When people ask me what the first thing is that I do before listing a new product on Amazon, the answer is always the same: I open Helium 10. Not intuition. Not a “feeling” that the product will do well. Data.
In this article, I’m going to explain exactly that – how to use Helium 10, step by step, even if all you know about Amazon is that people buy things there. I’ll explain every term I use, so by the end of this article you won’t just know what Helium 10 is – you’ll be able to actually open the tool and use it to find your first product.
If you’re interested in the bigger picture – that is, how earning money on Amazon even begins – I recommend that you first download my free e-book In this article, though, we’ll dive deep into one single but very important tool.
What Amazon FBA Actually Is (So We’re on the Same Page)
Before we get to Helium 10, I need to quickly explain the context, otherwise none of this will make sense.
Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) is a selling model where you find a product, have it manufactured (or buy an already-made one from a supplier), send it to an Amazon warehouse, and Amazon takes care of everything else – storage, packing, shipping, and even customer support. So you don’t deal with the post office or a warehouse. Your job is to find the right product, put it on Amazon, and market it.
The problem almost every beginner runs into is this: which product should you even choose? And that’s where Helium 10 comes in.
What Is Helium 10
Helium 10 is a paid tool (though there’s also a free version to get you started) that shows you in real time what’s selling on Amazon, how much of it is selling, and who is selling it. This is information that large companies once paid thousands of euros for in market research – today you get it for the price of a monthly subscription.
Put simply: Helium 10 is a collection of more than 30 tools that help you at every step of selling on Amazon – from finding a product, through keyword research, to tracking profit and inventory. Instead of paying for ten different programs, you have everything in one place.
Before we move on, let me explain two terms I’ll be using often in this article:
- ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) – a unique identification number for every product on Amazon. Every product you see on Amazon has its own ASIN, which you can use to look it up or analyze it.
- Listing – this is the product page on Amazon, meaning the title, images, description, and keywords that a buyer sees when they click on your product.
Why a Beginner Needs Helium 10 in the First Place
The biggest mistake almost everyone makes when they start thinking about earning money on Amazon is choosing a product that they personally like, instead of a product that the data shows sells well and has low competition.
Helium 10 saves you from this mistake because it shows you:
- how many people search for a particular product each month,
- how much money is already being made with that product,
- how many competitors sell that product and how strong they are,
- which keywords buyers actually type in when searching for such a product.
Without this data, you’re essentially guessing. With data, you make decisions based on what people are already buying – which is a far more reliable path to earning money.
If you’re interested in the entire process from idea to your first sale on Amazon, I’ve explained it in detail in my free e-book
Before You Open Helium 10 – What You Need
To avoid confusion, here’s a quick list of what you need before you even start using the tool:
- Amazon Seller account – this is your seller account on Amazon, through which you’ll list your products for sale.
- An account on Helium10.com – you can start with the free version and upgrade to a paid plan later, once you see that the tool helps you.
- The Helium 10 Chrome extension – a small add-on for the Chrome browser that shows you, in real time as you browse Amazon, data about the products you’re currently viewing.
Once you have that sorted, you can start with the most important part – finding a product.
1. Black Box – How to Find a Profitable Product
Black Box is the tool you start almost every research session with. It works like a filter for Amazon’s entire product catalog.
In practice, it looks like this: you enter your criteria into Black Box, for example:
- monthly revenue between €5,000 and €15,000,
- fewer than 200 product reviews,
- product weight under 1 kg (lighter products are cheaper to ship),
- a category, for example “kitchen” or “garden.”
When you click “search,” Black Box lists the products that match your criteria within seconds. This is the fastest way to find products that are already selling but don’t yet have too much competition.
Practical tip: as a beginner, look for products that are small, lightweight, and free of electronics (fewer problems with customs and returns) and that have fewer than 200–300 reviews among the top competitors – this means the market isn’t saturated yet.
