It is a proven fact that all people try to find their place in life to be happy and successful. The same principle also works for business. It is almost impossible to reach out to all audiences for the novices, so niche marketing becomes trending both for ecommerce and small brick and mortar retailers. You should focus on one great idea and find your target market. We gathered several tips that will help you to find your unique product for ecommerce, so let’s begin!

What means the niche in ecommerce?

If you want to go to the marketplace, you should think about what customers you can attract, who needs your product. 

A niche market is a part of a large market with its special needs and requirements, something that differs from others. There are a countless number of niches, and you always can narrow down your audience if you add new conditions for the product. For example, the large market of women’s clothes includes several niche markets: clothes for vegan women, plus-sized, high, stunted, or transgendered.

There are several ways for your niche store that can be your benchmark:

  • Price: products with a discount or something luxury and expensive.
  • Demographics:  age, gender, profession, income level, etc.
  • Product’s quality: handmade, premium, low-cost, from recycled materials.
  • Psychographics: interests, hobbies, values. 
  • Geographics: citizens from certain neighborhoods, cities, or countries. 

According to your niche, you should create your marketing strategy and try to offer your customers the best service and quality than your competitors. 

So, let’s consider what niche markets are the most trending and what the audience can need your products. You can go deeper into each of them and create a unique store with special product opportunities. 

Sustainable consumers

Sustainable consumption is one of the most actual topics in our society. People all over the world think about reducing the impact on the environment and try to change their habits and make their way of life more conscious. So, Neilson’s research shows the rapid growth of sustainable product sales in the US. According to this issue, to the 2021 year sales in this niche can be about $150.1 billion.

The market is changing: if several years ago enterprises could just donate a part of proceeds to the engaged in this process organizations, nowadays they try to make their products more ecological and customers are looking for more secure products. So, you can offer an eco-friendly, vegan, or cruelty-free version of the popular product. There are several examples such kind of niche products:

  • reusable shopping bags;
  • the wrapper of beeswax;
  • reusable drinking straws;
  • bamboo toothbrushes;
  • cruelty-free organic cosmetics;
  • vegan-friendly clothes;
  • menstrual cups;
  • cloth diapers.

Pet owners

Pet owners are a big and solvent niche, as we see from the APPA’s issue, in 2019 in US people spend $95.7 billion on their pets’ needs and to the end of 2020, this number can increase to the $99 billion. You can customize this niche and offer products for certain kind of pets and their way of life. So, you can focus on owners of cats, dogs, fishes, birds, turtles, horses, and more.  

It can be stuff with their images, outfits for pets, toys, beds, and other useful things that help people to take care of their animals. You can add this listing:

  • pet cameras (to look at what pets do when you are not at home and speak with them);
  • GPS trackers for pets;
  • organic food for pets;
  • accessories for pets;
  • accessories and clothes with pet’s photos. 

The LGBTQ community

The LGBTQ community is a very good customer with special needs. They like to buy and are ready to spend more money on what they want, as the CMI survey shows. According to this data, 

86% from LGBTQ community boycott brands that take anti-LGBTQ political or social stands.

79% pay a little more for a product from an LGBTQ-friendly company vs. their competitor.

76% say that the brands they buy tend to be openly supportive of the LGBTQ community.

19% think that it makes no difference to me if a brand expresses supportfor LGBTQ equality.

So, think about what you can offer to this audience according to their needs. It can be:

  • cosmetics for certain types of skin;
  • clothes for certain types of bodies;
  • things with inspiring design.

Travelers

Costs of air travel become lower, so people can be more mobile. It can be business trips, vacations, or a mix of both two kinds of time spending, named bleasure (business and pleasure). So, you can orient of needs of those who work on their trips and require a remote working place, or can choose persons who travel a lot and looking for convenient or eco-friendly trips.

The service Booking.com says that more than half of travelers are environmentally conscious, search for local landmarks, long-term trips, and convenient conditions.

Products that can be interesting for travelers:

  • accessories for content makers (for their smartphones or cameras);
  • scratch maps to gather memories;
  • stickers for suitcases;
  • convenient clothes for flights.

Gamers

It is a very large community and a big field for your business: in its category are included PC gamers, mobile gamers, console gamers, even tabletop gamers. They actively spend their money on their hobby and for a great part of the games become work (we are speaking about cyber game players, streamers and lets players). Another big audience is women gamers and its tendency is growing.

Think about what can be interesting for such kind of persons and offer it to them:

  • convenient and ergonomic products (chairs, controllers, mouses, watches, etc.);
  • accessories for mobile gamers;
  • clothes and other things with pictures on the gamer’s theme.

Homeowners

We don’t mean that you should focus on garden tools or building materials needed to repair. Homeownership is changed, and fewer people are buying large houses. Nowadays houses should be considered as a kind of investment, the source of passive income. So, you can offer something that will be helpful for homeowners or renters. In the area of interior design are popular in several styles, so you can help people to find furniture that belongs to hygge rather minimalism, etc.

