Ecommerce is one of the fastest growing business models, and for good reason—it works. Finding your specific niche is the first step to establishing a market presence, but there are better and worse ways to do it. You can waste a lot of time and effort chasing down target audiences that don’t pan out. If you’re not looking in these four places for fresh ideas, you’re missing out on valuable insights into what customers want and the hidden niches that can potentially make you big money.
4 Places You Should Look For Ecommerce Niches That Most Don’t
1. TikTok Shop
Even before introducing its shop, TikTok was already one of the most popular social media platforms on the planet. Ringing in at over 1.2 billion monthly average users, the app remains fiercely competitive within the global marketplace. While Facebook and Instagram may boast bigger audiences worldwide, TikTok’s new shop feature brings a whole new set of ecommerce opportunities for its creators.
Described as a unique hybrid of online shopping and social media, TikTok Shop curates personalized, shoppable content for a fast-paced user base of which millennials make up over two-thirds. This segment holds an increasing amount of purchasing power, making it a crucial “get” for many ecommerce business owners.
TikTok Shop meets tech-savvy consumers and doomscrollers where they’re at, removing purchasing barriers and providing the convenience of one-click shopping at key moments in the user journey. This makes it a good place to find out what kinds of products people are buying so you can identify the most popular niches.
To browse this data, simply visit Tik Tok Shop and search its trending products. Alternatively, you can click the Best Sellers tab in any specific TikTok shop to view a list of its fan favorites.
You can also filter these results by category or region to narrow your search even further and discover what consumers are buying most in any particular geographic area. By using these insights, you can target your brand’s social media content and reach new audiences.
2. Your Ideal Customer Profiles and Target Audience Research
Identifying who you’re selling to is the first crucial step in any business plan. Before you began your ecommerce venture, you likely did a ton of research on your competitors and target audience. While this prep work sets you up for initial success, it can also support you in finding nuanced market opportunities down the line.
Today’s serious business owners create ideal customer profiles of their target audience segments to get a better picture of what customers want and don’t want in their products. These representations offer insights into the distinct personalities of potential customers, detailing their needs, desires, and the specific barriers you’ll have to overcome to earn their trust. Each target profile also includes information on the products and brands your customers already love and where they like to shop.
If you already completed this body of research, it serves as an incredibly useful data source to help you identify untapped niches. Take a closer look at the products your existing customers shop for. Examine how, when, and why these competing brands and products are grabbing attention and see if this uncovers any opportunities you might be missing.
3. Entertainment News Programs
Shows like E! News, Extra, and Entertainment Tonight can be a gold mine of information about customer buying preferences and trends. These programs cover celebrity news, pop culture, breaking headlines, politics, fashion, beauty, and everything else under the sun. They also reveal what’s trending with consumers and which brands and opinion leaders they’re following.
Obviously, there’s no segment in these programs that covers which niches are working for ecommerce—that would be too easy. Instead, what you’re looking for are the general marketplace trends that can benefit your business. Try to glean useful data from entertainment news sources by reading between the lines and searching out possible connections to your products.
As you seek out what viewers are seeing themselves, clue yourself into what they might start to want—and what they won’t want. This will help you avoid certain messaging that won’t land with your audience.
4. Amazon Trending Lists
Most ecommerce business owners use product research tools like Keepa to track Amazon prices and discover customer buying trends. However, extensions like this are rarely free, and many entrepreneurs forget that the Amazon platform itself can provide a wealth of valuable insights.
To find them, simply visit Amazon.com, click the All menu in the upper left corner beneath the Amazon logo, and choose Best Sellers, New Releases, or Movers & Shakers from the Trending list.
From there, you can narrow your search by department and category to see the top-rated items listed in order of popularity. Not only can you use this information to help answer questions about current customer challenges and priorities, but you can also get a sense of their ideal price points and desired product features while you’re at it. By acting on this data, you can vastly improve your products, services, and your marketing approach.
For even more free information, take a look at the latest customer reviews of top items. This can help you figure out what your competitors are doing well and what the most common customer complaints are. If you can act quickly, you can fill the gaps with improvements and provide customers with a new, better alternative.
Lastly, remember to look at micro trends as well as macro to get an idea of where and how customers are spending their money and how it relates to your particular brand’s offerings. In addition to finding new niches, you can pick up on specific language and effective phrasing to help guide your advertising efforts.
