Amazon Product Research Basics

Selling on Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix, or another ecommerce platform is one game. Selling on Amazon is another entirely.

On your own site, you control the traffic. You decide how to position your brand. On Amazon, you’re dropped into a marketplace where customers don’t care who you are; they care about reviews, price, and delivery speed. That means you need to run the numbers differently.

Before you send a single unit into FBA, answer five questions:

• Who are you really competing with?
• Is there stable demand, just a fad?
• What are customers actually typing when they search?
• How much will it cost to get those eyeballs?
• After all that, will you still have margin left?

This applies whether you’re listing an existing product line from Shopify, WooCommerce, or something else (D2C) onto Amazon, or building a new private-label brand (PL). The mechanics are the same.

In this article, I’ll break it down step by step using a leather duffle bag as the running example. If you sell bags, supplements, kitchenware, or anything else, the process is the same: test the market before it tests you.

Table of Contents
Step 1: Competitor Analysis
Step 2: Demand Check
Step 3: Keyword Research
Step 4: Sanity-Check PPC Costs (Dummy Campaign Trick)
Wrap-Up

Grab a coffee, and let’s go.

Step 1: Competitor Analysis

Before you send inventory into FBA, you need to know who you’ll be sitting next to when customers search for your product. If competitors are entrenched, and polished, you’ll burn money just to exist. If they’re sloppy, overpriced, or leaving gaps, that’s your opening.

This matters for both groups:

• D2C brands: see how your positioning stacks up in the Amazon ecosystem.
• Private label: confirm there’s room for new sellers at all.

Start with a quick scan:

• Review counts. A competitor with under 200 reviews is fair game. A competitor with 3,000 reviews is practically untouchable without six figures in ad spend.
• Price positioning. If your bag sells for $249 on your own site but page one on Amazon is full of $119 options, you’ve got two choices: (1) prove your product is clearly superior in materials, branding, or features, or (2) cut your price, likely killing your margin. If you can’t do either, the market isn’t viable.
• Branding. Check photos and A+ Content. Some categories are packed with polished lifestyle shots and slick comparison charts. Others still look like eBay circa 2005. In 2025, professional images, infographics, comparison charts, and lifestyle shots aren’t optional – they’re the price of entry if you want to be competitive.

Run the data:
Open Helium 10 Xray on the same search page. Check estimated monthly sales, revenue, and review counts for every listing.

From here you click “Analyze Products” in the top right of the Helium 10 window.

Practical checks with Xray:

• Filter ads. Click filters, and check “Hide sponsored products from results”. Otherwise they may show twice in the list.
• Sort by parent revenue. Do multiple sellers under 100–300 reviews pull meaningful sales? If yes, the market allows new entrants. If everyone has 500+ reviews, it’s saturated.
• Revenue split. If one or two listings own 70–80% of total revenue, they control the market and will target you with ads if you gain traction.
• Average price point. If the cluster is $119–$149 and you plan to sell at $249, you must justify the premium with branding, images, and value-adds.

Example patterns:

• Top listings doing $100k+ per month with 2,000+ reviews.
• Mid-tier listings at $25k–$40k per month with 100–200 reviews.
• Weak sellers at $5k–$10k per month with under 100 reviews.

That’s healthy: Heavy hitters at the top, but space in the mid-tier if you differentiate.

Go deeper:

• Image quality. Great images sell on Amazon. If competitors use stock photos and you can invest in polished lifestyle + infographics, that’s your wedge. Don’t DIY this with an iPhone unless you have pro-level chops; hire it out. Video boosts conversion as well, especially lifestyle clips.
• Value-adds. Dust bag, RFID pocket, comparison chart. Small extras can swing a purchase without wrecking margin.

• Don’t just watch the top 3; look at newcomers (#7, #8, low-review ASINs) to see if they’re breaking in and how.
• Read negative reviews. If zippers fail, make yours bulletproof and call it out. Fix the mistakes others are making.
• Thumbnails and review count are your brand on Amazon. Shopify polish doesn’t carry over.

Summary:
Competitor analysis isn’t about copying; it’s about finding space to breathe. If page one is locked by 5,000-review giants, be prepared for an expensive fight to gain real traction. If mid-tier players move volume with average branding, that’s your opening.

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Step 2: Demand Check (The Big Picture)

Competitor analysis shows who you’re up against. Demand check shows whether the category has enough fuel to be worth entering.

