Choosing the Right Product

When you first start your online business, the first and most obvious (and to be honest, difficult) question you will ask yourself is this — what am I going to sell? Points to consider when deciding the answer to that question are:

·    Is the product light and easy to ship?
·    Is it a digital good that is downloaded (e-book or software)?
·    Is it perishable or fragile?
·    Does it have to be seen and held (designer fabrics, perhaps)
·    Is there enough demand to make your venture profitable?
·    Does it have little competition from large online companies (niche products)?

The last two characteristics are the ones that can be most difficult to pin down. Here is a generally accepted method of arriving at an idea of how heavy the demand and competition is for a product.

If you have a special interest in some products that meet the above criteria, great, but don’t limit your investigation just to items you like. You are trying to run a business, not have a hobby. You should be looking for a niche product with relatively high demand (enough to make it profitable), but without heavy competition.

One way to see what the demand is for products you are interested in is to look at search engines to see how frequently people search for the product you are considering.

The result of all your research should be that one or more products will fit into a niche market – products with some demand, and relatively little supply. For the best results, focus on one niche product category, and offer a wide selection. That way, you can become the best online source for that particular category. For example, instead of offering general craft supplies, offer the widest possible selection of needlepoint kits. This strategy will also allow you to rank higher in search engines because you can optimize your pages for fewer, more specific, keywords.

Although finding a hot trend market is not complicated, for the newcomer it is not always as easy as it is sometimes made out to be and can be a daunting first step. It takes plenty of research, and persistence to find a product (or group of products) to sell that will make you money. To help get your creative juices flowing, I’d like to share five markets that are still relatively untapped. Niche markets that may seem to be very precise and difficult to find products for are often some of the best. Here are five niche market ideas that are still hot enough for you to begin profiting from.

Niche Market Idea #1: Heart Rate Monitors

These are used by professional athletes, gym devotees and by the vast numbers of people who need to track their heart rate on a daily basis. The babyboomers aren’t getting any younger, and as a market group they are getting to be more health concious as they age. When it starts getting closer, everyone fears the end.

Why this Could be a Hot Trend Market

• They have a 75% success rate on eBay for listed to sold products.
• They are lightweight and easy to ship and store.
• One size fits all.

Niche Market Idea #2: Plus Size Maternity Wear

Another plus-size item with huge success on eBay.  By the way, eBay can be a great indicator for success, but don’t think that eBay is the only place to sell. Think about setting up your own ecommerce site and getting tied in with dropship companies. Kijiji and Craigslist are solid markets to tap in to as well, especially if you research the demographics of a local region to advertise in

It’s a profitable niche because:

• You never run out of customers with this one, people always get pregnant.
• Clothing items are easy to ship anywhere as they light and not fragile.
• And let’s be brutally honest, the American public is not getting thinner.

Niche Market Idea #3: Antique  Music Boxes

These collectible items are great because antiques are always in demand, and these are generally small enough to ship with limited cost even though fragile.

They are a hot niche market because:

• You’ll appeal to both collectors and home decorators
• They have a reasonably high eBay success rate
• You can often pick these up very cheaply from flea markets and yard sales, then sell them online to make a profit
• Again, outside of eBay, Kijiji and Craigslist can open up a large list of potential customers.

Niche Market Idea #4: Military Collectibles

Collectibles always make great niches and you can do extra research to find the most popular to sell.
If you want to know what’s really popular at this writing, go for US military insignia from the Vietnam War–very big on eBay right now.

Why military insignia makes an excellent niche:

• It rarely dates or goes out of fashion. In fact, that is why it is a hot niche.
• There are a great many sub-niches to discover, like Japanese war medals or World War II posters.

These niche markets are likely to remain hot because the demand level is generally high, (or at least steady) for these items, yet when compared to ringtones, DVDs or electronics in general, the competition is only moderate to light.

Hot trending niche products are the way to go for new sellers. There are many hot trending niche markets and sub-niche markets out there, and there really is no shortage of opportunities if you’re willing to put in the time to research the market. It does take practice to be come good at spotting hot trending niche markets and capitalizing on them, but no more so than any other valuable skill worth learning. Keep in mine, you didn’t hop on your first bike and win Tour De France.

Online marketing of products is NOT a get-rich-quick scheme, it is a skill that needs to be practiced and honed.

According to WSJ’s sources Carol Bartz was fired after the board spent two weeks studying the company’s assets  and concluding that Bartz was doing a very poor job. If this is really true, one wonders what on earth the board has been doing for the past two years, while pretty much everyone else concluded the same thing. Maybe the board needs to follow Carol Bartz out the door…

As statement of fact – there is no quick fix for Yahoo. The company needs to accept and ultimately embrace the fact that it is now a media, content, and communications company, and make heavy investments in those areas. It needs to radically streamline itself cutting out dead weight and poor performing divisions. And it needs a leader with a clear produt vision for the Yahoo brand, and the ability to execute and follow through on it.

