Topic: Member Workshop: How to Increase Your Best Match Advantage through Niche Selling
Host: whatdoisell Date: Tuesday 04/15 Time: 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Pacific time Location: Workshop Board
Description: Selling in a niche has always been the best way to secure a profitable place in the eBay Marketplace. And with the introduction of Best Match, niche selling has become even more important! In this workshop, Lisa Suttora, Founder/CEO of WhatDoISell.com, an eBay Certified Provider will discuss how specializing in a niche can give your listings the Best Match advantage. You'll also learn some new strategies that will get you on the path to finding YOUR own profitable niche to sell in.
Hello and welcome to today’s workshop! I’m Lisa Suttora, the Founder/CEO of eBay Certified Provider WhatDoISell.com.
Selling in a niche has always been the best way to secure your profitable place in the eBay Marketplace. And with the introduction of Best Match, niche selling has become even more important!
Today we’ll discuss how specializing in a niche can give your listings the Best Match advantage. You'll also learn some new strategies that will get you on the path to finding YOUR own profitable niche to sell in.
The workshop content is directly below. After you’ve read through today’s workshop, I’ll be here to answer your questions about selling in a niche, finding YOUR niche market to sell in, Best Match and best business practices.
Many people start out selling on eBay by selling a wide variety of items. In fact, selling things from around the house IS the best way to get started!
But for long term success in the world’s largest online marketplace, you need to find your own smaller “neighborhood” to sell in.
Becoming a nichepreneur, a seller who specializes is the fastest way to long term success. And it will also help to give you the Best Match advantage…
With the introduction of Best Match, eBay sellers who sell in a niche, sub-niche, or micro-niche have in many ways found it to be ‘business as usual’.
Those who sell in large, commodity markets (women’s clothing (non-specialized) ) for example, have found themselves working harder to maintain high visibility in the marketplace.
This is because Best Match is based on ‘relevancy’.
Which listings are the most relevant to the buyer’s search string query.
The more generic your product is, “silver hoop earrings” for example, the more likely those buyer search results are to return thousands of listings and pages and pages of search results.
And the harder you will have to strive (with all the other listings) to get your listing on those coveted first pages of eBay's search results.
Compare this scenario to my friend Colton, who sells merchandise in a highly niched collectibles category.
While he does have competition from other sellers, and a high buyer demand for his products, his niche is small enough that at any given time there are about 10 pages of search results for the products he sells.
Buyers in his niche are happy to search through 10 pages of results to find the product that is right for them.
It took Colton more time upfront to find this niche, but it's paid off handsomely in steady sales on the backend.
Today’s consumers want choice, unique products, customization and specialization. In fact, we discuss this very trend in our free product trends report from WhatDoISell.com. (You can get your copy of this free report at the end of today's workshop.)
Now this is not to say that we’re seeing the end of mass marketed, commodity products.
It’s only to say that buyers are also hungry for something unique. They like new ideas, products and concepts. They like hard to find, obscure, up and coming brands.
And the easiest way to find success as an eBay seller is to offer these kinds of products.
While there are several factors that play into giving your listings the Best Match advantage, before looking at how to optimize your listings and business for Best Match, you have to look at the size of the pond you are 'swimming' in.
If you are selling commodity items with hundreds of other sellers all competing for the same buyer dollar, you’re facing the competitive angle of getting your listings ahead of 68 pages of other listings, all looking for that #1 spot.
If every product you sell is like this, you’ve ended up a small fish in a big pond.
If however, like my friend Colton, you sell in a highly niched category, you’re listings are likely to be regularly be competing with maybe 4 or 5 pages of other listings.
A small enough number that even the busiest of buyers will wade through.
In this case, you have the opportunity to big a big fish in a small pond.
Can you describe it? A niche market is targeted to a specific group of customers with common needs and interests.
For example, if your niche is high-end children’s furniture, you should be able to describe that market:
“Our company provides products and services to customers who buy high-end, top quality, fashionable children’s furniture for children ages 0-14.”
A niche is a distinguishable market that can be uniquely served by an eBay retailer who provides this specialized group of customers with products, services and information.
I frequently get asked this question – “Lisa, it seems like every niche I look into is saturated with products and sellers. Are all the good niches taken? Am I too late?”
While at first glance, it may seem like every good niche that you come up with already has plenty of products for sale and seller competition, I can assure you that all the good niches are not taken!
Why?
Niche markets morph and change constantly. Yesterday’s demand for comfortable, casual cotton “spa clothes” has morphed into today’s consumer desire for eco-friendly “green” spa clothes.
Now this is not to say that finding a good niche to sell in is always easy.
You’ll need to do some research Frequent Idea Hotspots™.
Make it your goal to start looking past the obvious (the iPods, xBoxes and Juicy Couture Jeans) and start looking towards specialized products such as home fitness equipment for seniors, unique microscopes, customized canvas sneakers… and the list goes on.
