I’ve discussed trending products and how to find them several times, on this blog, as well as Shopify’s blog. In this post on trending products, I showed you all the resources I use to uncover niches and products that are exploding in growth. Using many of these resources last year, I wrote a blog post on the Shopify blog showing you 10 products that were trending at the time. This year, I’ve been continuing to watch the market, trends, and consumer behavior to put together an updated list of trending products for 2016.
Without further ado, here they are:
Trending Products for 2016
1. Green Tea
Green Tea – Not only has green tea consistently been climbing as a trend since the early 2000’s, but it’s been growing for good reason. Green tea is generally healthier than other beverages in it’s category, it contains less caffeine, and most importantly, there are so many uses and variations of the product allowing the possibility for you to come up with new product ideas that incorporate green tea or green tea extract.
What does Google Trends say about green tea as a trending product?
2. Matcha
Matcha – Matcha tea, is an increasingly popular variation of green tea, and considered to be a premium product. Ultimately, it’s very high end green tea that has been ground into a fine powder. Because you actually consume the whole leaf as oppose to just steeping it, you get a much higher concentrate of good things in tea. Much like green tea, this product can be used as an ingredient in many other products.
In fact, my team and I at Shopify created an online store selling matcha tea in the middle of 2015 and made nearly $1,000 in just 3 days. If you haven’t read that detailed case study, check it out.
What does Google Trends say about Matcha?
3. Detox Products
Detoxes (Tea based) – Detoxes fit into the health and nutrition category and because of that there’s always a new trend in detoxing. Right now, the detox trend is tea. Tea based detoxes aren’t just trending, they’re Instagram famous. I’m sure you’ve likely seen them plastered all over your Instagram feed in recent months. While some of these products advertised may have additional ingredients in them to help you “detox”, from what I’ve seen most are nothing more than… tea with a marketing spin.
4. Coffee Scrubs
Coffee Scrub – Switching gears (a bit), it’s not just tea that’s trending. Tea’s ache nemesis, coffee, is also making a trending appearance lately in the form of a body scrub. It appears that Frank started the trend, with a bunch of other players entering the market closely after. This is a classic and smart example of someone taking a current product on the market and re-purposing it for another market. Don’t just think about coffee, also consider what other products can re-purposed after their initial use and resold.
5. Coconut Oil Based Products
Coconut Oil based Products – I wrote extensively about coconut oil last year on the Shopify blog, not because I like cococut oil, but because I spotted the trend early and knew it was going to be huge. Originally, I found through a post on Pinterest and discovered that coconut oil was essentially a Swiss Army knife of an ingredient.
Considered healthy and functional, you can use coconut oil for everything from cooking to making your own soaps, toothpaste, deodorant, sunscreen, to improving sleep, and even preventing Alzheimer (See 101 uses for coconut oil).
But the middle of 2015, couldn’t stand hearing about coconut oil anymore. Then,Shopify announced the winners to the Build A Business contest, and BAM! A coconut oil based product makes the list. Even though I’ve heard enough about coconut oil and it’s magical properties, as an entrepreneur, I can’t neglect the trend, a trend that’s still continuing.
6. Nootropics (Smart Drugs)
Nootropics – Also referred to as smart drugs that help you focus better, think clearer, and work harder were big this year. Popular faces like Tim Ferris introduced many people this relatively new term in 2015 and it looks like that is just adding fuel to the fire for 2016. One thing to keep in mind is that nootropics are a mostly unregulated market at the moment. You’ll want to carefully consider this as a product and do your research before blindly selling unregulated pills to the hopeful public.
7. Niche Specific Branded Apparel/Hyper Local Apparel
Niche Specific, Print-On-Demand Apparel – 2015 might be known by historians as the year of ecommerce apparel businesses. I don’t see this slowing down for 2016, in-fact, I see it increasing. Companies like Printful are making it increasingly easy to create an apparel brand. As they continue to increase the number of ecommerce platform they integrate with along with the apparel and customization options they offer, creating your own custom apparel brand is only going to become more popular.
Hyper Local Niches – Along the same lines, within the apparel category, I see the hyper local trend continuing. Hyper Local refers to creating products that cater to a very defined audience in a certain geographical area. For example, when I launched my 24 hour t-shirt business as a fun side project, I targeting a hyper local audience by creative designs that appealed to commuters that frequented local subway stations. Additionally, even within my own city and others, I saw many lots of other brands finding success also targeting a hyper-local market.
Here’s some examples:
- Detroit vs. Everybody (Detroit)
- Drake General Store (Toronto)
- Peace Collective (Toronto)
- OneMeth (Canada)
OneMeth (Airport Codes T-Shirts)
8. LED Lighting
LED Lighting (White/Colored) / LED Flashlights – I’ve been investing in LED lighting for several years now. While I’ve toyed with the idea of opening an online store dedicated to serving this niche, I don’t now yet how I would differentiate myself and add value. However, this industry has massive opportunity and the market is huge. In the coming decade, nearly all lighting eventually will be converted to LED lighting. It’s much more energy efficient, lasts exponentially longer than regular bulbs, is a lot more controllable, and safer for the environment.
This trend is only going to keep getting bigger and bigger and in particular, I think there’s really big opportunity with colored LED lighting for ambiance.
9. Beard Oil/Men’s Grooming Products
Beard Oil – Beard oil has been trending for the last few years and it appears that the trend is continuing. Lately this market has become pretty saturated with a lot of new companies but there’s likely still room for those that get a little more creative and tighten their focus to serve narrow niches within the beard grooming category.
10. Drones & Drone Accessories
Drones & Accessories – If you watch the news, you likely have heard more and more about drones. Whether it’s about the military using them for missions, Amazon using them to deliver products to homes, or civilians playing with them as a hobby, drones were huge this year. Looking into 2016, it appears they will only be getting bigger.
11. Adult Coloring Books
Adult Coloring Books – This one surprised me, but once I heard about it, I started seeing it everywhere. Apparently coloring books made for adults are really popular on Amazon’s bestselling books list. Books with calming, meditative and spiritual themes appeal to adults looking to unwind.
Conclusion
There you have it, 11 products and niches I see trending going into 2016. Don’t forget to check out my post on all the different resources I use to discover new trending products and leave a note in the comment box below with your thoughts on the trending products I listed, or what you see trending for 2016.
About The Author
Richard Lazazzera is an ecommerce entrepreneur, author and speaker. Learn more about Richard or get more from him on Twitter.
