Short answer
Search the product word on the marketplace and sort by best sellers. Note units sold and the price range of the top listings, how many are marked down, and how many come from official stores. Open two or three rival shops, read the low-star reviews on the leading product, and only then decide on a price and an angle.
Steps
- 1Start from what shoppers typeType a starting word into the marketplace search box and note the suggestions.
- 2Read the best sellersSort by best selling and note price, units sold, rating, and markdown for the top 10 to 20 listings.
- 3Size the category roughlyUnits sold times today's price gives a rough size for comparing products. It is not anyone's income.
- 4Check two or three rival shopsLook at their rating, followers, and what else they sell.
- 5Read the low-star reviews on the leaderA complaint that repeats is the angle for your listing.
What you will learn
You will check whether a product sells on a marketplace, at what price, and what buyers dislike about the current listings. The example is a seller deciding whether to stock running shoes on Shopee, Lazada, Blibli, or TikTok Shop.
Start from what shoppers type
Type a starting word into the marketplace's search box and write down the suggestions. They are the phrases shoppers use, which are often more specific than the word you started with.
For "sepatu lari" (running shoes), the suggestions might include "sepatu lari pria", "sepatu lari wanita", and "sepatu lari murah". Each one is a separate product search with its own best sellers.
Read the best sellers
The default order mixes relevance and promoted listings. Sort by best selling, then note the top 10 to 20 listings.
| What to note | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Units sold | Whether people buy this, and how far ahead the leaders are |
| Typical price (the median) | The price shoppers accept |
| Cheapest and priciest | How much room there is to position above or below |
| Share marked down | Whether the category competes on discounts |
| Share from official stores | Whether brands already own the top spots |
Count a markdown only when the crossed-out price is above today's price. A "discount" from an inflated list price tells you nothing.
Size the category roughly
Units sold times today's price gives a rough sales size. It is rough on purpose: the units often cover a listing's whole life, and the price may have changed along the way. Use it to compare products with each other, never as a shop's income.
Check two or three rival shops
Open the shops behind the leading listings. Look at their rating, their followers, and what else they sell. A shop that sells one product in twenty colors competes differently from a general store that happens to rank.
Read the low-star reviews on the leader
Sort the leading product's reviews by the lowest rating. Complaints that repeat are your angle. If ten buyers say the shoes run small, a listing with a clear size chart and an exchange offer answers them.
Decide
Stock the product when you can tick all four:
- the leaders sell in volume, so there is demand
- you can sell near the typical price and keep a margin
- the reviews show a complaint you can fix
- official stores do not hold most of the top 10
How to do it in RankMySEO
Marketplace research starts on Starter.
- Run Keyword ideas on Shopee, Blibli, or TikTok Shop to see what shoppers type.
- Run Shop products on Shopee, Lazada, Blibli, or TikTok Shop. The page shows the typical, cheapest, and priciest price, the best sellers with a rough sales size, how many are marked down, and on Blibli the share from official stores.
- Run Shop on a Shopee or TikTok Shop seller to see the shop's profile and numbers.
- On TikTok Shop, run Product reviews on the leading product.
Download any result as Excel or CSV, with the numeric price and the rough sales size in their own columns. See marketplace research for each marketplace's lookups.
What this cannot tell you
You see the public listings on the day you search. Your own orders and payouts stay in your seller center. Lazada does not mark official stores, so that share covers Blibli only.