Broad Target Market: Desks Niche Market: Home office computer desks, chairs and related accessories
Broad Target Market: Bicycles Niche Market: Cycling products for the avid cyclist, including lightweight high-end bikes, clothing and bicycle accessories
Broad Target Market: Skin care products Niche Market: Men’s skin care products
Here are two MUSTS that will help you identify the right niche for you more quickly.
1.Don’t censor your ideas. Every day, in the course of going through your daily activities, you come across hundreds of products related to different niche markets. And while not everything you come across each day will have profit potential on eBay, I guarantee that the average person sees, reads, or hears about at least one profitable niche idea per day.
But what most people do is censor ideas. They rule possible ideas out before doing any research on eBay to see what a product's potential is.
2.You must be looking in order to see. Every day, get in the Product Sourcing Mindset™. You can learn more about this at WhatDoISell.com. Once you’re in the Product Sourcing Mindset™, you’ll see product sourcing differently.
You’ll start to see those ideas for potential niche markets that you come into contact with every day. Most people look right past them.
It’s like the blue Toyota syndrome. It’s not until you decide that you want to buy a 2008 blue Toyota Sienna mini-van that you start to see them EVERYWHERE.
Did they suddenly just appear on the road?
No! They were always there. It wasn’t until they came on YOUR radar screen that you started to notice them.
Seeing opportunities for niches to sell in works much the same way. Once you are officially looking, you will be surprised at how many you see.
I’m new to selling on eBay, when should I start identifying a niche to sell in?
When you first start selling on eBay, unless you have come to eBay with a clearly defined and well-researched niche, you’ll want to start by selling in the “variety store” model.
The variety store model = Selling a variety of products from a diverse selection of product sources.
This accomplishes three critical things:
1. It allows you to get up and running quickly. The most important thing to your success in selling on eBay is to get started!
Often, people have a tendency to over think things from the beginning and delay action. But the opposite it true! Action is the fertile ground that grows thoughts and ideas for potential niches to sell in.
When you take action and start selling things from around the house, from friends and family, discounted retail products etc., your beginning the process of gathering information to identify a niche to sell in.
2. You can begin test-marketing products from different niche markets.
As you start to sell a variety of merchandise, take notes on what products are selling well that can be associated with a niche market.
For example, do you find that the high-quality wooden toys that your children have outgrown are selling well? This could be a potential niche to pursue.
Did you quickly sell that colorful lightweight designer look laptop bag that you recently replaced with another style? This may be a niche to pay attention to!
Maybe you picked up a lot of “sun-screen” swimsuits on clearance from your local boating store, that flew off the shelves like crazy. Jot these ideas down as potential niches to sell in long term.
3. You make money while you are identifying your long term niche.
Identifying a niche to sell in is a process of research and refinement and does not happen overnight. By selling a variety of products while you are researching your niche, you can hone your selling skills on eBay and make money at the same time.
Let’s come back to Best Match and relevancy for a moment.
Online, keywords are king.
Keywords, much more than browsing are the way that the majority of people will find what YOU have to sell.
Therefore, it is important, that no matter what you sell, you pay close attention to the keywords you use to describe the products you sell.
Are they accurate?. Are they relevant to your product? Are you using brand names, model numbers, colors, styles, descriptions, feature names, describing the functionality of the product?
Even if you STOCK the best products in the world, if you are using vague, non-descriptive keywords in your title and listing descriptions, shoppers will be hard pressed to find your products.
The keywords you use don’t just apply to eBay search results! Your listings are crawled by the search engine spiders from Google, Yahoo, MSN and then indexed according to the keywords you use to describe your product.
Using vague keywords hurts you both with eBay’s Best Match criteria as well as with the search engines.
Another advantage to selling in a niche is making a 'best match' with your customers-
When you are selling in a commodities market, to a large, vague, non-specific group of customers, it's impossible to really know what they want.
You don't know what products they want you to carry, it's hard to pinpoint what you can do to foster customer loyalty, and it's even harder to know their preferences on shipping methods, price points etc.
When you have a base of niche customers, you can really communicate with them, and find out exactly what they want from you.
Once you know that information, you'll have customers coming directly to YOUR eBay store and bypassing the comparison shopping they'd otherwise.
We love workshops to be interactive, so please feel free to ask your questions that directly relate to this topic.
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A great book to read that will really help you get a good understanding of what's happening in the mind (and wallet) of today's consumer is 'The Long Tail' by Chris Anderson, the Editor of Wired magazine.
In his book Chris discusses with great examples, how we've moved away from a Top 10 or Top 100 society of consumers and towards a very niche oriented buyer.
Which brings a plethora of opportunities for a nichepreneur.
Hi Lisa - thanks for the preliminary info. I want to sell in a niche; I've been selling a variety of things for a few years. But I have so many niche ideas that I can't seem to pick just one or decide which would be the best profit-wise.
