Finding a profitable niche is not a snap! Ensure traffic of qualified prospects that will turn into customers. Opt for a niche market that will take the pressure off the competition or big budgets. In this article, we map out the path to finding your niche by listing best practices in several aspects of your business. Discover the importance of your choice and how to have a short list of profitable niches to launch.
Why look for a niche before starting a business?
If you set up your business without knowing what you are going to sell, you risk losing time and the impact of good communication. Indeed, without a product range to promote, your business will feel like an empty shell, for several reasons. Starting with a niche market will allow you to get used to the reality of the field by optimising your strategy.
The choice of your niche influences the identity of your e-commerce
If you decide to research your niche before setting up your business, this first step will give your business a soul and impact all aspects of your shop. Building your catalogue should be the top priority. Beyond the web, your e-commerce raison d'être will give you the foundations of an identity of your own.
For example, it is very difficult to articulate a business model without having found your winning product. For the search for your niche, the reasoning is similar. What needs are you going to satisfy among your customers? Which community will you impact with your business? You need to have an identity and marketing that is adapted to the niche market you want to test. Follow our best practices to build solid traffic and sales.
Your niche determines your numbers at all levels
Depending on your strategic decisions, your dropshipping niche may have fairly tight limits or almost endless possibilities. For example, if you have big ambitions to scale your online business and you choose the wrong niche, you may face significant challenges. The competition may overtake you based on :
- Market size ;
- Product profitability ;
- Logistical ease.
In addition to defining your business model, the choice of your niche market imposes a certain framework on your SEO strategy. Your budget will make all the difference, especially when it comes to netlinking (for sites with equivalent content and technical optimisation). You may be tempted to cut corners on a few links, while other big players in the market may wipe out your efforts with their semantically flawless Private Blog Networks (or PBNs). Mastering SEO is the most solid way to attract traffic and customers.
For example: by choosing to position yourself in the sale of yoga equipment, you will have many more opportunities for queries to exploit on Google, and therefore more potential entry points to your site. The competition will be stronger and will be able to inject more resources. On the other hand, with a niche product such as "unicorn" pyjamas, you will quickly be limited in your catalogue but the places will be easier to take. The competition will also be weaker.
Where to start looking for your niche?
What is the ideal niche? It is a market that has not yet been exploited in depth by large companies. The perfect niche is untapped with many available SEO queries whose search volumes are low enough not to attract the attention of the bigger players. If you choose such a product niche, it is quite possible to be profitable on it, but take into account its limit in terms of search volumes: traffic will be low at the beginning and customers rather rare. If not, let us give you some tips on how to search for your niche without making mistakes.
Set a tempo on your niche: will you choose seasonal or evergreen?
The choice is yours! Do you prefer to work seasonally or with a niche product that your target group always needs throughout the year? Each strategy has its advantages and disadvantages, and you will inevitably have to adapt your marketing and management differently depending on the type of niche product you choose to sell to your customers.
To get an idea of the timing of different niches, consider using the figures Google Trends will give you. For example, dropshipping stationery products will work all year round, with a peak at the beginning of the school year and a dip during the summer. Swimwear will guarantee you a high volume during the summer holidays, while a niche on scented candles will work all year round.
Define your ambitions: should you choose a big niche or an easy one?
As well as knowing where your ambitions lie, be realistic about how much you can afford. Indeed, looking for a niche among the biggest ones with a low budget implies that you will have to hold on for the long term because your progress will be slow and limited. On the other hand, a niche with little competition will offer you more potential for exploitation, but be aware that your site will get less traffic.
Search for your niche: find the best ideas around you!
You'll be surprised how easy it is to find the best ideas for brainstorming your product niche! Here are some places to find inspiration.
Google is your best friend: to find your e-commerce niche too
Don't spare any effort in researching your niche on Google. Type in ideas, concepts, keywords as they come to you. It's not the SERP as it stands that will interest us. Rather, it is Google' s suggestions: they will allow you to have long tail queries in order to position yourself more precisely on your niche products.
For example: if you type in the word "panties", by association ofideas and following the suggestions of long lines given by Google, you will reach the term "menstrual panties". And if you search a little further, you will come across "menstrual panties for cats". This can be a promising niche, as pet owners often have large budgets allocated to their pets!
Also, be sure to note the results in Google Ads: these queries are often interesting to the point of being monetised, and therefore inspiring for you.
Your daily life will inspire you to find your market niche
Your answer may not be on the internet. Turn off your computer and talk to people close to you, and not so close. Chances are you will find one or more opportunities that meet the needs of a certain community. It's up to you to work out if selling these niche products is an effective way of marketing.
For example, your child attends a scouting club or practices a sport where the equipment is nestled... You can then analyse the needs of your target in real conditions and this passionate community will have a potentially high purchasing power for these activities.
Don't reinvent the wheel: look for your niche among market leaders and marketplaces
Why is innovation not a good idea when looking for your niche? Existing markets, however small, prove that there is a supply and, above all, a demand. Your goal is to make your dropshipping or e-commerce shop profitable with another business model. Save time by taking inspiration from those who are successful in their niche. Some big players have a huge catalogue of unrelated products. They are "generalists".
