As a business owner, finding the right products for your customers is the key to maintaining their loyalty. With niche market products, you can ensure that your clients will continue to purchase from you, while you will also be working to set yourself apart from other industry competitors you encounter.
As you’ll discover, creating a niche for your business will be one of the keys to standing out against other competitors. In a large industry, you have probably already seen difficulties when you have similar products and offerings to your competitors. This article will serve as a guide for you to take the next steps to really find your ideal market product and continue to specialize your own business.
In this article, you will discover why it is important to develop niche products, how to do so, and what this will be able to produce for you over the long term. The goal in this article is to give you the foundation to really tailor your offerings and specialize your business. If you succeed in following these steps, you will see great results, and make a name for yourself within any industry you are a part of.
Why Should I Create a Niche Market Product?
There are several one-size-fits-all approaches to stores, both online and in person. As an e-commerce specialist and business owner, you probably have or did once consider expanding your product line. If you can be a one-stop-shop for your customers, you will earn more loyalty, right? Unfortunately, this is not always true.
Niching your business and creating unique offerings will set you apart. For example, there are probably about one hundred different stores on the internet that offer cellphone charging cords. You have likely also considered selling these through a drop shipping site or something similar. However, do you know many people who are selling 10-foot-long charging cords that are specifically designed to match Disney characters?
The power of a niche store just like the power of a niche product is to set yourself apart from your competitors. You will stand out and offer them something unique that they can get nowhere else. That is what makes your brand even more valuable. The more you find of niche market products, the more business you are likely to retain in the long-term.
How Do I Find These Products for My Store?
Creating a niche business or product line is not as difficult as you might think. It involves some work and more research, but if you perform the preparation properly, you will see the results of your search and find great products that you can offer. Let’s get into the specific steps that you need to follow to find your niche market products.
Step 1: Decide What Your Niche Is
This one seems obvious, but you cannot start with finding products before you decide what your niche is going to be. This is going to be different for everyone, and that is the most important part of this search. You need to decide for your business what you feel will be the most profitable. There are a few ways that you can do this and come up with a great list.
Check Out the Trends
If you are stuck on what you should create for your niche, you need to do some research about what is popular. Maybe if you offer purses, you find that people are looking for custom embroidered purses for their initials to be displayed. You might also find if you sell phone cases that people don’t want to purchase just any old phone case, but they want to find K-Pop bands.
Once you find something that few people are doing while still being popular, you can add that to the list. Make sure that your choice niche market is profitable and related to your own industry. The last thing you want is to choose a niche that is a far stretch from where you are within your industry.
Make Sure It Is Low Competition
As we said, it is very important to find items that are popular and that will sell. But you shouldn’t be in an industry where there are numerous players, too many for you to continue forward and fail in profitability. That’s why you should make sure your specific niche product should be a low competition item.
Some of these might seem obvious, while others might seem odd for people to choose as niche products. The best way to find out what is going to be low competition and what is too high for competition is by doing a search. If you search for nature inspired t-shirts and it comes up with over 1,000 hits, you likely have something too popular. If you find something specifically on flowers and it is only about 200 hits, this is a better alternative for you to choose for profitability.
Step 2: Search for Applicable Niche Market Products
The next step once you decide on your niche market item is to make sure that is available. If you’re lucky, it might already be selling to a handful of business owners around the world. If you find yourself challenged, you might have to discuss this item choice with a few sellers.
Your niche market product might be special—too special—and it might need to be custom ordered. There are always options with sellers to custom order items. Check on the pricing, the availability, and the potential return on investment. Your search should be comprehensive and thorough, making sure that you cover all your bases!
The best places to search for these products are from your competitors first, and then you can find them on supplier websites. Always have an idea of what you are looking for before you talk to suppliers. This will help with negotiations and discussing shipments.
Step 3: Do a Sample Market Test with Your Current Customers
Once you have chosen your item and your seller, you should select some samples and see how they are before you proceed. You can have a special sale on your store and see how they perform. Think of this like a market test. If you can see how well the niche market products perform with your audience, you will be able to decide if it is going to be worth selling regularly.