1. yes I am currently selling in a niche-except that many of my products that I have researched are now being sold by other sellers. 2. Also the niche I am in-others who do not sell in this niche are being told to include these types of products which makes it very difficult when the market becomes saturated with the same products. 3. you said to find out from customers what they need from you or what products they would like to have sold.At what point do you ask them this question? 4.TIA for having this workshop.
Hi mrravich, You have a nice assortment of collectibles! Collectibles are an interesting category - because they CAN be niched out - for example, you could specialize in vintage English tea sets.
However, because each piece is a unique item, it's hard to source enough quantity to scale your sales.
One thing you CAN do though is to become an expert in the type of products that you sell the most of.
Become the 'go-to guy' and put emphasis on that. Also, because they are your best sellers, you can really focus in on optimizing your listings and titles with keywords etc.
Hi Lisa, Thanks for being here today! I think I sell in a niche... I specialize in one type of product, Jibbitz shoe charms for Crocs. I believe one obstacle for me is competing with sellers who are selling imitation shoe charms and calling them "Jibbitz"
Can a micro-niche be too small to support you? Is there a good rule of thumb for deciding how narrow your focus should be, and when you should branch out?
Because we sell a product (tiles for gifts and for interior design) that can have any image on them, do we have potential to sell in many niches? We have certain areas we like and do pretty well in--reproducing historical tile designs, for example. But if one of those happens to have a pelican on it, we might get a purchase from a pelican collector. How to make the most of those (as yet) unexpected 'hits'?
Hi dhcatlady , Welcome! There are two categories that people usually fall into when looking to sell in a niche.
1. They struggle to come up with any ideas at all. 2. They have two many ideas and can't decide on one.
The second option is scenario is where you fall into - and the good news is, it's easy to work with.
Here are some steps:
1. Take your list of niches and do some prelinary research on the market demand in that niche. I recommend using a good research tool from an eBay Certified Provider such as Terapeak or Hammertap.
2. Don't spend too much time in this phase, this is just to give you a snapshop of the potential.
3. This exercise will help you see which niche markets have the most profit potential.
4. Pick no more than 3 or 4 to focus on. More than that, and you'll be overwhelmed.
5. Start test marketing some products in each niche. Assess customer demand. Some will catch on and some won't.
Customer will always surprise you with what takes off!
6. Narrow your choices down to two niches and bring in more inventory.
7. If both are doing well, then you can move to assessing which niche is easiest to sell in (in terms of listing, packing, shipping, inventory costs, growth etc.)
I sort of have a nice - accessories and bags. Most of my stuff is things like lunch purses, gym bags, wine carrier bags, cellophane gift bags, plush backpack, etc. But I have some other products as well that don't fit into that niche (like holiday scarves, scrapbooking die cuts etc. Two questiosn: 1) Should I not sell those non-niche items and only focus on those bags?
2nd question - what do you think about going for a specific theme in products. Let's say I was to pick a specific design (for instance animal print, or floral, musical print, or whatever) - would that be a better track and if I do go for a specific print/design in products, should I limit myself only to bags in that print, or should I be open and offer lots of types of products all in that print? Elaine Accessories,Bags,Gifts
Hi Everyone, Just a quick note to let you know that I'm answering all questions in order received - as you can see, I write a detailed reply, so it takes me a bit longer to answer each question.
But I want you to leave with some good, solid, actionable strategies!
This is due in part to so many other sellers selling the same or similar products. Do you have any suggestions for me on how I can "work around" this dilemma?
My husband and I are just getting started in EBay and want to find the best niche for us. What are some ideas to find our "niche"? Thanks, Just-4-You-2
I have a similar problem as Nicole in that all "green " products are not equal. Many are buying what they think is "green" when in fact they still may give off toxins. Also is there any rule to stop sellers from copying and pasting from manufactures sites and using the pic as their item pic? Also what about false advertising. Some have even used the photo as their logo. One example of false advertising is taking a photo of soap next to a box-yet the box in not included in the purchase. You have to read down the item description to find that out. Some of the sellers practices have hurt my sales.
Hi lettinggo444, You are in an excellent niche! (Just took a look at your store.) Great marketing - associating your products with the upcoming Earth Day.
(We've been talking a lot about this at WhatDoiSell.com).
You are correct, your niche is the #1 consumer product trend for 2008 and beyond.
So there is more and more competition. However, this niche growth is just in it's infancy.
I was just recently at the huge Green Show in Seattle and the product innovation in this industry in phenomenal.
What you'll want to do is dig deeper into the niche and be on the leading edge of offering new products as they are released to the marketplace.
There is more competition, but there is also a lot of potential.
Regarding asking your customers what they want to see, I recommend doing this in your signature file in every customer email you send out.
"Something you'd like that you don't see in our store? Click here to let me know! My goal is to bring you the best in quality, selection and value in green products."
You can also do this in your email marketing newsletter.
You would think that a lot of eBay sellers would do this, but 99.9% of people don't.
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