This means that if they are making a profit by adopting a general marketing strategy, you could place yourself on one of these niches in a specialised and exclusive way. Your SEO will then be accurate thanks to semantically laser-cut content; enough to make you look like an expert in the field in the eyes of Google.
How about anticipating the future? Find a predictive niche to surf on tomorrow's demands
Are you a movie fan who knows that a blockbuster is coming out in the next few months? If it's a saga, you can bet that a community of fans will be rushing to buy goodies and T-shirts. The same goes for the release of a video game or even a world sporting event!
The advantage of doing this in advance is that you will be one of the first to position yourself in this temporary but potentially very lucrative niche market. The competition will take a little time to catch up with you in natural referencing: find future opportunities quickly and plan your advertising onsocial networks now!
Researching your niche means ensuring that your idea is valid and viable. How can you do this?
You have finished brainstorming and now you want to check that your ideas are viable. The problem is that you have your nose to the grindstone and you don't know how to separate your concepts into good ideas and bad ideas. Here are some tips on how to determine if you have your niche dropshipping business idea.
Validate your niche by analysing volumes and possible queries
For the given niche, open several search engines, investigate the keywords associated with it, and don't hesitate to use powerful tools such as SemRush. You will then have the search volumes, related ideas and you can deduce the scalability of your future business.
Benchmarking your competition is a good way to confirm the viability of your niche
Researching your niche means looking at what the competition is doing, inevitably. With the first key queries you have identified from the trend, look for the most influential players in that market.
Here you will find a wealth of information that is very useful for your marketing. What is their positioning? Are their offers matchable by your company? How do you feel about the task at hand: do you feel you are facing an opportunity or a dead end?
Ensure that you can adapt marketing beyond an SEO strategy
SEO strategy is undeniably a profitable lever for the growth of your online shop. However, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Also take care of your advertising campaigns(ads) and spread them over several channels(Facebook Ads, Google Ads and other social networks). Do A/B testing and target your customers where they are.
Of course, SEO is a cheaper solution than advertising to increase your visibility and traffic. Make sure you have the financial and human resources to achieve them (a big ads budget does not replace solid skills on the subject). One last important point to check in order to advertise: your niche must be composed of products that comply with their use policy (controversial or sensitive subjects will be striked by the platforms).
Check the reliability and profitability of suppliers
This is the great fear of ethical dropshipping businesses: finding the right supplier who is responsive, flexible and reliable can be a real struggle. Now that you know the range of products you will be selling, make sure you source your goods from people you can rely on. These niche dropshipping suppliers should also remain competitive and give you the edge over your competition.
Eliminate niches where the logistics are too cumbersome
After reviewing the analyses that validate your niche, let's explore the pitfalls to avoid. Researching your niche means finding a businessidea that quickly becomes profitable on a defined product range. However, it is difficult to be profitable on products that pose many logistical constraints.
As we discuss in our article on winner products, remove from your future shop any product that is too complicated or expensive to handle logistically.
For example, fragile, heavy, potentially dangerous or regulated products will cost you time and money. Forget about growing a business with so many handicaps from the start!
Avoid sensitive issues
Beware that Google (and other search engines) may restrict your marketing reach if you choose a business related to sensitive topics. On the following topics, make sure you know what you're talking about and are an expert on the subject, or risk being punished by the search engine giant:
- Emotional well-being ;
- Health ;
- Safety ;
- YMYL " content (" Your Money or Your Life "This acronym covers topics that affect the health, well-being or stability (mental or financial) of readers. It is therefore essential to have real expertise on these subjects and to really want to help your target.
In conclusion: how to search for your e-commerce niche, taking into account all the subtleties?
Searching for your e-commerceniche is as exhilarating as it is time-consuming! In this article we have seen how choosing your niche impacts your business identity, your marketing strategy and your numbers.
Then, we proposed several selection criteria to find your ideal niche. For example, will you want to develop a seasonal or evergreen business? Would you prefer a niche that is easy to enter but not very popular, or a large niche with a lot of competition and a lot of money?
This initial reflection will allow you to orientate your research. By the way, where should you look for inspiration when searching for your niche?
- Your daily life
- Marketplaces and big marketplayers
- The big predictable events.
Once you have your shortlist of niche ideas, all you have to do is sort them out by confirming or eliminating the viability of the niches. To validate your ideas, think of :
- Analyse the potential of queries and search volumes;
- Assess your financial ability to mix SEO and SEA;
- Check that no niche will pose a logistical constraint;
- Leave sensitive issues to experts in their field (if you are not).
We hope that our comprehensive article has been able to enlighten you on the process of finding your e-commerce niche. The next step is to turn your idea into reality and build your online shop. Because you will soon have a thousand and one things to manage, entrust us with your website project: as specialists, we will accompany you from A to Z. Our goal? That you can start your e-commerce with peace of mind thanks to an operational e-commerce site that is fully optimised for referencing and user experience.
Contact us quickly to get a quote!
