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How to Find a Niche for Your Online Store?

  The Covid-19 pandemic has increased the popularity and use of online shopping. As a result, global e-commerce sales soared to $26.7 trillion!

  A lot of people are using this opportunity to either open a new online store or just shift from brick and mortar to eCommerce selling. While Print on Demand becomes one of the most suitable business models. You don’t need to take the gamble of buying in stock before you’ve made your first sale. But whatever stage you are yet, you likely know that the biggest challenge you face is what to sell. 

  In this article, we’ll offer some tips to help you get inspired.

1. Draw inspiration from your personal experience

  Before you come to think about what your customers may think, want and like, you should notice that you, yourself, are also a customer. Your taste, preferences, and needs put you in several sub-niches. You are a target for countless marketers. They will also study what you prefer. So take a look at your favorite brands and the online purchases you’ve made recently. Why did you choose the product from that brand? Why not his competitors? What’s the most attractive point of that store? 

  When talking to buy a luxury bag, Hermes, Chanel, Louis Vuitton come first to your mind. But why not other bags? I believe it’s because of the additional value they bring. It, to some extent, shows your social status, fashion taste, and even more popular among others. You choose it, because of the unique brand value. So it’s a clue that you could build your brand from a startup.

  Amolep clothing brand is another great case. It was started by a dual citizen who felt that the clothing and accessories that existed on the market did not represent their identities. Many stores have custom T-shirts but very few target dual citizens of mixed races. Love is a supreme metric, regardless of nation or race. Amolep represents dual citizens' love both for two countries. Besides,  Amolep products help make dual citizens come together and create their community.

Source: Amolep

  So if you find something with limited resources, it may be a great signal. Small quantity on market doesn’t always mean little niche. When people face an area with limited options, they won’t care too much about the price, which in turn means a high niche.

2. Identify your passions and interests

   Passion and interests are sometimes the fuel for starting a business in the first place.

   Cat D. went to an electronic music/ arts scene, where they found there are only a few that run with a company ethic that is actually PLUR. EDM's motto since the '90s is called PLUR, which stands for Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect. Realizing the lack of PLUR-style clothing, she decided to do something.

Source: Channel 13

    Besides, given the thought that overall companies need to start being more responsible for their actions and the consequences these actions have down the road, Cat D. worked with Tree nation. A tree is planted for every product sold via tree-nation so Channel13 always plants more trees than items it has manufactured. The eco-friendly metric is one of the reasons why POD business exists. It helps reduce garment waste.

3. Follow trends

  When comes to find a niche, it’s inevitable to mention trends. After all, trends mean high attention and powerful purchase potential. But where to find these trends? Let’s explore.

• Influencer

  Influencers are the celebrities of social media who help us find trending products. Every product that is trending will go first to their hands. Or the product they use may go viral by accident. 

  To find a celebrity in your area and follow them. But don’t forget that it’s a long-term issue. You need always keep your eyes open for new trends so that you could grab them in time and make profits from them. Or else you will waste your efforts or there will be too much competition.

• Social media

  Clarifying how social media is important to people’s life would be like carrying coals to Newcastle. Over the years, we have realized that anything in vogue will be posted on social media. So, checking your social accounts like Twitter, Tiktok, for some time per day, you may get what you want. Hot TV shows, movies, and magazines can also be the source.

4. Anticipate and Embrace Change

  In a broad sense, a trend or a trending product can be regarded as something that is currently popular and in demand, but likely has a limited lifespan:

• A seasonal, short-term trend of 3 months. 
• A year-long, ‘medium term’ trend. 
• A longer, more established trend of 1-3 years.

  Although there is no scientific backup of these spans, you could find some products that coincide with this, clothing as an example. You need to vary with season, holiday, and current affairs. And if you do dropshipping, given transportation and fulfillment time, you need to plan two months in advance. So that you can have enough time to arrange and test the product type and its design. So know the lifespan of your products and make changes in time.

5. Research your niche market

  Before launching or scaling your store, find out what’s already going on in the market. 

• Search Volume

  Figure out the search volume of your target area is a must-stop. Search volume is the estimated volume of searched for a particular keyword in a given time span. It’s an essential metric that can help evaluate the interest and profitability of your niche. You could use tools like Ahrefs and Semrush to find the data behind Google searches. 

  If the search volume is high, it means that there’s a lot of interest in the niche. It means high potential but also fierce competition. Ideally, you should target keywords with a search volume of 1,000 and higher.

  If the search volume is low, it doesn’t mean any niche. As have mentioned before, when there is a limited resource in one area, people maybe not so sensitive to the price. You could still make margins from it.

• Competitor analysis  

  Knowing the basic information of your targeted area is not enough. Where there is a market, there is competition. You might be unaware of a potential competitor that your potential customers are already interested in, or you may discover the market you are planning to enter is much too saturated.

  Some competition is ok. It verifies that there does an exit profit to make. Your competitors will also make you stand on your toes and constantly improve your quality, service, and so on. 

  To keep up with and eventually get ahead of established brands, you need to ask yourself your unique advantages. What makes you different? What solution could you provide to your customers? The answer could be great customer service, wide product range, quick logistic,s or anything else. But it should be what your customers in your niche really care about.

Conclusion

  Identifying a niche is never an easy thing but also not as difficult as you may think. Now that you know these tips, take action and put them into effect. Niche changes the fortunes of the entrepreneurs that spot them.

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