How Do You Figure Out What Products Are Trending for Online Stores?

[KristinRavelle]

Hi everyone,

Aside from the obvious (Google search "trending items for online sales" and similar) what are your best tips for finding out what items or colors or styles etc. are trending in online sales?  I appreciate any help!

[KeegansCreation]

I don't think there is any such thing as a global online shopping trend that can be researched.  Every online store serves a different customer base and has different products. On Zazzle, departmental pages default to sorting by popularity so that is a good guide to what is popular here. I know there are various youtubers who have videos about how to spot trends and I've watched a few. But they mostly are about Amazon Merch which has a focus on topical t-shirts and their guidance isn't very helpful here, where the focus is on seasonal occasions and life events like weddings and baby showers. If you go on youtube and search trend spotting, you'll find hundreds of them. But you'll get better Zazzle-applicable info simply by wandering around Zazzle and seeing what types of designs and products show up at the top of pages.

[KristinRavelle]

Thank you for very detailed assessment of my question KeegansCreations.  In the end, I also find that the TRENDING option which appears as a sidebar to the left of our page (I forget which page - Home or Products) is probably as good as your suggestion to see what's showing at the top of searches on Zazzle.  Thanks!

[mylittleeden]

Pinterest is a good place to start and insta. Fashion houses and their latest collections are always worth looking at there trends normally end up in the general marketplace a year or so later. Then you have interior colors that is normally a bit behind the clothing fashions and tends to be more muted generally at the moment. You have of course Pantone who will announce the color of the year each year too, always super exciting! Then you have yourself and what you feel and see around you. For example I am often inspired by colors in nature and use them a lot, it all depends what you are planning on designing.

Another note on colors is that you never really know what people are looking for I love bright colors and my designs reflect this even though the trends lately particularly for kids these days is dark muted more muddy tones. But thankfully I still sell kids items and I get feedback sometimes that the people who buy from me love the fact my kids designs are bright and different from what the main stores are offering.

I guess what I am saying is you never know what will appeal and by being unique you may even set the next trend! 😃

Wishing you all the best with your research.  ❤️

[KristinRavelle]

Thanks MyLittleEden!   That is a very good suggestion.  I am on Pinterest and currently researching what types of items are trending there (Pinterest has a page where they show that).  For a while now I've become aware of Pantone and colour of the year (I think 2022's is Fog Green - a very muted mixture of grey and green),  I will definitely use that for colour selections going forward.  I'm glad for your success with bright colours!  Someone I know says that customers don't always know what they want (definitely some impulse buyers out there) so that is a consideration as well --  

Thanks again!

[idraw]

@KristinRavelle 
Here’s something I  noticed when I recently as an experiment decided to follow my own shop, I found this—
trending from stores you follow.
instead of the usual (by me) recently viewed, now I can see what customers are viewing when visiting my shops.
So, you can try following your shop to see what is trending with customers who view your shop.

[KristinRavelle]

Great, I've now followed my own 2 shops.  But I don't understand what you mean when you say "trending from stores you follow."  Is that an option somewhere that I can click on?  Sorry, despite being on Z for some years I have only recently been able to spend more time on this 🙂

[KeegansCreation]

Scroll down from Zazzle's main page.  The main page has Summer Soirees currently then below that is Welcome Back (your name) and then the personalized feeds begin: recently viewed by you, trending from stores you follow, recommended for you, and then a couple groups of curation based on what you recently clicked on or searched for and finally stores you may like. 

[KristinRavelle]

Okay KC.  I see it now.  Thanks for your help!

[CreativeLeahG]

I don't find the results reflective of what sells at all. I recently had some 'trending items' showing that have never sold and barely been viewed.

[KeegansCreation]

Agreed. I think a more reliable way of figuring out what is actually trending in your own shop is by looking at Last Viewed every day and noting what shows up repeatedly. Something that shows up repeatedly over the course of at least a month is trending. But there is a caveat to that. If something shows up several times a week for many months on unto years then I consider it evergreen. If it never sells then I consider it a portal to products that will hopefully sell and I put it in a collection.

That's my own personal definition of Trending for my own store. I have no idea how the Zazzle algorithm parses it out. I will try to make a guess how an algorithm could flag something as Trending when it has barely been viewed and never sold. My guess is that the low number of views are recent so it "surged" from no views to a few views in the recent past. But if you look at the Last Viewed date on the few view/no sale Trending Products and it is May or earlier, then I don't know what the algorithm is doing to decide.

[KristinRavelle]

Yeah, I don't know what algorithm Z uses to determine this.  If you go into one of your own products down to the edit level, it will show as trending under stores that you follow (if you followed your own stores).  I just did this (went down to edit level) and that same product immediately appeared under trending in stores you follow.  So I wonder if Z considers any activity, even your own activity, as a flag for what is trending.

I will try to look at Last Viewed this week and see if I can figure out what's going on.  Thanks KC and CD!

[KristinRavelle]

I found this at Pinterest.  They predict trends for each year.

https://business.pinterest.com/en-ca/pinterest-predicts/

Not sure how useful it is but you never know!

[DestinyRose]

I like to visit the other POD stores or Personalization stores or I search for terms of items that I sell, so if I want to make a Mother's Day card or gift, I will search for that phrase and include words like personalized, customize, etc... Some other sites have better bestseller listings IMO, so it's a nice way to see what people are liking at the moment.

[KristinRavelle]

Thanks, good idea DestinyRose!  I'll be sure to check out at least Red Bubble.

I finally found Z's best seller list on their main page and it's way on the bottom and doesn't seem to get updated very often (?) --