Best Product Research Tools (Under $50/Month) for Shopify Sellers

Post by Aaron 223

Mar 02 2025

Finding winning products is crucial for Shopify dropshippers, especially when you're starting on a budget.

Below is a comparison of top-rated product research tools under $50/month.

These tools help analyze market demand (e.g. trending sales, order volume) and competition levels (e.g. how many other stores or ads are promoting a product).

Many also integrate with Shopify for one-click imports or order fulfillment, and some connect with supplier platforms (AliExpress, Spocket, etc.), making it easy to source items (including alternatives to services like Zendrop).

Each tool listed is beginner-friendly in terms of usability and cost.

Sell The Trend

Overview: Sell The Trend is an all-in-one, AI-powered product research platform popular among Shopify sellers. It pulls data from multiple sources (AliExpress, Amazon, and millions of Shopify stores) to identify trending products. Sell The Trend’s NEXUS research engine uses AI to spot rising demand and winning niches.

It also offers direct Shopify integration for easy importing and even includes a built-in store/fulfillment system. This tool is widely regarded in the dropshipping community – in fact, many sellers say they’ve used Sell The Trend at least once in their journey growthdevil.com.

Key Features:

Trend Analysis & AI Predictions: The NEXUS explorer analyzes products by niche and market, helping find “hot-selling products” and predict “money-making” winners pagefly.io / geekflare.com.
It provides data-driven trend graphs and performance metrics to gauge demand.
Competition & Store Analytics: Includes a store intelligence feature to spy on competitor Shopify stores (see their best-sellers and strategies), keeping you informed of competition.
You can also discover successful Facebook ads in your niche for competitive insight.
Supplier Integration: Integrates with AliExpress for sourcing – a built-in Chrome extension lets you import products directly from AliExpress with one click (functioning as an Oberlo/DSers replacement).
It helps find “trustworthy vendors” by analyzing AliExpress supplier data, and even identifies popular suppliers for each trending product.
Shopify Integration & Automation: Seamless Shopify app integration for one-click import and inventory sync. It also offers 1-click order fulfillment (batch process orders through AliExpress). Additional tools include an ad video creator and even an Instagram influencer finder to plan marketing.

Pricing: Sell The Trend offers a 7-day free trial. The Essentials plan is around $44.97/month (monthly), which includes full access to the NEXUS research suite and Shopify integration.

(Annual plans bring the cost down to effectively $33/month.) This base plan is under $50 and suitable for beginners; a higher-tier Pro plan ($89/month) is optional for scaling up.

Strengths: Sell The Trend is praised for its comprehensive features and use of AI, which gives newcomers an edge in product research. It provides “a large product selection” and powerful analytics, helping sellers confidently gauge market demand and competition. Its direct Shopify integration and automation tools reduce manual work, making it beginner-friendly despite the rich feature set.

Overall, Sell The Trend’s strong reputation comes from being a one-stop solution for finding and launching winning products.

Ecomhunt

Overview: Ecomhunt is a classic product research tool favored by many new dropshippers. It curates a daily list of “winning” products and provides detailed analytics for each.

Ecomhunt is known for its simplicity and beginner-friendly interface – it gives you the key stats at a glance and even offers training resources (like a community forum and tutorials) to help beginners succeed.

While it doesn’t directly import products into Shopify, it provides supplier links and ad copies so you can quickly source the item (for example, via DSers or Zendrop) and launch your own ads.

Key Features:

Trending Products Feed: Every day, Ecomhunt adds new products that its team has vetted as potential winners. For each product, it shows vital metrics like selling price vs. cost, profit margin, number of orders, and when it started trending. This helps assess market demand quickly. You also get insights into how saturated a product is (e.g. how many stores are already selling it).
Analytics & Market Data: Ecomhunt provides “incredible analytics and stats about each and every product on the platform”. This includes engagement data from social media ads (Facebook ads likes, comments, etc.), Google Trends graphs, and sometimes the product’s sales over time. Such data lets you gauge demand trajectory and competition level before you invest in a product.
Competition Insights (Ads & Stores): One standout feature is information on current Facebook ads for the product – Ecomhunt often links to example ads or videos so you can see how others are marketing it. It also can reveal targeting suggestions. Additionally, Ecomhunt’s Chrome extension allows spying on Shopify stores; you can “browse through winning dropshipping product posts on Facebook” and even “deconstruct winning stores” to see what else they sell. This helps analyze your competition’s approach.
Resources for Beginners: There’s a “Winners Club” community and plenty of tips on how to use the data. Ecomhunt’s site includes blog posts, case studies, and tutorials on scaling with the products – a helpful learning platform for newcomers.

