How To Find Winning Products for Dropshipping in 2025 (+Examples)

Want to embark on your dropshipping journey but don’t know which products to sell yet? If so, you’ve come to the right place. In this blog post, we will walk you through all you need to know about how to find winning products for dropshipping, including:

• Proven effective product research methods
• Examples of winning dropshipping products 
• Tips and mistakes to avoid on how to find winning dropshipping products 

Without further ado, let’s explore!

1. Why finding winning products is crucial for dropshipping success in 2025?

If you have read our blog on how to start a successful dropshipping store, you’d know that finding the right product to dropship can make all the difference. 

This is because no matter how much you promote, driving your effort on the products that don’t work will lead you nowhere. 

Dropshipping product selection in 2025 is no longer just about striking a balance between demand and competition. Instead, you must take into consideration the constantly sifting consumer behaviors. 

Over the past few years, 79% of shoppers have changed their shopping habits to reflect their sustainable demand. This means eco-friendly products could resonate more with today’s audience. And to catch up with the ever-evolving consumer shopping habits such as more demand for unique or personalized products, you’ll need to master using product research tools with AI trend forecasting — which we’ll cover more in-depth later on.

2. Key characteristics of winning dropshipping products

Though there is no fixed answer, all the eCommerce gurus at eComStart agree that a potentially winning dropshipping product should have the following characteristics:

Demand & Competition

If you get started with no branding yet, we’d recommend that you start with a product that has steady and, ideally, growing demand. Plus, remember to check whether they are just seasonal products or products that can sell all year round. 

As demand and competition often go hand in hand, make sure you find a product where you have the most competitive advantage (how superior it is compared to what your competitors are selling?)

Product quality and profit margins

The fatal drawback of dropshipping is that you don’t and can’t control the quality of the products sold to your customers. Hence, make sure you do careful market research and order product samples to test them out yourself first!

Also, don’t forget to use profit margin calculators and aim for a 20–30% profit margin to ensure you have enough room to scale your business.

Sustainable and emotional appeal

Choose products that are eco-friendly and connect with your customers’ lifestyles. Today’s buyers prefer items made with ethical practices, like fitness gear that inspires well-being or digital accessories that spark creativity—which not only meet sustainability standards but also foster a strong emotional bond with your brand.

Relevant statistics have backed this up. Indeed, ads that focus on emotional appeal are reported to outperform rational ads by a staggering 31% success rate compared to 16%.

Shipping time

Did you know that shipping time is among the top 5 reasons your customers abandon their carts? Hence, make sure you know about the time it takes for your suppliers to ship to your market’s country.

Seasonality

You need to assess if your product experiences seasonal demand spikes. For example, if you’re dropshipping sweatshirts, make sure your supplier can handle increased orders during winter or Christmas. This helps you avoid stockouts and capitalize on peak sales periods.

3. How to find winning products for dropshipping in 2025?

Now that you know the importance of finding the right products to dropship and what makes a product “winning”, let’s learn how to find a winning products for dropshipping.

3.1. Analyze Competitor Marketplaces

The first place on how to find a winning product for dropshipping is global marketplaces like AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, or Etsy. 

Each marketplace has its own strengths. Currently, many dropshippers prefer AliExpress– an eCommerce platform boasting an extensive customer base and offering valuable insights into popular products through its Best Sellers Rank.

Here are some tips on how to find winning products to sell on Shopify on these marketplaces:

• Utilize the marketplace’s search filters and categories to narrow down your options. 
• Pay attention to product reviews, ratings, and sales performance to gauge demand and quality. 
• Take advantage of features like “Trending” or “Hot Products” sections to stay ahead of emerging market trends.

And if you want to do a more thorough competitor analysis, you can utilize tools like Jungle Scout to get an AI Analysis Report from the tool, like in the screenshot below:

3.2. Leverage Social Media & Influencer Trends

Social media platforms, including TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram, have emerged as gold mines for finding products to sell on Shopify. 

Take Tiktok, for instance, where the hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt has gained substantial popularity. By exploring this hashtag, you can unearth diverse product recommendations and reviews from enthusiastic users. 

All you have to do is open your TikTok app and search for the hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt. Then, check out the videos that sell products in the niche you want. 

Besides TikTok, Facebook is another prominent social media platform to do your dropshipping product research. For instance, we’d recommend using Facebook Ad library to sort out the types of products being advertised in your target country. 

Additionally, social shopping sites like Pinterest and WeHeartIt are also cool places to give you more product ideas. The platforms let you see popular products and visual trends shared by communities, making it easier to spot winners.

3.3. See Supplier’s Best Sellers

Another method on how to find a winning product is through researching suppliers on AliExpress, a global eCommerce marketplace with 100+ million products in all possible niches. 

Suppose you want to sell products in the pet niche, then click “Pet Supplies.” and discover sub-categories within your selected niche. 