This matters for both:

• D2C brands: confirm that what sells on your site has traction on Amazon.
• Private label: prove there’s enough market size to justify a new product line.

Quick scan:

• Total search volume. Use Helium 10 Magnet for your core keyword set. If the main keyword is big but the rest are weak, demand is fragile.
• Category size. A category around $500k/month across 50 sellers is small. A $5M+ category is robust but expensive to break into. Larger categories usually mean higher PPC costs and a longer stretch of heavy ad spend before you gain organic ranking and become profitable. The big categories also often attract deep-pocketed players, who are happy to run thin margins.

Run the data:
For “leather duffle bag,” Magnet + Cerebro might show:

• “leather duffle bag” – 45k searches/month
• “mens leather travel bag” – 22k
• “carry on leather duffle” – 12k
• “leather duffle bag with shoe compartment” – 5k
• “weekend leather bag men” – 3k

This proves demand isn’t fragile: You’re selling into a cluster, not betting everything on one hero keyword.

Deeper levers:

• Seasonality. Use Google Trends or Helium 10 Trendster. Leather duffles spike in November–December (gifts) and summer (travel). Plan buys around those cycles.
  
• Intent vs browsing. “Best men’s bag” is research; “leather duffle bag carry on” is purchase intent. Filter for intent.
• Category maturity. Flat for years = stable but hard to disrupt. Upward trend = more space for new entrants.
• Social virality (PL). If TikTok/Instagram is blowing it up, Amazon will be flooded within months. “Candle warmer light” went from viral to bloodbath in one season. Virality compresses margins as clones pile in. If you’re late, you’re just paying to fund someone else’s hype.

• Add up all related keywords, not just the hero term. That total is the real demand picture.
• Beware fad categories. Spikes followed by crashes aren’t businesses; they’re lotteries.
• Check style diversity. If all volume sits in one design, differentiation risk is higher.

Summary:
Competitors tell you whether you can wedge in; demand tells you whether it’s worth wedging in. Broad, stable demand across multiple keywords means opportunity. Fragile, seasonal, or hype-driven demand means pain. Big categories aren’t always better; they’re often just more expensive battlegrounds.

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Step 3: Keyword Research

Competitor and demand checks confirm the market. Keyword research shows how Amazon customers actually shop for your product.

On your site, people arrive via ads or your brand name. On Amazon, almost every sale starts with a keyword. If you don’t know the terms – and their competitiveness – you’ll be invisible.

This applies to both:

• D2C brands: Amazon shoppers often describe your product differently than your own customers do.
• Private label: this proves there’s “keyword space” a new brand can win.

Quick scan:

• Type your hero keyword (e.g., “leather duffle bag”) into Amazon. Autocomplete shows real customer queries.
• Note the variety. Only broad terms (“duffle bag”), or intent modifiers (“leather duffle with shoe compartment”)? The latter is gold.

Run the data:
Use Helium 10 Cerebro to reverse-search the top 5 competitor ASINs from Step 1. This shows the keywords they rank for, with volumes and organic positions. Apply filters like this:

• Search volume: Min 600/month – you can raise this if you have too many keywords.
• Organic Rank: 1–12 (first page)
• Match Type: Organic (ignore PPC)

From this, you’ll get a clean list of high-relevance, high-ranking keywords.

Sort this list by search volume. These are the keywords to target in your listing copy and PPC. Remember: Helium 10’s PPC estimates are often off – use your dummy campaign (Step 4) for actual costs.

Pro tip: Don’t be afraid of small-volume searches. Ten secondary keywords that each drive steady sales will beat one bloated hero keyword that bleeds money. Often your best ROI comes from long-tail and secondary terms because the main keyword is simply too expensive. You can still sell the product, just aim PPC at the cheaper terms where you can win.

Deeper levers:

• Short-tail vs long-tail. Short-tail (“leather duffle”) = huge volume, brutal competition. Long-tail (“brown leather duffle bag carry on”) = lower CPC, higher intent.
• Buyer intent vs vanity. “Best men’s bag” gets clicks; “leather duffle carry on” gets purchases.
• Keyword gaps. Thousands of searches with poor competitor optimization (not in title, low rank) are your wedge.
• Localization. US = “duffle,” UK = “holdall.” Adjust cross-marketplace.