Pricing: Ecomhunt has a free plan with very limited access (you can view only a couple of new products per day, and data is somewhat delayed). The Pro plan is $29/month, unlocking full daily product listings and all analytics.

At $29, it’s budget-friendly and one of the more affordable robust research tools. (Note: Some sources list a $20 or $39 plan; Ecomhunt’s standard pricing is about $29/mo for the full features.)

Strengths: Ecomhunt’s biggest strength is its ease of use and supportive community. It’s described as “one of the cleanest and most effective” research platforms for dropshipping.

New sellers appreciate that it spoon-feeds them product ideas with the rationale (why it’s selling, who else is selling it, how to market it).

The included ad copies, targeting suggestions, and profit calculations reduce a lot of guesswork. While the free version is very limited, the paid plan is reasonably priced and often pays for itself if one of the suggested products succeeds.

Overall, Ecomhunt is highly regarded for helping beginners quickly evaluate market demand and competition for trending items.

Niche Scraper

Overview: Niche Scraper is a powerful SaaS tool that automates the grind of product and competitor research. It not only finds popular products but also allows you to “spy” on other Shopify stores to see their best-sellers and even scrape product data from AliExpress in bulk.

Niche Scraper is often used to discover low-competition products – it has filters to highlight items that have high sales potential but aren’t yet saturated.

It also includes a simple video ad maker. This tool is web-based and doesn’t require installation; while it doesn’t directly push products to Shopify, it provides all information (including supplier links) needed to import via your preferred method.

Key Features:

Product Scraper (Data Mining): Niche Scraper can “analyze thousands of products each day” from AliExpress and Shopify to spot those with the “highest selling potential”.
You can set criteria and let it list items that meet demand thresholds (e.g. certain number of orders, recent growth rate) but aren’t yet overexposed. This data-driven approach helps identify niches that are on the rise.
Store & Competitor Analysis: The tool’s Shopify store analyzer lets you search any store and pull up its best-selling products, estimated traffic, and even revenue estimates. This is invaluable for competition research – you can essentially peek into successful competitors’ catalogs and find product ideas (and see how they price and market them). By discovering what top stores in your niche are doing, you gauge competition and get inspiration for your own store.
Hand-Picked Winning Products: In addition to automated scraping, Niche Scraper offers a curated section of “hand-picked” winning products (updated daily). These come with extra details like recommended suppliers, example Facebook ads, and targeting tips – similar to Ecomhunt’s style of curation. This gives beginners quick product ideas with guidance on demand and marketing angles.
Video Ad Maker & Ad Insights: A built-in video creator helps you make simple product videos for ads in a few clicks. Moreover, Niche Scraper provides a database of Facebook and TikTok video ads for products, so you can see what kind of creative works for each item. This ties into competition analysis by revealing how others advertise the product.

Pricing: Niche Scraper offers a limited free trial (with very restricted features and delayed data). Full access requires the Pro plan at $49.95/month.

This paid plan grants unlimited product searches and store analysis. While it’s at the top of the target budget range, many find its comprehensive data worth the cost. (Note: $49.95 is for monthly; they sometimes have a slightly discounted annual option.)

Strengths: Niche Scraper is prized for its comprehensive approach – it’s essentially several tools in one (product database, store spy, ad spy, video maker). Users often say the Product Scraper feature is a “godsend” for finding winning products efficiently.

Its ability to uncover what other Shopify sellers are doing gives you a clear picture of competition levels for any product. Despite its rich features, the interface is relatively straightforward.

This tool is especially useful for those who want both raw data and curated suggestions in one platform.

The inclusion of marketing tools (ad insights and video generator) is a bonus that helps beginners go from product research to advertising quickly.

AliShark

Overview: AliShark is a niche-focused tool that specializes in real-time data from AliExpress. If your strategy is to source products from AliExpress (common for many Shopify dropshippers), AliShark provides an inside look at what’s hot on that platform right now. It’s often called a “spy tool” for AliExpress – it shows you live information on orders and trends, helping gauge market demand instantly.

AliShark doesn’t directly integrate with Shopify, but it pairs perfectly with an import app like DSers: you find a trending product on AliShark, then import it to your store via DSers or a similar tool.

It’s very quick to use and is beginner-friendly in terms of setup.