Other ideas for homeowners’ niche:

  • security cameras and other devices;
  • furniture for small apartments;
  • solutions for homeowners (for example, smart keys)
  • solutions for renters (something with simple anchors, for example, no-drill blinds).

Remote workers

It’s one of the most fast-growing audiences. It includes office workers who can work from home and self-employed contractors. Remote work helps people create a balance between career and life, increases productivity and level of job satisfaction. Often, remote workers work more than 40 hours per week.

If you want to sell products in such a niche, you should think about their way of life, what can motivate them, make their work more convenient or cheer up. It can be:

  • accessories for a laptop for people who prefer to work at the coffee shop;
  • stuff for a home office, desk decorations;
  • decals or other things with the logo of the company (it helps people feel like part of something great and works like advertising for potential customers).

Local citizens

Your local market also can become your niche, you can offer citizens something that will highlight their identity and origin, or be useful in your region. Even large enterprises use local marketing companies to improve their influence on the marketplace.

Explore the interests of your city and create a special thing for them. So, it can be:

  • t-shirts with prints or slogans local sports team;
  • pins or postcards with the symbol of the town or landscapes.

How to find your niche in ecommerce?

After you finished the analysis of the market, found your niche and products, you can figure out with:

  • products features needed in your niche;
  • products quality;
  • pricing of products;
  • branding;
  • marketing strategy.

Niche ecommerce gives you a great competitive edge: it is simpler to properly introduce your product to a certain audience than try to win the heart of millions of people that used to buy the products of famous brands. So, don’t spray your attention, and don’t waste your breath for this deal.

If you don’t have any idea for your business except for your desire, you can use one of these methods:

  • Google search
  • building mind map
  • keywords research

Let’s take a deeper look at how does it work.

Use Google search

Meeting with your competitors in a certain niche can be the start of your brainstorming. So, choose one product category and consider what’s on the market with the help of Google search.

For example, we search for cruelty-free cosmetics and see that companies also offer vegan-friendly products, gluten-free products, and products, not tested on animals. Look at their assortment and figure out what is missing in this niche. Don’t be afraid of failures and try to figure out “your product”. 

Build mind map

Building the mind map is the variant of brainstorming, it is the way of organizing your thoughts and gathering ideas. Write several versions and explore them to find something interesting and unique. For example, our idea of cruelty-free cosmetics: we can highlight the main ways of cosmetics: it can be products to care for face, hair, body, hands, and feet. Each of these categories can be detailed, for example, products for body care include soap, shower gel, scrub, lotion, and body butter. You can use some apps to build your mind map conveniently and simply. 

Check Google clues

It is a small tip: you can use the Google suggestion as your idea for a niche product. It can be very easy: start typing something in the search and Google offer you several the most popular queries. For example, you can check it: write our “cruelty-free cosmetics for” and you will see that people search for cruelty-free cosmetics for acne, curly hair, sensitive skin, and more. 

If you want to find more Google requests, you can use special instruments, like Keyword Tool or Answer The Public.

Explore key queries

If you have the account for the service Google Ads, you can use an interesting Keyword Planner tool that you can customize for your needs. You will find its icon in the top menu. 

Enter your idea for a niche product and customize your search, for example, by the region. 

With this tool, you can find information about your product’s popularity and its demand. 

If you don’t want to create the profile for Google Ads, you can use Keywords Everywhere, special browser extension, and see the volume of your search.

Search for hobbies communities 

Try to turn one of the hobbies communities into your target market. Look for your communities or search for the most popular ones with the biggest audience. There are several ways to do this:

  • Consider the most popular communities of chapter “Hobbies” on Wikipedia.
  • Find the most active subreddits and overhear about what they speaking.
  • Orient on hashtags on Instagram and Twitter to concretize your assortment.

How to estimate your niche idea

It is the next important step after you chose the niche. You should be sure that you will find your target market and it will be viable. Think about your “plan B” if your product will be less popular or if your niche will be too small. Be ready to develop your brand, to make adjustments in your products, add something new, or change your positioning.  

There are several tips on how to do it:

  • Create your audience and tell them about your product before starting your business. You can do this on Kickstarter, a special platform for startups. You can present your idea, using social networks, emails, and other online resources. Doing so, you can get your followers and find needed attention.
  • Check your idea before investing. You can start with a small batch of products and ask your customers for feedback. Also, you can send your products to influencers in your niche, they can tell you what they think, give some advice, and make advertising. According to this feedback, you can make your product better.  
  • Try to solve one of the problems in your niche. After you research queries, opinions of influencers, and social networks you can go deeper. Give people what they need and try to make the world better if you can do it. 
  • Follow the news in your niche. Check what happens in your market via Nielsen consumer research, Think with Google or Facebook IQ. Follow the needed resources and search for what is trending now. You should be flexible and easy-going. 

You should gain the trust of your customers and show that your product created especially for them. This is your key to success, make it your rule. 

Now you know what you should do for your business, but if you want some additional inspiration, you can check these posts below: