This is the third post in our Sourcing for Independence series! Welcome back! Did you miss the other two? I put them on our blog for you to read. Check them out here in the blog.
In the first we talked about what sourcing actually is and the second, the importance of getting legal. This one, it’s all about Choosing What to Sell. This is very important to the success of your business and it honestly doesn’t really matter where you want to sell. The methods are still mainly the same.
Most online businesses fail, because the seller immediately wants to sell products that are already saturated online or have their heart set on products they can’t legally get to resell. Don’t make this mistake!
Two of my more popular blog posts: “Do Your Homework before Deciding What to Sell Online” & “Just Because Someone Else is Selling it, Doesn’t Mean You Can!” has opened many online sellers’ eyes as to why they should avoid many things that they love or things that they just have this gut feeling would sell well. You can’t trust your “gut” on this and often times you can’t sell what you love. You really have to do product research!
Market Research in a nutshell is deciding if a product will:
1. Make you money and
2. Fit your budget
You have to do keyword research, competition research, profit research and advertising research.
– Keyword Research is how customers will find you.
– Competition Research is checking out the other sellers in your space and checking to see if you can compete with them and learn from them.
– Pricing Research helps to identify your profit margins, inventory requirements and break-even points.
– Advertising research helps you to understand traffic costs like the cost of keywords to use if you decide to pay for advertising.
All of these things help you determine if a product is a good idea to sell and if it will fit your budget to sell them. Many new online sellers have to rely on paid advertising for customers to find you more quickly and while your site gets better indexed in the search engines for your SEO keywords. All of the research you conduct also helps with your SEO!
What types of products SHOULD you research? Well obviously stay away from mainstream products like electronics or brand name clothing. These products are already highly saturated, and guess what? You usually can’t find a dropshipper for these! Competitors that sell electronics and brand name clothing have BIG budgets & are usually required to buy in large volumes from the suppliers. You simply cannot compete in these particular product arenas.
You have to find your niche and build your site around that niche. Niches are focused, non-mainstream products that are perfect for small online business owners. Many large companies don’t offer a lot of different niche products & there are still PLENTY of customers out there for those products. Plus, since the larger companies aren’t focused on those products, you can afford to advertise.
To identify a Niche Product, you have to drill down to the niche. That means making lists of products to get to it.
1. Main Product Category like Baby Products
2. Sub-Category like Baby Food, Baby Health, Baby Transportation, Baby Toys, Educational Baby Products and etc.
3. Take one of those sub-categories and research that. Like Transportation.
4. Niche products would be: carriers, strollers, car seats, slings and etc.
Another example:
1. Main Category: Home Décor
2. Sub-Categories; Lighting, Wall Décor, Furniture, Bedrooms, Bath, Kitchen, Floor Items.. etc.
3. Take one of those sub-categories like Floor Items and research that.
4. Niche products would be; tiles, carpeting, floor mats, hardwood, throw rugs, area rugs etc..
To get ideas of what to sell to then conduct your research, you should really start with the wholesalers you have available to you and that you KNOW will supply you products as an online store owner.
So where you do find those? With a Worldwide Brands Directory membership of course! Get access to over 8000 wholesale suppliers that represent more than 16 MILLION product types and we add new suppliers every business day!
Members also get Product Research Help in the Market Research section! We have worked with a great company for learning how to pick the right products to sell, (check out Sell Niches here!) It’s a truly valuable resource to our members and you don’t have to take our word for it. You can read what people have to say in our Member’s Only Forum too when you are a member.
Not a member yet? We are running an Independence Day Discount, so now is great time to join!
It’s a One-time fee for a LIFETIME membership.
Check it out here: http://www.worldwidebrands.com