Key Features:

Live Order Statistics: One of AliShark’s standout features is showing live sales data. You can see daily orders for products, updated in real-time, right on your dashboard.
This means you can literally watch demand as it happens – if a product is suddenly getting hundreds of orders today, it’s a strong sign of rising demand. This live feed helps you catch trends early (or avoid products that are slowing down).
Historical Trends & Graphs: For each product, AliShark provides a sales history graph (and even “adds to wishlist” stats) over the last 2–6 months.
These trend charts let you spot seasonal spikes or consistent growth. By analyzing the timeline, you can predict if a product is just peaking temporarily or has steady long-term demand.
This is crucial for judging market demand and timing.
Advanced Filtering: AliShark acts like a powerful search engine for AliExpress products, with massive amounts of filter options.
You can filter by category, ship-from country, price range, number of orders, growth rate, presence of videos, and even by how many people have wish-listed the item. This helps narrow down to “potential winning items”that meet your criteria.
For example, you might filter for products with >1000 orders in the last month but that are relatively new – indicating high demand but possibly low competition.
Product Details & Supplier Info: For each listing, AliShark gives all the key product info (images, title, variants) and a direct link to the AliExpress page. It also shows the seller’s rating and shipping options. Essentially, once you find a product, you have everything needed to quickly import it via an app and start selling. (While AliShark itself doesn’t “push” to Shopify, the process is straightforward with a tool like DSers.)

Pricing: AliShark keeps it simple with a single paid tier. After a 2-day trial for $1, it costs $20 per month for full access.

There’s no free plan beyond the $1 trial, but $20/month is affordable for the real-time data it offers. All features are included at that price, making it one of the budget-friendlier tools on this list.

Strengths: AliShark is highly regarded for its speed and depth of data. Because it’s laser-focused on AliExpress, it can “scrape” and update data very quickly, keeping its product database constantly refreshed.

Sellers love the ability to see what’s actually selling today, which is the purest indicator of market demand. The extensive filters also mean you can find niche products that others might miss.

A minor drawback is the lack of built-in guidance on marketing (and no direct Shopify sync), but as a pure research tool, it’s “well worth the money” for novice and experienced dropshippers alike.

In short, AliShark excels at showing demand trends and letting you assess competition by seeing how many orders are flowing to a product in real time.

DSers (AliExpress Integration Tool)

Overview: DSers is primarily known as a Shopify dropshipping fulfillment app (the official replacement of Oberlo for AliExpress integration), but it’s also a handy product discovery tool for AliExpress items.

It connects directly with AliExpress suppliers and allows you to import products to Shopify in one click.

While DSers doesn’t have the in-depth trend analytics of some other tools, it does offer features like a “Supplier Optimizer” to find the best supplier for a product and it highlights trusted, fast-shipping products. It’s extremely popular – with over 28,000 Shopify user reviews and a 5.0 rating – meaning it’s a proven tool for beginners to start sourcing.

Think of DSers as a bridge between research and selling: you might get product ideas from elsewhere, but you’ll use DSers to evaluate suppliers and push items to your store.

Key Features:

AliExpress Product Importer: DSers lets you search the AliExpress catalog and import products directly into your Shopify store with one click.
You can edit the product title, description, pricing, etc., within DSers before pushing it live.
This makes it easy to test new products quickly. For product research, browsing AliExpress via DSers is faster and more integrated than using AliExpress itself.
Supplier Optimization: This unique feature analyzes multiple AliExpress listings for the same product to find the best deal.
DSers will help you **“find the same product being sold by other suppliers for less”* pagefly.io, or with faster shipping.
This is great for competition in terms of supply: if many sellers are offering a product, DSers helps you pick the supplier that gives you a competitive edge (cheaper cost or quicker delivery). It can also sort suppliers by shipping time to the USA (e.g., show items that ship in ≤10 days), which is a proxy for high-demand items stocked in local warehouses.
Bulk Order & Store Management: For when your store starts getting sales, DSers shines by allowing bulk order fulfillment – you can fulfill multiple orders to AliExpress in one click, saving time.
It also allows managing multiple Shopify stores under one DSers account. While this is more of an operational feature, it’s worth noting as a strength if you run more than one store or plan to scale.
Cashback and Bundles: DSers offers cashback on purchases made through the app (so you earn a small rebate on each AliExpress order). It also has product bundle settings and stock management tools.
These aren’t directly about research, but they do add value for a beginner trying to maximize profits and manage products effectively.

Pricing: One reason DSers is fantastic for beginners is its generous free plan. The Basic plan is $0 and allows you to import up to a certain number of products (in the past, it was around 3,000 products) – plenty to start.

Paid plans add more features: the Advanced plan is $19.90/month and the Pro plan (suitable as you scale) is $49.90/month.

Most new sellers find the free or $19.90 tier sufficient in the beginning. All plans include core features like product importing and order fulfillment; higher tiers mainly raise limits and provide faster support. (DSers Enterprise is for high-volume sellers at $499, not relevant to beginners.)

Strengths: DSers’ strength lies in seamless Shopify integration and supplier access. It essentially reduces the friction from finding a product to selling it. It’s “loaded with extremely useful tools” for dropshipping and is very “cost-effective” with its tiered plans.

