There’s nothing worse than seeing your product marketing campaign fail in front of your eyes. This can be the result of your consumers not wanting the product to a major seller or a selling platform drowning your business.
product research & selection is super complicated and time-consuming. Most people will literally drive themselves crazy and quit the business before mastering it
One of the biggest challenges aspiring entrepreneurs face is finding profitable, in-demand products that will sell, whether it’s a single product or a full product line that occupies a niche in a market.
Coming up with product ideas is admittedly a little tricky, and the importance of selling a product people want can leave even the most motivated people stuck in analysis paralysis.
It often feels like everything you could possibly sell is already being sold-not to mention the reality that there will be plenty of competition in the most popular product categories.
There are several different forms of e-commerce…
To quickly simplify – the differences between the models is roughly determined by:
- What product you’re selling (are you flipping items from garage sales or having one product manufactured that you’ll sell many times?)
- Where you’re selling it(are you selling on a third-party platform like Amazon or building your own Shopify store?)
If you’re looking to make more than the average full-time income, then you can immediately eliminate low-margin e-commerce models like drop shipping and arbitrage.
At the end of the day, the products you sell online directly impact the following:
- Branding & design: If you’re selling auto parts, you probably wouldn’t want to give your website a pink background and frilly logo, right? Your brand should reinforce your product line, so make sure they match well. Check out your competitors to see what sort of designs they’re using.
- Marketing: The marketing outlets you choose, along with your marketing budgets, are dependent on your target audience, which is fully determined by your product offering. For best results, make a plan to market across more than one channel, such as advertising on Facebook and within search results pages.
- Your sanity: Keep in mind that you’ll be spending lots of time with these products, so only sell something if you find it interesting and won’t get bored with it soon.
Figuring out what to sell online and who to target is a decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly. That’s why conducting thorough product and market research is so important, so let’s look at that a little more closely.
Solving a customer pain point will always be an effective way to develop a product people want.
Abstract customer pain points are usually about addressing poor or frustrating experiences with the current selection of available products.
Being keenly aware of the pain points and small annoyances you come across in everyday life could be just what you need to come up with your next profitable product idea.
When consumers are passionate about a particular trade or hobby, they’re usually more inclined to invest money to get the exact product they want.
Additional benefits can include higher levels of engagement and loyalty with your brand, as enthusiastic customers are generally more involved in the industry and get more value out of the products they purchase.
Using your know-how to create and position a unique product can be extremely profitable.
Whether you already sell products online or not, there is a wealth of insight you can glean from customer reviews.
If you already have an established online store with a bit of traction, you can see what customers are saying about your existing products.
If you don’t currently have a store, have a look at customer reviews for other brands and products in the industry you want to explore.
What “Wishlist” feedback is being shared about potential improvements to already successful products? What add-ons or additional products do customers consistently bring up?
If you’re not sure of the industry or product category to explore, consider a specific demographic and focus on brands and products that those individuals gravitate toward.
Searching for keyword opportunities means strategically looking for a product based on the search queries people are using, the number of searches per month, and overall competition for those searches.
The advantage is that pairing product demand to existing keywords can be an effective way to capture consistent organic traffic from Google, but it comes with its own set of risks, namely that if you rely on search engine traffic you’ll be overly exposed to changes in Google’s algorithm.
Real product validation only happens after money changes hands.
When I first got into e-commerce, I knew from the beginning that the viability of the business was more important than being passionate about the product I sold.
Real product validation only happens when money changes hands, so you can’t be sure you’re onto something until people swipe their credit cards.
If you prefer to sell products on your own online store, you can still gather inspiration by checking out what’s popular and trending on other marketplaces.
On individual Amazon product pages, you can see the “Best Sellers Rank” to find out how popular an item is in its category.
To dig a little deeper, consider using a tool or app that helps you identify top-selling products and popular sellers by letting you filter by a category, price, sales, and other attributes.
Products with little overhead provide a low-risk way to get started because it’s easier to attain higher profit margins compared to products that are more expensive to produce.
When pricing your products, you need to account for the total resources that you’ve put in to sell the product or your cost of goods sold.
Just because a product is inexpensive to purchase wholesale, that doesn’t necessarily mean you can turn it over for the highest ROI.
Do you have an existing interest in a particular industry or product category? Check out related items or products that customers frequently purchased together in that niche.
Amazon is a useful resource for this, as there are several locations where the site displays product affinity.
A. Products customers frequently buy together.
Keep a list in your smartphone or with a pen and paper to refer back to later when it’s time to conduct market research for your product idea.
Choosing the right product or product category can be instrumental to your success.
Try to figure out the following information about your audience:
- Basic demographics: Demographics are statistical characteristics of a certain population or audience, such as age, gender, ethnicity, employment status, etc. Identifying the demographics of your target audience helps you better understand potential commonalities with this group.
- Psychographics: Unlike demographics, psychographics moves away from basic traits and focus on interests, activities, personalities and more. Once you understand the attitudes and behaviors of your target audience, you’ll be better equipped to appeal to their wants and needs.
- Price sensitivity: Do the prices of the products you plan to sell fall in line with the budgets of your target audience? In other words, do your products force you to focus on high-end customers, more economical shoppers or somewhere in-between?
The products you choose will shape your entire business, from marketing to shipping, to pricing, to further product development.
One final reminder I’d like to share is don’t be afraid to look at smaller product categories and niches.
Niche market vs. the general market – which works better for your store?
No matter what type of product you choose to sell online, you’ll be facing some pretty stiff competition from major retailers in your industry, likely including big e-commerce sites like Amazon. And while your online store can definitely succeed despite this competition in the general market, you might opt to target a niche market instead.
In a nutshell, a niche market consists of a much smaller population of a general audience for a product.
Competition is good because it validates existing demand for a product, but the right amount of competition is even better because you’ll have the opportunity to fill a unique need and cost-effectively reach your customers.
Unless you’re selling something that no one has ever heard of, chances are good that there will be other websites that sell very similar, if not the same, products. This means that you need to have a firm understanding of your competition that you can stand out from the crowd.
To begin your competitor analysis, try these approaches:
- Make a list of competitors: The first step is identifying who your competitors actually are. You can do so by performing a basic web search for the products you intend to sell. From there, you can see what other businesses exist in your space.
- Categorize your competitors: Once you have your list together, break it into logical categories. For example, you’ll have direct competitors that offer the same products as you, and larger competitors, such as big retail sites. You typically won’t want to go head-to-head against your biggest competitors at first – you’ll want to find gaps and opportunities that they’ve missed or are too big to compete for, like local search terms.
- Visit their websites: By visiting your competitors’ e-commerce sites, you’ll get a quick glimpse into the products that they prominently feature, along with information on their price points, branding, customer reviews, etc.
- Sign up for their emails: If your competitor has a place to subscribe to their emails, go ahead and do so. This allows you to see what promotions they’re running, and on which products. If they don’t have email signup, try referencing their social media channels instead. If a large competitor posts a quick fact on their social media that generates a lot of interaction, perhaps an in-depth examination of the topic would do well among your audience.
The main idea here is to understand how your competitors are pricing and presenting their products so you can find a balance between meeting industry standards and differentiating your products from everybody else.
Hopefully, these ideas will get the gears turning and help lead you to a product people want to buy and that you’re equally excited to sell.
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