The trouble with the above prescription is that, if the board is equally happy to just sell Yahoo, this leader will be even harder to find. Why jump in to a sinking ship with a bucket if the people who own the ship are fine with it being sunk? And, in the meantime, the company will be even more firmly entrenched in the wagon rut that has crippled its movement and growth for the last few years.

Looking back, internet marketing focused only on a few subjects: back links and the skills of link building. Page ranking was the hottest rage. Getting on the front page of the Google? Valhalla.

Then some of the inside staffers of Google gradually leaked bits and pieces about their analytics. Marketers learned how to apply keyword research to get top rankings organically. Other search engines were born. Google was no longer the only royalty in the realm, with Bing, Yahoo! and others are acquiring territory.

Closer to present, Facebook and other social media sites were recognized as players in the game. Social networking isn’t entirely social as it may have been at inception. The first thought impersonal internet has become highly personal. To call it a trend implies that it will be replaced later. Not likely. It would be likened to assuming that the invention of airplanes would completely kill off cars, trains and ships.

Internet marketing trends are showing us that glitter, flash, and hype are passe. People want it real. The day of blinking banners and ‘in your face’ Flash ads are done. I can’t be the only one who stopped going to many sites because a misplaced hovering mouse pointer brought up a keyword ad right in the middle of what I was trying to read, or even worse a screaming HELLO! at 3am from a smileyface on a banner while the rest of the house was asleep.

We humans as a species crave interaction, and the extension of that is online social interaction. The tremendous success of social websites like Myspace, Twitter, and Facebook can be attributed to this. I don’t know a single person who hasn’t ‘creeped’ profiles of friends of friends. Right here and now in 2010, there is no better way to promote yourself that by harnessing the clout and exposure of social media to connect with an audience.

What are the Hot Internet Marketing Trends for 2011? Continued social media. The turn of the past decade to the fast approaching new is nothing more than a new paragraph in the same chapter. There is no magic switch that will be flipped at midnight on December 31, 2010 turning off the power of Facebook, Twitter and the other powerhouse social networks on the internet.

You must get over your fear of being in front of the camera and produce video.

Think of the feeling that you have about a favorite celebrity; you feel a kinship with that person and  in your mind’s eye even believe you ‘know’ him/her, when you’ve never actually met. That is the true power of video.

Your video doesn’t have to be of Hollywood cinema quality. And trust me, it’s okay to shoot even if you are having a bad hair day.  It is expected that the video you posted at 8am is going to have you with a coffee in hand or a little stubble on your face. Social media thrives on reality.

Don’t get me wrong, getting over your ingrained public speaking fear is tough. You may find your initial efforts to be completely laughable. But consider them steps on stairs – and you just need to be sure the stairs are headed up. If the popularity of reality tv programming tell us anything, it is that the world really does relate closely to us everyday folks.

Here and now in the dying days of 2010, personality counts. You need to have personality (don’t read this as gimmick) to promote your business online in a social environment. Sharing, is something that many adults are hesitant to do, especially in business. The idea is completely contrary to old school marketing ideas. It is about giving people value, becoming an expert in your area and sharing your information with others.

Credibility has come to trump pure exposure on the web. Buyers have become savvy, and liken many web sites and portals to the guy in a trench coat selling watches on the street corner. Don’t be that guy.

Simple. Because Facebook is more accessible than any official website  you build ever will ever be.  Don’t take it the wrong way, but you aren’t likely to win the website lottery and create the next Facebook. It  (Facebook) gives a sense of social awareness to companies that would otherwise seem too corporate for people to check out , and a level of credibility to starting companies who have no website to speak of. A Facebook page allows companies to be more interactive with present and potential customers, allowing them to collect feedback for everything from service to contest mechanics. While it may seem dangerous because you can be given both positive and negative feedback, companies need not be afraid – Facebook is a tool that can be easily moderated. You can retain the best feedback and just hide the rest. This way, most potential customers will be able to read the positive testimonials of previous customers. Feedback adds another notch of credibility to a company, and will most likely entice potential customers who are reading it.

Furthermore, customers who are tired of traditional online marketing such as e-mail newsletters and web ads are looking to offerings through pages/groups on Facebook  to have their questions answered. Having a Facebook page will give your business access to over 500 Million potential customers without  having to buy e-mail addresses or other run of the mill web advertising.

Interaction isn’t limited to Facebook updates and wall posts though. A company can also use the Photos and Notes pages. When using the Fanpage, which is the recommended page for businesses (instead of a personal profile page), one can change the posting ability of fans which allow them to post photos, videos and links to the page. This way, potential customers will be able to see how other customers use the product or service. Again, this can engage the community to be more interactive as was successfully executed by Pampers’ Facebook Fanpage.  Other companies like Ben & Jerry’s go as far as polling customers. This gives customers a sense of power with regards to their products, which in turn will give them a sense of ownership and acceptance.

Many companies develop and use Facebook applications to make their Facebook page more interactive and enticing to customers. Just look around groups on Facebook and you will be surprised with what ideas they have come up with.