While you might use another tool (like AliShark or Ecomhunt) to gauge product demand, DSers will be the tool that actually gets that product into your store and finds you the best supplier deal.

Its huge user base and Shopify app store rating indicate a strong reputation – it’s a must-have for AliExpress-based dropshippers.

For those concerned about supplier integration (like using Zendrop), DSers covers the AliExpress side of things; you can always use Zendrop in parallel for other suppliers.

In summary, DSers is an essential, beginner-friendly tool that complements your product research by streamlining the import and fulfillment process.

Spocket

Overview: Spocket is a bit different from the other tools on this list – it’s primarily a dropshipping supplier marketplace rather than a pure research analytics tool. However, it’s included here because it’s highly compatible with Shopify and focuses on connecting you with high-demand products from quality suppliers, especially in the US and Europe.

In terms of market demand and competition, Spocket helps by offering a catalog of products that often have fast shipping and vetted quality (meaning they can be easier sells and let you compete on shipping speed).

It may not give detailed trend graphs, but it does show you which products are popular and provides all details to evaluate them.

For beginners who value supplier integration (like those considering Zendrop), Spocket is a top alternative – it integrates directly with Shopify for product import and order sync, and even handles branded invoicing.

Key Features:

Vetted Supplier Network (US/EU Focus): Spocket gives you access to thousands of dropshipping suppliers, primarily located in the United States, Europe, Canada, etc.
This means many products have fast shipping options for North American or European customers (often 2-5 day shipping), which is a huge competitive advantage over typical AliExpress shipping times. You can filter products by country/region to find items that ship from your target market.
Product Discovery & Filters: Within Spocket’s dashboard, you can browse by category or search keywords to find products. It highlights **“best product options based on country, product niche, and price range”*, and even flags items that are discounted (so you have better profit margins) geekflare.com.

While it may not show a graph of sales, it does indicate what’s “popular” or trending on the platform and often shows the number of other Shopify stores that have listed the item (useful to gauge competition).
Shopify Integration & Automation: Spocket has deep Shopify integration. It “syncs products, manages inventory, and processes orders with Shopify” automatically.
This means when you find a product on Spocket, you can push it to your Shopify store with one click (all product info and images import over). When you get a sale, you can fulfill the order through Spocket’s app, and it will handle sending the order to the supplier and tracking updates. Real-time stock updates ensure you don’t sell an out-of-stock item.
Essentially, it provides a very smooth experience from product selection to delivery.
Branding and Invoicing: A nice feature for differentiation – Spocket allows branded invoices for many suppliers.
This means when your customer receives the package, the invoice can have your store’s logo and name, giving a more professional, branded feel (even though it’s dropshipped). This is optional, but it’s a perk that can improve customer trust and repeat business.

Pricing: Spocket offers a free plan that lets you browse and import a limited number of products, suitable for trying it out.

For more usage, the Starter plan is $24.99/month (allows a certain number of products and orders) and the Pro plan is $49.99/month.

The Pro plan (just under $50) gives access to Spocket’s premium products and increased limits, which many serious beginners opt for as it includes unlimited orders and branded invoicing.

There is also an Empire plan ($99) for scaling, but you can start and test the waters on the free or $24.99 plan. (Geekflare notes the “starter plan starts at $39.99”, but Spocket’s official pricing is $24.99 for Starter; $39.99 might refer to an older pricing or an annual effective rate.)

Strengths: Spocket’s strength is in supplier quality and Shopify seamlessness. Unlike other tools that focus on data charts, Spocket focuses on practical product sourcing. It shines if your strategy is to compete on shipping time and quality – you get access to a catalog of products that can often reach your customers faster than typical dropship goods.

This can be a big demand driver (customers love quick shipping) and help you carve out a competitive niche. The interface is user-friendly, and many beginners find it easy to navigate and find products.

Spocket is highly recommended by Shopify itself for those doing dropshipping, thanks to its reliability.

It’s comparable to Zendrop in the sense that both provide an integrated fulfillment service with a curated product catalog; however, Spocket’s reputation is strong for sourcing US/EU products specifically.

In summary, if supplier integration and product quality are your priorities (and you still want decent insight into what’s selling well), Spocket is an excellent, budget-friendly choice that covers those bases.

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Note: Each of the above tools has a strong reputation among Shopify sellers and meets the budget criteria. They all provide some level of insight into market demand and competition – through sales data, trends, or competitor analytics – and most integrate with Shopify or supplier networks. When starting out, you might even use a combination (e.g., use Ecomhunt/AliShark to identify a hot product, then use DSers or Spocket to source and import it). By leveraging these tools, a beginner can make more informed decisions on what to sell, rather than guessing.