Step 1. Choose a niche

You have decided to start your own e-commerce business – that’s great! And you have already found out that dropshipping is the easiest and most convenient way of running online stores. Savvy you are! But where to start?

If you’re going to choose your niche yourself, read on (or watch this video). If you need professional help with it – go here.

Psst! You can scroll down to a time-saving tip at the bottom

Step 1. You should make a list of some ideas for niches. It means that it is time to:

  • Start with yourself and brainstorm what you, your friends and family have recently bought online. Imagine what you would like to buy. Think about your hobbies and things that you love and know.
  • Visit some popular dropshipping directories and study the markets, categories, and products. Big retail platforms like AliExpress and Amazon are also useful. Examine the sections with popular products and interesting finds.
  • Go to Google AdWords and choose the Keyword Planner tool. In the section “Search for new keywords using a phrase, website or category” enter your request, for example, “women clothing”. Then push the button “Get ideas” and study the results.

  • Now cross out those niches that can be seen as illegal or unethical and bring you problems with the payment system and other obstacles.

Step 2. After you have shortlisted the niches a bit, you should evaluate niche potential.

  • Visit AliExpress and filter the products of your niche by rating, free shipping availability and the number of orders. It will show how popular the chosen product is.

  • Enter the name of the chosen niche in the search field of Google Trends and check out the result. An ascending line of the trend for the region that you target is a good sign.

  • Check search volume in Keyword Planner. The best results for you range from 5000 to 50000.If the figure is less than 5000, the niche is not popular enough; and if the search volume is more than 50000, it will be too hard to compete with other sellers.
  • Search on Facebook and Instagram or other popular social media if you can find at least 10 groups with 30K+ followers devoted to your dropshipping niche. If you can, it is a positive sign.

Step 3. Now see that niches left on your list are quite popular, but not too competitive and you can make your choice.

Congrats! Now you are ready for the next step that will help find your place in the dropshipping market.

If you’re still uncertain about what niche to choose – check out this service.

The Time-saving Tip

We have done most of the work above for you and collected and analysed lots of profitable niches and newest demand trends on Dropship Insights: sign up for free and discover promising niches with trends, gender preferences and regions where each niche is most popular.

We also have a large collection of articles in our blog on niche research waiting for you to read them.

Step 2. Define your target audience

When you have chosen a niche, it’s time to find out what kind of people are most likely to become your customers and purchase your products. In other words, you need to define your target audience.  

That will allow you to focus your marketing efforts on offering to those who really need your offer and avoid wasting your funds on marketing to those who are not interested in it.

How to define your target audience

You should find answers to the following questions:

  1. Who are your customers? What do they have in common?
  2. Why do they need your product? What customers’ problem can your product solve?
  3. Can they spend money on your products? What are their buying habits?
  4. Where can you meet your customers? What social media do they prefer?
  5. How can you understand your customers better?

You can answer the questions from your experience and you can use the tools below to find answers on the Internet.

Google Trends

Google collects a lot of information about its users and offers a great free tool that can help you. Google Trends can give you lots of social and cultural indicators, such as age, gender, region, occupation, income level, lifestyle, etc. to make an average customer’s portrait.

The region often determines if your customers can afford your products. This is very important for determining the price policy. Try Google Trends to find out niche’s potential profitability. If you see an upward trend in such regions as the USA and Europe, the niche is promising.

See the results of your search by age. How old are your potential clients? Too young audience rarely have enough money to make impulse purchases (and it is a great part of overall online shopping). Besides, it is not allowed to target ads to non-adults. So you’d better choose a full-aged audience.

Google Analytics

You can analyze your web store customers. Google Analytics will show you how each part of your audience interacts with your site, what devices they use, what attracts them. You will see which site functions do not work in your case, and which are more helpful. With the help of this information, later you will be able to optimize your ads on any platforms.

More Tricks

You can study your competitors. Visit their sites and examine customers’ feedbacks, forums and comments. Read – and bite on that.

Customer reviews and discussions are a valuable source of information. There you can find out what matters much for the customers in such stores. It’s always better to learn from other retailers’ mistakes, isn’t it?

Besides, you must learn the language your customers speak. It means understanding:

  • how they formulate their search queries;
  • what words and expressions they use;
  • what they look for in ads and product descriptions;
  • what arguments persuade them, and so on.

Only if you know the answers, you will manage to choose the right tone of communication, create effective advertisements, attract their attention with your announcements, etc. You can update product descriptions, reviews, and articles. You will be able to communicate with your audience in their language.

That means – you will reach them.

Dropship Insights

We have done most of the work for you and collected and analysed lots of profitable niches and newest demand trends by regions on Dropship Insights: sign up for free and make your choice.

… You Are Just One Store Away