How do you choose the market for your online store (Niche)? 7 practical steps

When you decide to build your online store, the first thing that comes to your mind: how to choose the appropriate market for your store (or what is called Niche). What field will you start your e-commerce business in? Trade in clothes, electronics, accessories, home furniture, or what.

It is not that easy, and once a certain idea comes to your mind you can rely on it to build your store, but there are many factors that you also need to know, such as the standard of competition, the extent of your experience in the market, the amount of purchasing power, and other information that we will explain in the article. We will learn about 7 practical steps through which you can identify the answer to this question, and make the final decision to choose the best market for you.

Article contents: Step #1: Determine your capabilities and goals Step #2: Research

Analysis Step #3: Analyze competitors Step #4: What distinguishes you from others Step #5: Know what people pay for Step #6: Test your chosen niche Step #7: The final decision How do you choose the appropriate e-commerce field? Before you start your path in e-commerce or anything else, you must think correctly, soundly and organized. You must know exactly what you want, what your capabilities are, and what the market wants. Do not make the common mistake that many make, which is thinking about building a store like Amazon or Alibaba with thousands of products and dozens of classifications.

These stores are huge, huge, and contain everything, but at one time they were small stores and they started from where you will start now. In order to work on a large (niche) market, you will need great resources and great capabilities, but for beginners it will always be better to work and focus in a specialized field. Some will say that fewer products mean fewer sales and fewer opportunities, and this is true, but it will be easier, your effectiveness in marketing and achieving sales will be greater, and the cost will be lower. There are a group of interconnected things that you must do to determine the best field or niche that you can work on. Step #1: Determine your capabilities and goals. One of the important things that helps you determine the appropriate market is to identify a list of things that you have a passion for or possess knowledge of. E-commerce is a long road and requires patience to achieve sales and success, so it would be better to choose a field that you have passion or knowledge for, so that you can know its strengths and weaknesses.

You can first make a list of the specializations in which you have skill or knowledge. For example, do you like cooking, or do you like exercising, or follow technology news and technical matters? You can initially write in the list the possibility of making a niche about things related to cooking or, for example, about sports equipment. You can move on now and think about the things that you have knowledge about, for example, you have knowledge of electrical appliances or knowledge of telephone devices or other things. So also write a list of things you have knowledge in, then think about the things you are currently doing in reality and the things you plan to do in the future, and try to connect the things together.

For example, you currently own a store that sells clothing, or you are currently a student in the College of Engineering or Medicine, or you do not work or you only work on the Internet, etc. Write that down in the list. Now you have a list that contains what you like to do and what you have knowledge about, in addition to your current work and future plans. For example, we can define the initial list with the options we have, as in the following image: It is clear from collecting and linking the information in the previous image that the most appropriate market (niche) for this person is what relates to technical matters in general, as he has knowledge of them and has a passion for technical matters and is currently working on them as well as thinking about them in the future. Therefore, the first step here will be to determine the general niche, which is related to technology matters or technical matters.

After determining the general niche, we must think about what is the appropriate specialization to start an online store with, because the field of technology or technical matters is very broad. You can create a store to sell computers and laptops, or to sell mobile devices or accessories, or to sell modern technical devices, cameras, PlayStation devices, watches, smart devices, printers, screens, and many, many more options. So you start here by making the second list, which contains, for example, 3-10 areas of options that you are thinking about starting and working with, for example, cameras, laptops, and mobile devices. This list, too, is considered a second general niche, because each one of them contains a large number of subcategories. We will call this list the second list (the second niche), and we must now do some research in general about these sections, to know what suits us from them.

Now that we have made the second list, we will need to do some research and some steps before determining the specialized niche or the final niche. Ultimately, we are looking for profit and sales, so we should not choose a niche that does not achieve profit or sales, so we must take the following steps on each of the second niche options (computers, laptops, and mobile devices). We will take as an example mobile devices, as there are many classifications within them, for example (Apple, Sony, Huawei, Samsung, or other phones). We consider it the third niche. Step #2: Research and Analysis. Now we have a dedicated niche, which is (selling smart phones). If there is great potential, this large niche can be adopted and an online store can be created to sell all types of smart phones from (Apple phones to Samsung, Sony, Huawei, or others), but you can specialize in a more specialized market such as (selling Apple phones only or selling Sony phones only) and so on.

After defining the market in your imagination, you will move to a practical step, which is knowing the size of customer demand for this market, and we will rely on that with some tools. First, we can search through the Google search engine itself, H, Google Suggestions. For example, if you go to the Google search engine and type “mobile devices, phones, or any word that is synonymous with the meaning,” a list of Google suggestions for what is being searched for will appear, and you can go deeper and deeper into your search.

