Are you just opening your store but don’t know how to kick it off? One can get lost in deciding between having a winning product or a niche. Read on to see which one suits your business model more.
You are able to read many articles on our blog about how to start a Shopify store, how to do marketing correctly, how to find your niche etc. Well, here is another educational article about online stores, just to get you going in e-commerce.
Becoming an online retailer and quitting your 9-5 job is not as easy as Gurus and other Shopify entrepreneurs say. Earning 6 figures will not happen overnight. You need to be persistent, creative and get ahead of your competitors to steal potential customers from them (not literally, tho…). But how can you do it? First of all, you need a topic, a market for your store so it will be easier to manage and advertise online. However, there are two approaches today that seem to be contrasting with each other, which are the question of a winning product or a superb niche. There are many drawbacks and obviously, advantages for both of them, let’s take a look into why one is better than the other, so you will see which one is the right choice for you.
A winning product
What is a winning product exactly? Is it something brand new on the market? Or is it something revolutionary? Not necessarily. Winning products are the ones that are able to solve a problem for the customer. These are objects that the buyer can use to alleviate/ decrease/ tackle/ terminate/ heal/ improve/ upgrade a problem/ an illness/ pain/ discomfort/a situation/an object/ a feeling. It does not matter how long this item is on the market, whether it is big or small. The most significant aspect is that there should not be other or similar products available near your target market that would affect their lives in the same way. This is the main reason why those winning product stores fail if they do not conduct proper market research. How would you know that people indeed need that item? How would you know that it really has the expected effect on the buyer? Don’t lose this principle out of your sight, because you can hurt your own business aims by it.
You need to ask not only your friends and family if they need that specific item in their life. They already know your dreams and aspirations. Of course, your mommy would buy an item from your store! Do a proper research. Create a questionnaire, spread it and analyze the results. Although do not ask questions involving the future. Always ask retrospective questions, for example: How many times did you spend more than $50 on a face mask? When was the last time you purchased a luxury sandal? How did you feel before you started taking that slimming tea? Did you like the outcome? etc. People are more prone to be way too optimistic when they glimpse into the future.
The reasoning behind the winning product strategy
Why online retailers use this strategy to boost their business? How can one single product make you a billionaire? Great question, but apparently, many entrepreneurs succeeded like this. Shopify claims to have many store owners who made millions by selling only one item. You can read about their stories here. Experts of winning product stores state that the key behind this strategy is to test your chosen products. Create an eye-catching advertisement for the product, run it on Facebook and Instagram and see how it sells. If it’s not, you need to find another one. Basically, you do this process until you find the product that can generate you a huge profit rapidly, then you can build your whole store and marketing around that single object. It is as simple as that.
However, one can rightfully ask: What happens when the items become oversold and out-of-date? Hopefully, you already generated a lot of money from your previous winning product, so your budget is broader for marketing. You need to start the cycle from the beginning until the next great market-driven item pops up. Many people make jokes out of this topic, posting on social media about impossible and illogical products, however, some items are quite inventive that can be a great idea for your store:
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Niche
What is a niche exactly? It is a gap in the supply of products or services, even though there is a great demand for a gap-filler product. Basically, it is a market segment, where people are in need of a solution to their problem, but there is no solution provided yet or it is out of their reach. You need to recognize this opportunity and find a supplier or manufacture your own products to satisfy this gaping hole in the market. It is not strictly a single product, as in the case of the winning product, but a product or service type which is not available or is very underdeveloped with low competition in a certain region.
Similarly to the case of the winning product, you need to do a fair amount of market research to find and define this opportunity. The advocates of the niche strategy claim that it is true that finding a niche is harder than finding a winner product, but you do not have to change your whole business strategy when a new competitor appears. You do not have to start the process over again form the beginning because a creative facelift on your marketing campaign will suffice.
How can you succeed?
Have you read about a recent rumor around drop shipping stating that it is oversaturated and impossible to penetrate? Well, if you approach e-commerce with a get-rich-quick mindset and you want to build your store and make your first sales until your Shopify trial lasts, in order not to pay a subscription, you will have a very hard time, pal. You need to invest money in your store, you need to care about it, you need to brainstorm ideas and execute them, just to mention a few tasks you will have, which do not appear out of the blue. Read our other article to know how you can avoid closing your store because of the lame and overrated advice from the so-called gurus and VAs.
All things considered, we can conclude that it is totally up to you which approach you choose because there is no difference in the turnover. Either you vote for the winning product or the niche strategy, it all comes down to great marketing at the end. You cannot have a successful store without letting people know about its existence. You need to be on social media, create valuable content for your audience to educate and persuade them about how your offers can benefit them. Don’t forget that you must give them something that of value in order to succeed. You can also find another article about how to evade serious marketing failures that hinder your store from being profitable rather than making it a huge hit.
Last but not least, test, test, and test. Run different campaigns for different products, but always note when you changed the settings and what did you alter so as to be able to see positive and negative spikes in your statistics. Only stop and finalize your decision about the winning product or niche when the ROI is high and people are buying from you.
