Your products may not be ‘trendy’, but if you’re selling on FBA, you really do need to track the trends. Even if you’re selling basic items like diapers or dog leashes, every so often buyers will start looking for something different, and you’ll want to know what it is, even if it’s just a new keyword.

For instance, it could be a product that you’re selling as a relaxing, soothing bit of pampering can take advantage of increased searches for ‘meditation aids’. It’s not a big stretch, but unless you’d noticed the new keyword topping searches on Google, you might not have thought of adding it to your list.

Or you might be looking for a new product. Suppose you sell cosmetics, and you see that more and more people are searching for ‘natural makeup’ or ‘glitter eyeshadow’. That gives you a steer that maybe those could work well as new products for your range.

So how do you get started in product research? First of all, make sure you hang out in the Amazon seller forums, to benefit form other sellers’ insights and their knowledge of industry trends. You don’t need to be on there all the time, but it really helps to visit regularly and check out what’s moving (and what isn’t). All the forums are accessible via Seller Central, so you’ve no excuse for not visiting.

Secondly, Google Trends is a great resource. Enter a search term and you’ll get a graph of how often it’s been looked at over the past year, together with interest by sub-region (eg which US states searched for the term most) and related topics or queries.

It’s not infallible. I tried “cat toy” and related queries included Paw Patrol; it’s a toy, and it includes cats, but it’s not really relevant to pet suppliers! Even more oddly, “Dell CPS 15” came up as a related search. But more usefully, I got shown that hairballs and “cat trim” are zooming up as searches, so any way of helping owners brush their cats and trim their claws without temper tantrums is going to sell well.

Google will generally show breakout or fast growing topics, so you can see what related searches are really gaining traction.

Alternatively, you can pick a broad area such as Beauty & Fitness or Finance, and see what’s trending in that area. In Finance, right now, it’s Russian Ruble, and student loan forgiveness application. Not a mention of cryptocurrency!

You can then click on the related search terms that look interesting and follow up related searches, which can give you a really rich idea of the most interesting trends in your sector. Just keep following up links and you may hit pay dirt!

Amazon Seller Central also has an Opportunity Explorer you can use to find profitable market niches. This doesn’t work by single keyword, but rather Amazon defines a product niche as a cluster of different search terms representing a customer need – a slightly different emphasis.

You can filter by search volume, over the last quarter or over the last year, and you can also filter by growth. You might decide you only want products which have grown their volume of search by 25 percent or more over the last year.

You might also cast an eye over the Amazon Best Seller page. However, this isn’t the most useful source, as it’s likely that any products which make it up here will be super competitive. However it’s a quick way to see what’s happening.

Amazon also publishes a Trend Report from time to time, but it’s not really timely or detailed enough to be really useful to FBA sellers. It’s more worthwhile to check if your instinct about an area you didn’t decide to pursue was right, or if you missed a good opportunity.

Remember, even if you do spot a hot trend, you’ve got to make a value judgment on whether it’s going to last, or go the way of the fidget spinner. Because you’ll need to specify, source and market your inventory before the trend collapses, if it’s just a craze and not a long term winner!