Academy • Shopify Dropshipping
Shopify Dropshipping: Using Rising Search Terms to Find Products You Can Launch Today
Why dropshippers should care about rising search terms
As a Shopify dropshipper, you don’t need factories, molds, or big inventory decisions. Your edge is speed: you can launch and test products as soon as you see demand forming.
Rising search terms in marketplace data tell you where shoppers are moving right now. If you can connect that with a supplier and a clean landing page, you can test the idea days or weeks before slower sellers even notice it.
Step 1 — Pick a niche and pull rising terms
Start with a clear niche you actually want to sell in. Examples:
- pet accessories,
- home organization,
- giftable items (grandma, mom, teacher),
- fitness / recovery,
- kitchen tools.
Use includes to lock into that niche (e.g. “pet hair remover”, “desk organizer”, “grandma gift”) and run a search for rising terms over the last few weeks.
Your goal at this stage is not perfection — just a shortlist of 10–20 terms that clearly improved in rank.
Step 2 — Look for “ad-friendly” products
Good for paid ads
- visually clear benefit (before/after is obvious),
- problem-solving or emotionally driven,
- easy to explain in 5–10 seconds of video,
- not purely generic commodity (difficult for ads).
Hard for paid ads
- super generic items (plain spoons, basic towels),
- items with tiny price and no margin,
- high complexity, needs long education.
When you look at each rising term, ask: “Can I show this in a short UGC-style video and make someone feel ‘I need this’?” If yes, it’s a strong dropshipping candidate.
Step 3 — Use modifiers to build angles
Rising terms often contain modifiers that tell you which angle is working:
- Recipient: mom, dad, kids, grandma, teacher
- Use case: car, kitchen, office, travel
- Style: cute, minimalist, aesthetic, funny
- Format: set, bundle, kit, starter pack
For dropshipping, you are not just choosing a product — you are choosing a marketing angle. If you see multiple rising terms that share the same angle, that’s your hook for creatives and landing page copy.
Step 4 — Cross-check with suppliers fast
Once you have 3–5 promising terms, move quickly to your suppliers (AliExpress, agent, or another source):
- Search for the core idea (not the full long-tail phrase).
- Check if there’s a product that clearly matches the shopper intent.
- Filter for stable suppliers, reviews, and shipping times that won’t kill you.
Your benchmark: you should be able to go from “rising term” → “product link” in under 10–15 minutes for each idea.
Step 5 — Build a lightweight validation funnel
For each shortlisted product, you don’t need a full brand yet. Build a simple funnel:
- one clean product page focused on the main benefit,
- 1–3 creatives (UGC-style if possible),
- basic ad set targeting your core audience.
The goal is to see signal: clicks, add-to-carts, first sales — not to fully optimize the account on day one.
Step 6 — Combine performance data with trend data
After a few days of traffic, you’ll have two layers of information:
- Marketplace trend: is the search term still improving or at least holding?
- Your ads: are people clicking and buying when you show this product?
A strong dropshipping opportunity is usually:
- built on a rising or stable term, and
- showing early positive signs in your ad metrics.
Step 7 — Decide: scale, iterate, or kill
- Scale: good metrics + rising/stable term. Increase budget slowly, test more creatives, and refine targeting.
- Iterate: mixed metrics + rising term. Keep the idea but try new angles (different recipient, bundle, or creative).
- Kill: bad metrics + flat/falling term. Don’t stay emotionally attached; move to the next rising signal.
Dropshipping rewards speed and volume of tests — as long as your tests are based on real demand signals, not random guessing.