• Export the list to Sheets. Rank by volume, tag by intent (buy vs browse).
• Build listing copy around the top 10–20 intent-driven terms. Don’t keyword-stuff; A9 understands synonyms.
• For PPC, separate short-tail and long-tail ad groups. They behave differently.

Summary:
Keywords are the blueprint. Competitors and demand prove the market exists; keywords show the exact doors customers walk through. They are your visibility- nail this and every ad dollar works harder. Skip it and you’ll never even show up.

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Step 4: Sanity-Check PPC Costs (Dummy Campaign Trick)

Competitors and keywords show the landscape. Now find out if you can afford to buy your way in. On Amazon, that means PPC.

PPC on Amazon isn’t just about buying traffic; it’s how you earn organic rank. Every ad-driven sale tied to a keyword in your listing pushes that keyword higher in organic search. Skip PPC and your listing stays invisible. This is fundamentally different from Google or Facebook, where you only ever pay for traffic with zero impact on organic ranking.

This applies to both:

• D2C brands: compare Amazon CPCs to Meta/Google. If they’re higher, can your margins handle it?
• Private label: the fastest way to see if the unit economics work before ordering stock.

Quick scan:
Look at the suggested CPC ranges when you create a manual campaign. These are live market signals. Your dummy listing isn’t just for compliance checks – it also lets you create test campaigns to see real bid data.

Run the data (no spend):

1. Seller Central → Campaign Manager.
2. Create a Sponsored Products campaign (manual).
3. Add your Dummy listing product
4. Choose Manual Targeting
5. Chose Keyword targeting
6. Select Enter list – let it match both broad, phrase and exact
7. Add 10–20 of your top keywords from Step 3 do not use that many in live campaigns, this is just to get costings) – let it match both broad, phrase and exact (never do it this way on a live product, please – you should not have that many keywords in a live campaign, and each campaign should be one of the 3 types – not multiple)
8. Click Add keywords
9. Note these amounts into a excel or google sheet for your later referenc

Do not use that many keywords in live campaigns, this is just to get costings: Never do it this way on a live product, please – you should not have that many keywords in a live campaign, and each campaign should be one of the 3 types – not multiple.

Example ranges for leather duffle:

• “leather duffle bag” – broad – suggested $1.38
• “mens leather travel bag”  – broad – suggested $1.42
• “carry on leather duffle” – phrase $1.24

Don’t blindly trust suggested bids. They’re indicative, not precise, and often optimistic. Add 20% when modeling costs, especially if you’re aiming for growth. That buffer keeps your spreadsheet honest.

Deeper levers:

• Conversion-rate math. If average CPC is $1.50 and conversion is 8%, you’ll spend about $18–19 per sale. With a $70 margin, fine. If conversion is 4–5% (common for new listings with low reviews), ad cost per sale jumps to $30–40 and your margin drops fast. Higher price points absorb higher CPCs; $20 categories don’t have that luxury.
• Bid creep. Competitors push bids up during peak periods. A campaign profitable in March may bleed in November. Q4 is brutal; CPCs can spike 2–3x into Black Friday and holidays. Thin margins get eaten before storage fees even hit. Inversely, January can swing the other way: Competitors slash bids post-holidays, and if you don’t adjust down, you’ll burn money overbidding into a slower month
• Secondary keywords. Long-tails often cost 40–60% less CPC while converting as well or better. Don’t ignore them.

• Screenshot or export bid ranges; they change weekly.
• Use this as your baseline. Re-check post-launch to spot CPC drift.
• Model worst case: assume a 5% conversion rate. If it still works, you’re safe.

Summary:
Amazon will tell you how much attention costs. If suggested bids consume more than a third of your gross margin, you’re not running a business – you’re funding Bezos’ next yacht.

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Wrap-Up: Test the Market Before It Tests You

Amazon doesn’t care about your Shopify store. It doesn’t care about your brand story, packaging, or Instagram. It cares whether your product sells profitably inside its system.

Competitor analysis shows if there’s room. Demand checks if the pie is big enough. Keywords show how customers search. Dummy campaigns show if you can afford the clicks. Skip those steps and you’re just shipping inventory into the void.

Amazon is a channel, not a savior. For some brands it’s a rocket booster; for others, a meat grinder. The difference is whether you did the math before you hit “Send to FBA.”

Do the groundwork now. It’s cheaper to find out your margins don’t work in a spreadsheet than when 1,000 leather duffles are sitting unsellable in a warehouse – while Bezos sails past on his next yacht.

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