When I was getting my start online one of the pain points that seemed to come up over and over again was how to choose the right e-commerce niche. My decision making process would often go like this:
- Get an idea for a product; physical or digital.
- Do a quick online search.
- Become discouraged to find that my product, website, or idea already existed.
- Think about ways to position my product or offering to a different group of buyers.
- Search for passion niches or interest groups that I could market my product to.
- Get distracted by an overwhelming number of ideas and elect to wander into the black hole of the internet.
- Become increasingly overwhelmed. Get frustrated. Give up and go drink another cup of coffee.
It gets worse. Often times I would find myself getting so excited about my most recent idea that I would skip researching all together. Instead I would buy a domain name, build a Shopify store, even create product mockups or buy inventory and wait patiently for buyers to roll on in. Guess what, a week later with no buyers and a short attention span, I would decide that my idea wasn’t that great and close up shop.
Today when I get the question “how do I choose the right e-commerce niche for my online business?” my answer is quite different.
Choosing the Right Ecommerce Niche
It is hard to create demand. It is much easier to find demand and create products to fill it.
Generally speaking, it is much easier to find existing demand and create a high quality offering to serve your target audience than it is to create new demand. There are plenty of rewards to be gained by gaining the first mover advantage when creating demand but you also open yourself up to more risk. You may find yourself building something that no one really wants which wastes your time and money.
If your aim is to hit the ground running and start building an online business this week, then selecting a niche with existing demand is likely the better option for you.
A niche is the general topic that is representative of a subset of a market. Taking the time to choose the right niche will help you segment your target audience and act as a guide for building your business.
Every niche is different and you are not limited to one niche. In fact, one of the best ways to hyper-define your target customer and learn about their unique needs is by combining multiple niches.
The more successful you are at defining your target audience the more likely you are to find ways to serve them. Go deep rather than wide!
Questions to ask yourself:
- Let’s start with the obvious; what are you passionate about? Is there a topic that you wouldn’t mind spending hours and hours learning about and talking about?
- What are you naturally drawn to?
- What types of products and services do you make impulse decisions about buying?
Pick Your Passion Niche
Not sure where to start? Don’t worry, that is the point of this article. To help you get started, I’ve put together an extensive list of potential niches and sub-niches to get you started. And when you are ready to start your e-commerce business make sure to check out this post on how to Start A Print On Demand Business Today!
Broad Niches
| Arts & Crafts | Collectibles & Fine Art | Entertainment | Tools and Craftsmanship | Family & Life Events |
| Automotive & Vehicles | Electronics | Gardening | Toys & Games | Studies |
| Babies | Food & Cooking | Household Pets | Professions | Religion |
| Beauty & Personal Care | Health & Well-being | Animals | Hobbies | Fantasy |
| Books | Household, Home & Kitchen | Technology | Ethnicity | Relationships & Dating |
| Fashion | Science | Sports & Outdoors | Causes | Business & Finance |
| Career | Education | Self Development |
Subcategories – Niching Down
Now let’s go a little deeper! As this list is quite long here is a brief sample of Sports & Outdoors subcategories.
| Swimming | Running | Walking | Diving | Base Jumping |
| Skydiving | Baseball | Football | Soccer | Volleyball |
| Badmitton | Racquetball | Shuffleboard | Cornhole | Scuba-diving |
| Spearfishing | Deep Sea Diving | Rugby | Lacrosse | Cheer |
| Competitive Dance | Snowboarding | Rock Climbing | Mountaineering | Hockey |
If you want the full list in excel format feel free to download it for free here:
Finding a passion niche for your e-commerce business doesn’t have to be hard. Sometimes you just need some help getting started. If you liked this post and want to learn more about selecting a niche for your ecommerce business let me know in the comments below.