2. Cerebro – what drives the competition
Once you find an interesting product in Black Box, you’ll want to know which words customers use to actually find it. This is where you use Cerebro (Latin for “brain”).
You enter a competitor’s ASIN (the unique product number I explained above) into Cerebro, and the tool shows you all the keywords that make this product appear to customers – including the position at which the product shows up for each word.
This is called a reverse ASIN lookup – instead of searching for words and then looking at which products appear, the process goes in the opposite direction: you take a product and get all the words that drive it.
Why is this useful? Because you can include the same keywords that successful competitors use in your own listing (remember – that’s your product’s page on Amazon) and so increase the chances that customers will find you.
3. Magnet – keyword research from scratch
If you don’t have a competitor to analyze yet or you want to explore a new niche (a narrower market segment, for example “glass storage jars” instead of just “jars”), you use Magnet.
You enter a general word into Magnet, for example “garlic press,” and the tool shows you related words that people actually type into Amazon’s search bar, along with the following data:
- Search Volume – how many people type this word into Amazon’s search bar each month.
- IQ Score – Helium’s own rating of how good an opportunity this word is (higher number = better opportunity).
- Competing Products – how many products are already competing for this word.
As a beginner, you’re looking for words with a high search volume and a relatively low number of competing products – this is the “sweet spot,” where there’s demand but the competition isn’t too heavy yet.
4. Scribbles – writing a listing that Amazon actually shows
Once you have a product and a list of keywords, you need to work those words into the title, description, and bullet points (short list items highlighting the product’s benefits) of your listing. This is where Scribbles helps.
Scribbles shows you all the keywords you’ve selected and keeps track as you write of which ones you’ve already used in the text and which ones you haven’t. This way you can write a listing that contains as many important words as possible without the text sounding unnatural or forcibly crammed with words (this is called keyword stuffing – the excessive and unnatural cramming of keywords into text, which both Amazon and Google penalize).
The goal is simple: to write text that is both readable for the customer and optimized for Amazon’s search algorithm (called A9, or the newer version, A10).
5. X-Ray – a quick look right on Amazon
X-Ray is part of the Chrome extension I mentioned above. When you browse Amazon and open a product category page (for example, when you type “yoga mat” into Amazon’s search bar), X-Ray overlays an additional table of data on the results – estimated monthly sales, revenue, number of reviews, and price for each product on the page.
This is the fastest way to judge at a glance whether a particular niche (a narrower market segment) is worth further research, without having to open each product separately and check it in Black Box.
6. Keyword Tracker – is your sales growth real?
Once you’re already selling a product, you’ll want to know whether your ranking for certain keywords is improving. Keyword Tracker monitors every day where your product appears for the words you’ve selected and shows you a graph of how it changes over time.
This is important because it tells you whether your listing changes (for example, a new title or new images) are actually improving your visibility – or whether you need to change your approach.
7. Profits – are you actually making money?
Profits is a dashboard that shows you your net profit in real time – that is, how much you actually have left after subtracting all costs: manufacturing, shipping, Amazon fees, and advertising costs.
Many beginners look only at revenue (how much money comes in), not at profit (how much money you actually keep). Profits clearly separates these two numbers, which is essential if you want to run your business soundly and not just “by feel.”
8. Alerts – so nothing catches you by surprise
Alerts automatically notify you when something unusual happens with your product – for example, that you’ve run out of stock, that someone has changed your listing without permission, or that suspicious activity has appeared on your account.
This is important because running out of stock in the middle of strong sales can ruin your ranking on Amazon – when a product isn’t available, Amazon pushes your listing lower because it gives priority to products that can actually be purchased.
A practical step-by-step process (how to tie it all together)
Now that you know the individual tools, let me show you how to actually use them one after another, from idea to first sale:
- Open Black Box and set filters for monthly revenue, number of reviews, and category to get a list of potential products.
- Pick 3-5 products that are small, lightweight, and have reasonable competition.
- Use Cerebro on the top competitors for each product to see which keywords drive their sales.
