#+title: S01|LO4 - phase 1 of niche selection: brainstorm 20 ideas
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- [[../../toc.org][TOC - ecomm clubhouse]]
- [[../../_share/data/video/step_01/lesson_04.mov][video]]

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* Description

In step 1, we’re discussing my tips and tricks I use to pick a niche, and one of those is to brainstorm 20 niches. Niche means, it means to target a specific segment of the market. There are a lot of assumptions about niches that are very wrong.

People hear the word “niche” and they immediately think of personal interests that people have: such as being interested in pets, like dogs or cats. Or they think about hobbies that people are interested in, such as hiking, or biking, or cooking. Or they think about different careers that people work in, such as being a doctor, or being a nurse, or being a teacher.

And while those are niches, and potentially great niches for your store, there are lots of other types of market segments that people don’t even realize can be niches too. For example, there are niches where people are looking for help at achieving certain goals: such as looking for classroom resources to make teaching better, like school posters or extra help in mentally boosting themselves to achieve big dreams who purchase motivational products like motivational mugs to drink their morning coffee from in the morning. There are some customers that like to fill their home with items that match an aesthetic that they love, such as the Boho or Hippie aesthetic.

So, the phrase “niche” can actually be much bigger than most people think it is, so you’ve got lots of options for choosing to niche down.

That is why I like to recommend to people that they brainstorm and come up with, if they can, 20 different niche ideas you could potentially create a store around before they pick just 1.

It is quite a challenge to come up with 20 ideas! But, if you complete it, you’ll probably come up with ideas you might never have considered, if you’d just picked any idea that first came to your mind. That way, you don’t miss out on uncovering a winning niche that you could have overlooked.

And, in my experience, overlooked niches are some of the best opportunities for earning money!

But, again, brainstorming 20 niches can be pretty hard. So, let me show you some different websites I like to use, to help me do that.

*** Website #1: Etsy

1) Start off by doing a search for a general niche such as poster. Look at the different niches that you see.

2) Open up a product.

3) Look at the different keywords in the title, which can then give other ideas for different niches.

4) Open up Etsy stores, and see what niches they have within their stores. See if any of these spark joy.

#+caption: search a general niche such as "poster"
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[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex01a.png]]

#+caption: open up a product
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[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex01b.png]]

#+caption: look at different keywords in the title
#+attr_html: :width 600px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex01.png]]

*** Website #2: RedBubble

1) Start off by selecting a print-on-demand product. Let’s check posters like what we did on Etsy. Go to the ‘Wall Art’ category, then select ‘All Wall Art’.

2) Then select ‘Posters’.

3) You can also sort the products by clicking on this dropdown menu at the upper right hand corner of the results page and selecting ‘Best-selling’ so you can see what sort of niches are earning money right now.

4) Look at the different niches that you see. Open up a product to get a general idea of its niche.

5) Now you can see that this piece is in the Japanese niche and can also be in the Japanese culture, Japanese Historical Art niche.

6) Go back to the results page. Now that you’ve clicked the Japanese art niche, it will show you more results on that category or niche.

7) iPhone cases are also a really good product category on RedBubble to do research in, as this is one of the niches that have all over print products where the design is printed over the entire thing like the ones highlighted below.

#+caption: select 'wall art'
#+attr_html: :width 600px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex02a.png]]

#+caption: select 'posters'
#+attr_html: :width 600px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex02b.png]]

#+caption: choose "best selling" from drop down
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[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex02c.png]]

#+caption: look at the different niches
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[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex02d.png]]

#+caption: this piece is in the japanese niche
#+attr_html: :width 800px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex02e.png]]

#+caption: go back to results page, japanese stuff is now showing
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[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex02f.png]]

#+caption: iphone cases
#+attr_html: :width 800px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex02g.png]]

*** Website #3: Zazzle

1) Start off by doing a search for a general category such as “mugs”.

2) Go through the listing and you can now see the different niches that are currently selling in the mugs category. For example: In Mug 1, this is in the workplace humor, accounting, Microsoft excel niches while Mug 2 falls on the tea and coffee niche.

3) Also, some homeware items on Zazzle can also be a good way to do research, such as opening up shower curtains.

#+caption: do a general search on "mugs"
#+attr_html: :width 600px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex03a.png]]

#+caption: check out the niches
#+attr_html: :width 600px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex03b.png]]

#+caption: check out homeware items
#+attr_html: :width 600px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex03c.png]]

*** Website #4: AliExpress

1) Come to Aliexpress and note that this is a good research tool, regardless of if you plan to add products in here to dropship. Do a search for a generic item like “t-shirt”.

2) To start searching for products, come and click ‘Orders’. This will show you which products currently has the most sales.

3) Browse through, and identify different types of niches that I can see in the t-shirt. The thing with Aliexpress is that you should be aware of the copyright infringement that comes with some of the designs. As we’re just doing some research here, what we can do is get ideas from these shirts. For example, this Black Sabbath shirt has a copyrighted design so what we can do instead, is focus on the other niches for this which are the music or rock music niche.

4) To know more about the niche of a product, open up the Aliexpress listing.

Now it says here in the title that this is a funny shirt for men but when you open up the listing, this has also the potential for the homesteading niche, like for people raising chickens.

You can also try the stickers category which is a great category for niche ideas. Remember: Keep the copyright infringement in mind when listing down the niches.

#+caption: do a generic search
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[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex04a.png]]

#+caption: click on "orders"
#+attr_html: :width 600px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex04b.png]]

#+caption: browse and identify niches you can see in the tshirts
#+attr_html: :width 600px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex04c.png]]

#+caption: focus on other niches
#+attr_html: :width 600px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex04d.png]]

#+caption: open up a listing to find out more
#+attr_html: :width 600px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex04e.png]]

#+caption: try the stickers category
#+attr_html: :width 600px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex04f.png]]

#+caption: back to tshirt?
#+attr_html: :width 600px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex04g.png]]

*** Website #5: Google Trends

1) In the Google Trends homepage, click the arrow for the dropdown list for the country. Select United States.

2) Type in a category. For example, type in ‘wall art’.

3) Scroll down to see what’s trending right now and identify different niche ideas from it. Example: Tiger Woods wall art – sports, golf, etc.

#+caption: click the dropdown list for the country
#+attr_html: :width 600px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex05a.png]]

#+caption: type in "wall art" for the category
#+attr_html: :width 600px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex05b.png]]

#+caption: scroll down to see what's trending right now and identify niches
#+attr_html: :width 600px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_01/lesson_04/ex05c.png]]

*** Summary
So those are some of my favorite websites to use for brainstorming ideas. However, these are not the only websites you can use. You can find inspiration in lots of places.

These are just websites that have helped me a lot, and that I think can help you as well.

So, go ahead and research, and write down 20 different niche ideas now that you find interesting. And I’ll see you in the next video!
