How To Find High-Demand Products With Low Competition

When selling online, one approach is targeting high-demand products with low competition. Instead of going up against huge retailers in crowded categories, find specialized products and low-competition niches where there’s evidence of steady buyer interest but relatively few competing sellers.

AC Hampton, founder and CEO of ecommerce education company Supreme Ecom, has used this strategy to scale multiple products to over seven figures in sales. “I validate based on the current demand, the current customers, and the current competitors,” AC says. “I like to find out what is working for others and allow it to work for me.”

“I want it to be something that can’t be found in any local Walmart, Target, where somebody can go drive down the store and go get it,” he continues.

Here’s how to find and validate high-demand, low-competition products and position your offers using AC’s product research approach. 

How to find high-demand products with low competition

• Dropshipping and product research tools
• TikTok
• Meta Ad Library
• Google Trends and keyword research tools

To spot pockets of high buyer demand before competitors catch on, start your research across these four methods: 

Dropshipping and product research tools

In a dropshipping model, you list and sell products on your storefront without buying upfront inventory or managing warehousing. When a customer orders, a third-party supplier packs and ships the item directly to them. Because you don’t tie up capital in bulk stock, dropshipping serves as a way to test demand without bulk purchasing inventory: you can gauge customer demand and stop selling products that don’t perform without absorbing unsold inventory costs.

AC uses dropshipping as a product validation strategy, testing customer demand before investing in custom inventory. Once demand is established, he builds an online business around it. 

“For me—and what we teach at Supreme Ecom—is that we use dropshipping as the vehicle to brand ownership,” AC says. “We don’t want people dropshipping forever. We want this to be a good starting point to taking them into that next level, and that next level is, like, having a legitimate brand.” 

Product research tools like AutoDS, Sell the Trend, and Dropship.io can help sellers compare products, monitor trends, and evaluate supplier information. Compare estimated order volume, product prices, supplier costs, and the number of competing sellers, where that information is available. For example, Dropship.io’s Sales Tracker lets sellers monitor daily and historical sales activity for TikTok shops and individual product listings. 

By measuring sales velocity—the rate at which an item moves units over a specific window—sellers can catch increasing customer demand while storefront competition remains low. High order velocity paired with a low number of competing storefronts can help identify products worth researching further.

AC uses AutoDS, which centralizes product scouting and order automation into one dashboard. “For product research, I use AutoDS for validation and go-to-market and exactly what to do to beat all your competitors,” AC says. “It’s a bunch of products all in one place, and there’s so much data to back up the decision-making with that.”

If you run a Shopify store, you can use the Shopify Product Network and Shopify Collective to test customer demand before committing to a new product line: 

• Test product demand with the Shopify Product Network. The Product Network functions like an on-site affiliate program: it automatically displays complementary products from other Shopify businesses on your store. The supplying business owns the inventory and handles fulfillment, while you earn a percentage commission on every transaction. This lets you gauge shopper interest in new categories without buying inventory or managing shipping. 

• Explore dropshipping with Shopify Collective. When an item from the Product Network generates steady sales, Shopify Collective offers another way to sell products from established brands. Rather than relying on affiliate commissions, Collective enables you to dropship from partner brands. The partner brand ships the order directly to your buyer, and you keep the spread between the supplier’s wholesale cost and your retail selling price.

TikTok

Social media platforms like TikTok can help you spot emerging consumer trends. Turn your feed into a dedicated research tool using what AC calls the “act like a shopper” method. Create a new TikTok account and browse the app from the point of view of a consumer to spot emerging trends.

“Type in #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt, change the algorithm to show more things around shopper behavior, and find winning products by doing just that,” AC says. “A lot of people spend time scrolling on TikTok, looking for fun things. I scroll on TikTok because I’m like, ‘Let me see what the next winning product is going to be.’”

When scrolling, check comment sections for recurring purchase inquiries that point to high, unmet demand. Look for shoppers asking if the item comes in other colors or sizes, requesting specs for specific use cases, or wondering if the brand ships to their country. 

If a product video racks up millions of views and thousands of purchase inquiries but only a handful of stores sell it, you may have found a promising opportunity. Check marketplace listings and search results to assess competition before deciding whether to sell it.