- Supplement your research with Magnet to find additional keywords that your competitors may not be using but that have good search volume.
- Check products with X-Ray as well while you browse Amazon to get a quick feel for the niche.
- Find a supplier for your chosen product. This goes beyond this article, but I explained it in detail in my free e-book
- Write your listing with Scribbles by including as many relevant keywords as possible in a natural way.
- Launch your product and set up Keyword Tracker to monitor your ranking.
- Monitor Profits to know whether you’re actually making money, and Alerts so nothing catches you by surprise.
This process sounds long, but once you’ve gone through it one time, you’ll repeat it for your next product in a fraction of the time.
The Most Common Beginner Mistakes When Using Helium 10
From my experience with people who are just learning, these mistakes come up most often:
- Choosing a product based on personal taste, not data. Just because a product seems interesting to you doesn’t mean it sells well.
- Ignoring the competition. If the top competitor has 10,000 reviews, as a complete beginner you’ll have a very hard time overtaking them.
- Keyword stuffing in your listing. Cramming keywords in unnaturally drives buyers away and can hurt your ranking.
- Forgetting about inventory. Running out of stock in the middle of strong sales is one of the costliest mistakes you can make.
How to Choose the Right Supplier (Quick Overview)
Helium 10 tells you what to sell, but it doesn’t tell you who should make your product. Once you’ve chosen a product and keywords, the next step is finding a supplier – the company or factory that will actually manufacture your product.
In short, here’s what to watch for:
- Minimum order quantity (MOQ) – the smallest number of products you have to order at once. To start, look for suppliers with a lower MOQ so you don’t tie up too much money in a single attempt.
- Product sample – before ordering the full quantity, always order a sample to check the quality with your own eyes.
- Communication and responsiveness – a supplier who doesn’t respond quickly to questions before a purchase usually won’t respond any faster later, when you have a problem.
This part of the business goes beyond just using Helium 10, so I dedicated a special section to it in my free e-book, where you’ll also find concrete steps for making first contact with a supplier
Helium 10 Compared to Other Tools
You’re probably wondering whether Helium 10 is really the best choice, given that there are other similar tools, such as Jungle Scout. The difference is mainly in the range of features – Helium 10 offers a broader set of tools within a single subscription (product research, keyword research, listing optimization, and business tracking), while some other tools are more narrowly focused on just one part of the process, for example only on product research.
For a complete beginner, this matters because you don’t have to pay for several different subscriptions for each step separately – you get everything you need in one place, which also simplifies learning, since you only have to get used to one interface.
Frequently Asked Questions About Helium 10
Is Helium 10 suitable for complete beginners? Yes. The free version is made exactly for this, so you can learn the basics before investing money in a subscription.
Does Helium 10 only work for Amazon.com? No, Helium 10 supports multiple Amazon marketplaces around the world, but the most data and features are available for the US marketplace, which is also the most popular choice among sellers who are just starting out.
Do I need other tools besides Helium 10? Not to start. Helium 10 covers product research, keyword research, listing writing, and sales tracking in one place, which is enough for your first product.
How long does it take to learn to use Helium 10? You can learn the basic features (Black Box, Cerebro, Magnet) in a single afternoon. Real knowledge comes with practice, when you use the tool on a real product.
Can I make money on Amazon without my own brand of products? Yes, there are other models too, such as reselling existing brands, but Helium 10 is most useful with the private label model, where you choose and name the product yourself.
Conclusion
Helium 10 isn’t a magic wand that will do the whole job for you – but it is a tool that saves you dozens of hours of guesswork and shows you what people on Amazon are actually buying. If you stick to the process I described above – Black Box for finding a product, Cerebro and Magnet for keywords, Scribbles for your listing, and Profits and Alerts for tracking – you’ll have a much better foundation for your first sale than most people who start without data.
If you want the entire process of earning on Amazon in one place, without the guesswork, download my free e-book
In it, I’ve gathered everything I learned while building my own business on Amazon.
