Let’s be clear about something.  Amazon is the biggest eCommerce website on Earth, and they got that way by selling everything.  Incredible success story.

But that doesn’t mean your eCommerce business should try to do the same.

Actually, it’s just the opposite.

At Marketing 360®, we love to see two things in eCommerce.  The first is a viable product that people want.  There has to be a market need.

Second is a product that appeals to a small, specialized segment of the population.  We call this a niche.

For the smaller eCommerce business, it’s impossible to overstate how important it is to have a niche.  It’s fundamental to your strategy.  Your goal is to provide the best product for a select group of people who will love it.  If you try to be something for everyone, you’ll end up with average.  You can’t compete on that.

Here’s an example of a niche product line that excels.

Case Study:  Speed Loaders

Unless you’re a gun aficionado, and in particular one who shoots revolvers, you probably don’t know what a speed loader is.

But for people who do shoot revolvers, a speed loader is very handy indeed.  It allows you to load in one fell swoop, keeping the rhythm of your target shooting.

Speed loaders are a niche item.  It’s the focus of this business:

They sell a few other items for revolvers, but the speed loader is their main product.

This is very niche.  Only a small percentage of the population buys them.

Now 30 years ago, if these guys had opened up a shop in a city, they would not have had a chance.  They’d be too niche.

But this is eCommerce.  They target nationwide.

So somebody does a search for 22 mag speed loader and they’re on page one.  Speed loaders for revolvers, they’re all over Google and Bing shopping.

They don’t need anything particularly fancy on their website.  A video that shows the product in action, easy navigation, and fast check-out process.

And they sell.  About 500 units a month with 300% return on their marketing investment:

This is not marketing magic.  We didn’t use trickery to beat the competition or come up with a branding tagline that got stuck in people’s heads.

We’re just executing the fundamentals so that everyone out there who would like this product knows about it.  We’ve saturated the target audience because it’s small enough to make that possible.

And we made it easy to buy online.  It’s a winning combination.

If you have an idea for an eCommerce store germinating in your head, keep this case study in mind.

There are two ways you can move forward.  The first is into a competitive environment that’s already swimming with big, aggressive, hungry sharks.  You jump in those waters and you have to be prepared to fight it out.

The second is into open blue waters where the competition is largely irrelevant.  A niche where you’re satisfying a specialized need.

You still have the challenge of making sure there’s enough market need for your product.  You need a viable target audience.

But when you have that, you just draw them over to your clear water – where you’re clearly the best option.

When you get in that position, getting sales is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.

*Results are based on past client performance. Individual account performance may vary. Results are not guaranteed.