trends shows that rear view car phone holders is actually a new thing:
Amazon Brand Analytics data looks even better:
The demand is clearly there.
There is another interesting thing that I notice about this product - the number of low-quality products.
Take a look at Jungle Scout data, the last Rating column:
I used red arrows to mark the products with bad rating (4 stars or below). Amazingly, there are just 2 products on top that are over 4.5 stars. The majority is below 4 stars, which is a hallmark of a shit product, yet many of them have decent sales.
One way to succeed in this market is to focus on making a good-quality product, the one that will get you positive reviews, high conversion rates and better margins.
More data:
Top search term: rearview mirror phone holder for car
Last month Brand Analytics search frequency rank: 25,819
Search volume growth past 360 days: 145%
Average sale price: $16
Number of competing brands: 37
Top 5 Products Click Share: 42%
Thanks for reading. I am actually proud of myself for keeping the weekly release schedule. Lets keep this going. See you next week!