As you begin your business, one of the hardest questions that will come up is “What do I try to sell?” We’ve talked previously on what not to sell, but the harder question still often lies in what exactly you should try and sell. Unlike the majority of the steps towards building a web-based business, this is not a simple linear progression of steps; deciding on a niche for dropshipping can sometimes be described more like an art than a science!
However, that doesn’t mean that we cannot approach it with a somewhat scientific mindset. There are a few things that we can add into a mental checklist to assist us in determining at a glance whether or not it will be worth pursuing a niche idea; I like to call it The Who and The Why of dropshipping niche research.
The Who
First things first, we have to think of who, logically, is going to want to purchase this item. For instance, we might think that that electric singing dinosaur lamp is a great buy, but are there going to logically be a lot of people who will agree? We want to think of potential customer base, and we have to think of if they are really going to be active online. For instance, the extreme, fashion-oriented people out there won’t be caught dead buying things online; for that reason, is it really logical to try and source high end fashion as an Internet site? Thinking of who is going to buy from us will greatly help in weeding out potentially bothersome dropshipping niches right from the get go.
The Why
When we are pretty sure of the customers having a real chance of buying from us, we have to determine what it is that will make them buy a product online, rather than in a store. Heck, we want to know why they’d buy the item in the first place! This brings us again into the very practical side of our dropshipping niche research; what void are we filling? Why would someone be buying our product? Is the product we want to sell something that is a popular gift item? Flatware is a popular wedding item, but also something that people may want for themselves, too. It’s something that they can constantly use, there’s almost always an application for the product. It’s not flashy like a gadget, or trendy like a toy, but it’s something that one can reliably expect to be used, abused, and needed. Item ideas like this really help in narrowing down our dropshipping niche, especially in these times of cutting back. There are near-essentials that almost any customer is interested in, and more often than not they’re an untapped market, as many people prefer to “go big, or go home”, and foolishly discount the lower, but consistent, sale items.
Even with these ideas in mind, sometimes the best way to get things done is just by diving into a dropship supplier and making a checklist. It is not a silly notion to simply take inventory of a supplier’s inventory, and look at the products that you like, and seeing what the demand is. Niche research is not an exact science, and sometimes blind luck has just as much success as deliberate research. The key is not to get discouraged if it takes some time; everything after finding a dropshipping niche is a methodical application and progression of steps. It’s only when we’re starting that we’re having to guess and hope on a wing and a prayer!
For more information about dropshipping, please visit www.gogodropship.com.
