How being ‘less obvious’ can work to your advantage when selling online
Did you know that you can make just as much profit, and very often more profit, by selling products in lesser known categories rather than the ones that the ‘big boys’ go for?
I’m talking about really, really niche categories and products. For example, ‘crochet hooks’ are super-hot sellers.
Seriously they are….
But although they are a little bit niche, they are not quite niche enough – with more than 19,000 products listed on eBay at the current time.
However, ‘Tunisian crochet hooks’…well that’s another story altogether. Dig deeper, go that little bit more niche and you’ll find only 1,500 listings – that’s far less competition.
Or how about Bamboo crochet hooks? 1,600 listings…
And the piece de resistance… light up crochet hooks – just 523 listings –with some sellers shifting 3 a day at around a tenner each. Seriously, take a look here.
So, why are you scratching your head and pondering how to break into the iPhone market when you could be making a fortune from volume sales of little hooked sticks?
To put it another way, you might think that the only way you can make lots of profit is to sell the same sizzling red hot items that all the Powersellers and Top Rated Sellers on eBay are selling, but seriously, that is just not the right way to go about things.
The more niche you go, the less competition you have and the more potential profit you can make.
But how do you find those red hot niche products and do they really sell as successfully as some of the more ‘obvious’ products being peddled by larger sellers online – and on eBay especially?
Firstly, yes, it is absolutely possible to find small, easy to source, store, pack and post niche products that will sell in multiple quantities on a daily basis.
You can make a start by checking out these three handy websites:
- Go to Watchcount and use their ‘Advanced Search’ to check out the most watched items in a category. Click through to the sales history to see whether watchers are converting to sales!
- Go to eBay’s own ‘Trending’ page and see the top 10 trending products. My visit earlier this week returned results including a Spiral Ear Cleaner – great to source and brand as your own, school bags – can be competitive but go really niche and you could compete, Toby Jugs – a weird one, but definitely very niche! And golf gloves. These are all fantastic products to look into for selling opportunities.
- Visit Wuanto, a free to use site which shows you what’s hot on eBay. My standard search in the ‘Baby’ category showed me pregnancy birthing balls, waterproof nappy changing bags, 360 degree swivel highchairs – love this! And back seat car organisers.
Once you have an idea of the trending products, that’s when you need to think creatively, dig deeper into the niche and uncover those products that remain elusive to all but the most determined of product researchers!
As you can imagine, many of these products, such as the spiral ear cleaner, is not exactly the type of product that you might first think of as being an item that is either hot or that you could start selling online and building a successful business on – but others are confidently getting on with selling in this niche, quietly in the background, and making a comfortable living.
Sometimes it’s those things that are going on in the background that are worth paying attention to!
It’s fun researching and sourcing new products, however, it can also be frustrating and time consuming, so if you would prefer someone else to do all the research and sourcing into new, hot products for you – i.e. me – then go here for full details on how to get your free trial of The Source Report.