Black Box: How to Research a Brand or Seller's Top Products

How to Research a Brand or Seller’s Top Products Using Helium 10's Black Box

In the competitive world of Amazon selling, gaining insights into your competitors can offer you a distinct advantage. Whether you are a wholesale seller or a private label seller, understanding what other brands or sellers are doing can spark new product ideas, help you improve your offerings, and increase your chances of success. Researching your competitor’s top products gives you a valuable edge, and Helium 10’s Black Box tool makes this process easier than ever.

Why Researching a Competitor's Products Is Important

Understanding your competitors’ product lineup helps you stay competitive and identify gaps in the market. If a competitor is selling products similar to yours, exploring their full catalog can help you:

• Identify trends: See what’s working for other sellers and understand which products are generating the most sales.
• Spot new opportunities: Find products that complement your current offerings or inspire new ideas that align with your business.
• Gain pricing insights: Understand how your competitors are pricing similar products to refine your pricing strategy.
• Improve product selection: If you’re a wholesale seller, you might discover new suppliers or distribution channels based on the types of products competitors are selling.

In short, competitor research can provide both inspiration and actionable insights for your Amazon business, leading to more sales and higher profits.

Step-by-Step Guide to Researching Competitors with Black Box

Here’s a step-by-step process to research a competitor’s products using Black Box:

Step 1: Identify the Competitor's Brand or Seller Name

To begin, find a competitor whose product lineup you’re interested in. You can use any product page on Amazon and focus on either the brand or seller name.

For example, let’s say you sell coffin shelves, and you come across another seller who also specializes in similar spooky-themed products. You believe they’re sourcing from the same or a similar factory. To explore their product range, copy their brand name or seller name exactly, paying close attention to case sensitivity and spacing.

Step 2: Open Black Box and Input the Brand or Seller Name

Now, head to the Black Box tool and choose either Exact Brand Search or Exact Seller Search. You can find these filters in the Competitors section.

Paste the brand or seller name you just copied into the search bar. This allows Black Box to pull up all the products sold under that specific brand or by that seller. It’s important to use the exact (including capitalization) name to get accurate results.

Step 3: Analyze the Results

Once you hit Search, Black Box will display all the products sold by that brand or seller in a neatly organized grid. In our example, the coffin shelf seller also offers a variety of other products.

If you're selling a spooky-themed product line, seeing that this seller is offering moon-shaped shelves might inspire you to add them to your catalog as a complementary item.

Step 4: Filter and Narrow Down Results

If your competitor has a large catalog, you can use Black Box’s filtering options to refine the results. For example, you may want to:

• Focus on high-selling products: Set filters to only display products with over 1,000 monthly units sold.
• Find new listings: If you’re interested in emerging trends, filter for newly launched products to see what’s new in the competitor’s catalog.
• Sort by review count: Set parameters to show only products with fewer reviews, indicating potential opportunities with less established competitors.

This helps you focus on the products that matter most to you, whether they are the top sellers, newly launched, or low-competition items.

Step 5: Analyze Key Product Metrics

Once you’ve narrowed down the list, you can start analyzing individual products in more detail. Black Box provides important metrics like:

• Monthly sales volume
• Average review count
• Retail price
• Sales rank (BSR) history

Use this data to evaluate the performance of each product and whether it aligns with your own product ideas or business goals.

How This Can Make You Money

Researching a competitor’s top products can directly impact your profitability by helping you make informed decisions. Here’s how:

• Expand your product line: By identifying successful products from your competitors, you can introduce new offerings that are likely to resonate with your audience.
• Improve existing products: Learn from your competitors’ mistakes by identifying areas where their product listings are weak (e.g., lack of images or poor descriptions) and optimizing your own products to outperform them.
• Find new niches: Competitor research might uncover niche products you hadn’t considered, allowing you to enter new markets with less competition.

Final Thoughts

Competitor research is a powerful strategy for any Amazon seller, and Black Box makes it incredibly easy to dive into a competitor’s product lineup. Whether you’re a private label seller looking for inspiration or a wholesaler seeking new distribution opportunities, researching a brand or seller’s top products gives you the insights needed to stay ahead in the competitive Amazon marketplace.

Start exploring your competitors today and see what new opportunities await!