Meta Ad Library

Meta Ad Library is a free, publicly accessible database that displays all active advertisements running across Facebook and Instagram. To use it, you type in a competitor’s brand name or a product keyword to view their live campaigns. You’ll see:

• Active ads. The product videos, images, and ad copy variations currently running.

• Launch dates. The day an ad went live, showing how long an ad has run continuously.

• Landing page links. The live destination URLs competitors send paid traffic via their calls to action.

How you search the library depends on your starting point. If you already have a product in mind, search category keywords like “ergonomic seat cushion” or “lip plumping” to evaluate the competition. If you find only two or three stores promoting that item, but their ads have stayed active for months, you may have found an underserved market.

If you don’t have a specific product in mind, AC suggests using common promotional phrases like “50% off” or “summer sale.” Dropshippers and direct-to-consumer brands frequently use these hooks, making them an easy way to discover products and niches you might not have considered.

Once results populate, filter for active ads to gauge advertiser activity. Start by checking ad longevity. Campaigns that have been running continuously for several months may indicate sustained advertiser interest, but their longevity doesn’t confirm that they’re profitable. 

Next, look at creative volume. AC tracks competitors running the most active ads to identify what products are receiving significant advertising investment. Meta’s guidance on creative diversification recommends testing new hooks and video treatments to combat the sharp drop in performance that happens when audiences see the same creative repeatedly. When you spot a competitor running multiple active creative variations for a single item, it may indicate that they’re actively testing or investing in that product. Check marketplace listings and organic search results, too, since the number of active advertisers doesn’t reflect all the businesses competing to sell a product.

AC relies on this free resource to evaluate whether a trending product has real staying power. “When I was first starting off, even on a limited budget, I was on Meta Ad Library every single day, looking for the competitors that were having the most ads running and who was running the ads the longest,” he says. 

Google Trends and keyword research tools

Search data can also help you assess interest in a product. Plug the product keyword into SEO keyword research tools to see how many people per month are searching for a given product or solution. Pair your observations from social media with these search metrics to assess if you’re targeting an enduring niche or a fleeting viral moment:

First, enter your product keywords on Google Trends to review interest patterns over the past 12 months and five-year intervals. Look for steady upward trends or regular cyclical patterns. Be cautious of items showing a single, sharp vertical spike followed by a steep drop-off, which may indicate a passing fad.

Then use a paid tool like Ahrefs or Semrush to estimate search volume and search intent.

How AC Hampton positions products in competitive markets

Once you know what signals to look for, you can test them. For AC, finding items with promising demand came down to spotting everyday problems where shoppers didn’t care about brand names. Here are two product categories where that paid off. 

“There’s a couple of points that I try to look for when it comes to finding a winning product,” AC says. “Number one is that I’m not trying to go into a brand new market. I’m not here to try to reinvent the wheel. Second is that the product solves a problem. I don’t sell things that are just trending or just fun. I sell things that are unique and will help the user actually enhance their life in some type of way. You want people to feel like they need it, not just want it.” 

Confidence-boosting products

Personal care, beauty, and wellness products are consistently profitable products because they address specific individual goals. 

“If you can help them with gut health, or help them with something with a beauty standard, or help with hair growth, or help with making them feel more confident in themselves, these are types of marketing that have been around for hundreds of years, and they clearly work,” AC says.

NielsenIQ’s State of Beauty 2025 report found that global beauty sales were up 10% year over year, with consumers shopping more often and spending more per visit as self-care and wellness reshape the category.

AC had success in this category with his plumping mouth tape brand, Sorelle. After initial success with dropshipping generic mouth tape, AC worked with his manufacturer to create a custom formula with hyaluronic acid for hydration.

Occupation-specific products

Sometimes, people use everyday consumer goods to improve their work lives. This product positioning can help differentiate your business. When marketing focuses on making long shifts or daily tasks more manageable, it connects the product to an essential routine rather than competing purely on price. 

When AC started selling an ergonomic memory foam seat cushion, he targeted office workers and rideshare drivers who deal with back strain during long shifts. 

“If you can make it a little bit easier for them to make money with a product, that’s another great angle to go after,” AC says. “Taxi drivers, Uber drivers, office workers, people who were spending a lot of their hours sitting down to make money—I wanted to solve that problem.”

By positioning the cushion as an essential tool to prevent physical strain during long shifts, the purchase became a practical career investment, giving the brand a clear, problem-solving angle.