If you are not comfortable selling them yourself, there is an alternative option that you can choose: ask your customers. As we will discuss, you can also do this before you even press purchase on the items you want to test out on your store.
Ask Your Customers for Their Input
One of the most important things that you should do is to make sure that your product works for your customers. What better way to ensure that they like your product than to have them suggest it themselves? Customers will love the possibility of giving input on your ideas! This also increases engagement which will increase visibility. This is a win-win for you and the customers.
This will not only save you the time and the effort of ordering these items, but it will also allow you to have their input. Some businesses will create polls on their social media to help them gather responses. This might take a few rounds, but once you have some responses, get people’s thoughts, and see which ideas win. Take the top three with you on your search for items if you’d like!
This is an optional suggestion, but one that we suggest because of the feasibility. Think of it like market research. It is only the smart thing to do before you invest time and money into a product that might not work out. Best of all, these social media posts will also serve as promotion for your customers to get them excited about what you may be about to offer them in the future.
Step 4: Evaluate Your Choice
Now that you have either purchased a sample or collected your ideas from your customers, the most important thing is to see how well it performed. Did it reach your benchmark goal for sales? Did customers seem satisfied with the result? If your niche market products did not go as planned, why and how can you rectify the situation?
Believe it or not, there’s plenty of situations with product testing that involve trial and error. Just because you feel that your niche choice will work, doesn’t mean it always does. You must be ready and adaptable, always looking to change what is being presented to your customers. The goal will be to continue to find what sells, even if you must monitor these sale numbers over the course of a month or more.
Step 5: Repeat the Same Steps as Needed
If you are looking for niche market products—several of them—for your storefront online, then you likely will have to repeat the process that was mentioned multiple times. Creating your ideal niche market product for your store will involve you finding what works for your store and then replicating this repeatedly. But the goal will be to have a strong product line at the end. If you follow these steps, you certainly will!
Things to Keep in Mind in the Niche Market Products Search
You might be thinking to yourself that finding these fabulous products is a once-in-a-business-lifetime experience. However, it isn’t quite that easy. Here are some tips to keep in mind once you have decided to create a niche market product for your industry.
Niches Can Change
Just like the trends, you can change your niche. You might find for a while that your animal themed backpacks are selling quite well! Then you notice that the elephant one isn’t. Then the tiger. Then a lot of them. Once you see these dips in your sales, you can always re-evaluate and change your niche. Many business owners find this to be an ongoing process.
Offer a Chance for Feedback
Customers will either love or hate your new niche market products. Why not ask them how they really feel and get some feedback? You might not enjoy reading those who are not satisfied, but this will all be a learning experience. Maybe it will help you see that you have the right idea but not the right supplier.
Perhaps you might also notice the shift in your popularity as you become more part of your specific niche market. Feedback can be crucial and work alongside your sales. Pay attention to these metrics and your niche change will not go unnoticed, nor will you fail if you listen to your customer base.
Make Sure You Have a Passion for Your Product Line
No matter what industry you are in, it can be horrible to experience selling products you hate. Just because your customers love Winnie the Pooh doesn’t mean you have to sell this to them if you dislike the character. The most important part of picking a niche market product is to make sure that you enjoy them too.
It should go without saying, but your niche choice should also reflect your own passions and your likes. For instance, let’s say you have a kid’s shoe company, and you really enjoy bright colors and neon flashing lights. You can find a way to incorporate this into your product line and offer this to your customers, while still being passionate about your items.
On the alternative side, you can also be part of the manufacturing business and find a way to sell specifically 3D printers to your clientele. Not only is this a great niche because of the profitability, but you also love this! It is also trendy. There are so many ways to find items that you enjoy, so don’t worry so much about only focusing on profits. Allow yourself to work with products you enjoy, too.
Conclusion
With all of this in mind, you have several choices for you to continue forward to find optimal niche market products. There is a plethora of information here for you to use at your disposal. The most important thing is to find a product that is profitable, enjoyable for you and your customers, but also not as competitive as others.
Niching your business might be the best decision you ever made for your product line! We hope that these tips help you on your journey to profitability while serving your fantastic customer base that will only grow in future.