In the previous image, a list of Google suggestions appeared to us, and next to it is the search rate for each of the suggestions. You must record the values ​​that appeared to know the search rate for each of the targeted words in order to compare them. In order for these side values ​​to appear, you can use the keywordseverywhere tool, which is an add-on that you can add to your browser. There is also the Keyword Surfer add-on, which also gives you some information that helps you in the search process. There are also some tools that help you in analysis, such as the ubersuggest tool, where you type the word you want to search for, and the country you want. It will give you a lot of information, such as the search rate for the target word or the difficulty of competing for it, as well as how much the payment will be for the targeted word, etc.

You can use one or all of these previous tools, depending on the amount of data you obtain. Do not neglect to follow up on everything new. It is important to keep up with your target market on an ongoing basis, and to know everything that is new or popular, everything that is searched for a lot, and what are the things that are most searched for, so that you know what to decide. In this case, you can use the Google Trend service to find out what the market trends are. The market varies from moment to moment, ups and downs, and the Google Trends tool helps you through which you can know these trends in the country you want and the region you want.

Search social media platforms. After that, you can first go to Facebook, Twitter, Quora, or other platforms, or follow some influencers in your industry and monitor the content they provide, then do some research there about the fields related to the niche you want. Search the pages and see the products and interaction between users. Pay attention and write down notes about important products and goods or those that the public is interested in, so you can use them to customize the contents of your store’s market.

Step #3: Competitor Analysis Now that you have taken the step

Previously, by analyzing and researching phones and their sales percentage in general, as well as for each type of phone, you will need to research and analyze your competitors in the same field. Search in online stores that sell phones and mobile phones, or search in stores that specialize in each type of mobile phone. Look for people who have similar products to yours or stores similar to the one you want to create.

Study and analyze their products, the keywords (products) they target, what products they have the most demand for, what are the most expensive or cheapest products. Where do they get their products from?

What brands do they rely on?

You can use the same previous tools, and you can also use the SEMrush tool (which gives you many options for research and analysis). We advise you to create spreadsheets to put all the information you obtained in order to study it well.

Step #4: What distinguishes you from others You should

You always try to step outside the box to stand out from other store owners with a little creativity. What problems do people face? Try to help them.

For example, do you have the ability to provide free shipping? Can you offer offers and gifts if you choose this field? People always love gifts and offers, and the possibility of comments and participation in offering opinions and suggestions.

Think about what you can offer them, and what problems you can help them with, when you choose the field or niche you want. Step #5: Know what people are paying for Ultimately, you want to sell and make money from your store and nothing else. Think about what people will pay for and display it in your store.

While you are searching for products and goods, you should also look for prices. Will the niche you choose bring you profit, and will people pay money for it? Monitor and record competitors' product prices. Analyze the nature of their prices. Do they have expensive or cheap products? Then make predictions about what you can profit or achieve in sales.

Step #6: Test your chosen niche in this

At this stage, you will have finished studying the market and studying all sections and competitors, and you will now have a comprehensive vision of the good areas within the mobile device niche. For example, suppose that after researching, you came to the conclusion that the most popular and in-demand devices on the market are Samsung and Huawei devices. Before you start creating the site completely, you must create landing pages, which are a page where you promote a specific product and through which you can know the conversions and visits to this product.

Or you can conduct a survey or questionnaire about the niche you have chosen on Facebook or anywhere else related to your store. Thus, you can find out what is the most suitable niche for you in all aspects. Step #7: The final decision. At this stage, you will have chosen the main niche, and then you have been able to determine the sub-niche, and you have analysed, researched, and done all the steps, and now you have tables of data to study. After that, you will be able to select the most customized niche, and here you also have to repeat the same previous steps of analysis and research, in order to be able to choose the final niche.

At this moment, things should be simple and clear to you. For example, after researching and investigating the final niche, it turned out that Samsung phone devices are the most sold and in demand, followed by Huawei devices, then Apple and Sony. Therefore, your final decision will be to create an online store to sell Samsung devices, and you can then expand and sell more devices, or you can create a second store for a second type of device. Also, if you have the ability, you can create a store that sells all types of devices, but it is preferable to specialize in the beginning and then expand because you are trying to start with the least capabilities in the beginning.

In the end, choosing the primary market for your store is a necessary step in the foundational plan for your entry into the world of e-commerce. Do not underestimate this step and take the decision randomly, but wait until you have done the research and analysis to the fullest extent and your decision is based on valuable information.