Remember to sort the results by the number of orders to see which products in that niche are currently bestsellers!

While you’re browsing best sellers on AliExpress, here are the criteria you must pay attention to:

• The product should be trending in the country you’re targeting. So remember to read reviews and identify where those reviews are coming from
• And when reading reviews, make sure you do it carefully to see whether the feedback is genuine or just seeding
• Pay attention to product multimedia content. Ideally, there should be high-resolution images and videos of products in action.

3.4. Use Google Trends

As we mentioned, a winning dropshipping product should have a certain amount of demand. Hence, make sure that the products you are going to drop ship have existing demand or an upward trend in demand.

Simply go to https://trends.google.com and enter your search term in the box.

And while you use Google Trends, we highly advise you to:

• Sort out the search by the countries you want to target. For instance, if you want to sell pet toys to the US audience, it’s the demand in the US that matters, not anywhere else.
• Remember to choose a date range that is not too long or short. Avoid ranges that are too long (3 years) or too short (1-2 months), as they may not reflect true demand trends

So, we highly advise you to set a date range of 1 year. This will help you notice abnormal ups and downs.

For example, people only search for ‘costumes’ during Halloween, which makes products in this category obviously seasonal.

Keep scrolling down, and you’ll see the Interest by Region report, which will help you know where you may get most of your orders from and whether you need to do international shipping or not.

At the bottom of the Google Trends page, you’ll see two sections called Related Topics and Related Queries, which will give you long-tail product keywords and relevant search terms that people are searching for.

One big plus of Google Trends is that this free tool allows you to compare the popularity of multiple search terms, giving you deeper insights into which products are currently trending and which are outdated. Hence, don’t overlook Google Trends’ comparative features for your product research.

3.5. Other Product Research Tools

Instead of manually searching for products one by one like in the old days, more and more merchants are now using AI-powered product research tools. With vast amounts of data from marketplaces, social media, search trends, AI can help merchants spot emerging trends and high-demand items quickly. This means you can make smarter, data-driven decisions, save valuable time, and stay ahead of the competition without all the boring manual work.

On that note, you should give Nexus– the AI product research tool by Sell The Trend a try. The tool would help analyze consumer behavior, historical sales data, and market trends so you can identify products with strong sales potential.

For more choices, here are some additional product research tools you can consider:

• dropship.io: Dropship.io offers a user-friendly interface combined with robust data analysis features that make finding winning products straightforward.
• DSers: Dsers is a dropshipping app that allows you to research AliExpress products and quickly import them into your eCommerce store whether it’s Shopify, WooCommerce or Wix.
• Niche Scraper: This powerful product research tool will allow you to do thorough competitor research by spying on your competitors’ current products.

4. Winning products examples from successful dropshipping stores

After you have known the popular ways on how to find winning product for dropshipping, let’s take a look at some winning product examples from successful brands:

1. The Cloudies

If you think that only those “red bottoms” can take footwear eCommerce by storm, think again. The Cloudies proves that everyday slippers can still take the spotlight with their famously comfortable slippers.

2. PocketSpeech™

Recognizing that the toy industry is already crowded with uninspired games, PocketSpeech has stepped in with an impactful product—a smart, interactive educational toy that boosts language and cognitive skills in children.

3. Haus

Last but not least, Haus is another brand we’d love to shout out. The shop’s winning, unique furniture pieces are sourced from over 80 famous creators worldwide.

If you want to launch your e-shop with successful dropshipping products like the brands above did, you can consider buying our eComStart prebuilt Shopify stores for a full-suite package of:

• Potentially winning products for your selected niche
• Conversion-optimized pages
• SEO and app setups depending on your demand

5. Common mistakes to avoid when finding winning products

When finding products to dropship, here are a few rookie mistakes you should avoid at all costs: 

• Ignore market saturation: If you enter an overly saturated market, it’d be challenging to stand out among competitors. Therefore, research market demand and competition levels to identify niches with sufficient demand but less competition.
• Fail product validation: Before launching your online business, we highly suggest testing your dropshipping items by running targeted ads on social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, or Instagram to gauge consumer interest and engagement. 
• Overcomplicate your product range: One of the biggest mistakes many dropshippers make is introducing too many products from miscellaneous niches onto their web store. This can appear untrustworthy among your shoppers as it makes your store look unfocused and less credible.
• Low time to market (TTM): Just because a product is trending now doesn’t mean its popularity remains the same later. Hence, if you’ve found a product that your competitors haven’t offered yet, failing to launch your website on time can lead to lost customers to your competitors. 

6. Conclusion

As more and more people dip their toes in the dropshipping game, choosing the right products to dropship can help prepare your store for success and set your brand apart. 

That’s why eComStart team hopes after reading this article, you’ll know how to find winning products for dropshipping effectively.

If you’re interested in dropshipping, eCommerce or simply look for guides on starting a successful online business, explore eComStart.

7. Frequently asked questions