Shopify Product Ideas and your Market Research to the Target Audience

Most business owners know that 95% of new products fail, as well as 95% of new businesses, fail within the first year of market entry. This places a high bar on anyone wanting to open a Shopify store, and start selling a product that's thought to be in demand. The business owner looks to match a product that is of high quality and available that is in demand and to find your target audience. With the right tools for marketing and promotion, and social media engagement you will find synergy in converting the customers within the right price and logistics structure.

Consideration of brainstorming product ideas

Considering the product categories in the markets, it is essential to consider the existing products and how they are targeted to the audience. Opportunities in cross-market, changing product perception, and leveraging an existing product with minor friction issues can all lead to a highly successful product to be sold in your Shopify store. Finding the potential within the product categories can lead to bringing out the right mix for the success of a product that might not see the right success. Therefore it isn't so much about a new product, but rather making an existing product be positioned correctly to the right audience.

Locations for finding product ideas

Small markets and Niches: Seeking out an under-marketed and undervalued product in niche markets, or even the craftsman sellers on Etsy.com might find the right solution for a market that you have identified. It usually helps to seek out an audience looking for a solution, to then find and see if your market research discovers the product that they seek and then merchandising it.

High demand products and how can you tell they are in demand

Start with what you have: Reviewing your existing product offerings, past products, or ideas that you might have had, or are looking to build a new online store with a fresh set of ideas - identifying the target market and how to reach it for the right price, product and promotion are key.

Local Community: Defining your target audience via your local community and brick-and-mortar presence on a new product can help you to refine how to market and proposition as well as price a new product. Understanding and getting feedback through qualitative research with hands-on use and application can greatly refine an idea, and develop a product to be propositioned on social media platforms and on your Shopify store.

Online consumer trends and publications: As entrepreneurs continue to innovate in various categories of the market, following their new inventions and applications may yield an opportunity that's been missed. These openings can be product or services based and might give you ideas as well as where the new markets are opening up for your market penetration.

Industry leaders: Following and observing the industry leaders that you have identified and are engaged with the audiences related to those market categories will give you direction and guidance in the vision of where the market is going. At times, these market leaders leave gaps in hardware, software or solution to be filled by the community that surrounds them, giving the opportunity to engage an existing audience with that said solution.

Product review sites: Seeking out the flaws in certain products through customer reviews will show both the demand and what is being sought after to properly solve the product performance, perception, price, and quality. Without re-inventing the product, solving the issues with an existing bad experience might have primed the audience for you with a solid product that delivers customer satisfaction.

B2B wholesale marketplaces: Where a manufacturer or vendor might not have had success with a product, but it is still carried in the inventories of a manufacturer or distributor - that product might find its target audience through you and your online store. Most times inventory that's not immediately being consumed takes on the cost of inventory, which then shifts the price of acquiring it to be lower, giving you an opportunity to penetrate the market with it.

Online consumer marketplaces: The likes of eBay and Etsy where the best popular product categories might reveal product ideas on taking them from a niche market to a bigger target audience. Popular and trending items listed in the marketplaces might drive you to do some market research where it can be revealed that the product has higher potential and marketability.

Reddit - mass online communities: Within Reddit and its subsections, given the communities share their passions and hobbies there will be nuggets of gripes and product wishes to be found. Some of these might be within your reach and be able to satisfy that community and the larger target audience with the product solution you might have found.

Social media network: your marketing efforts might be put to use on popular social media platforms through surveys within the likes of Facebook groups that cater to a product/service of interest. Understanding product pain points, and creating focus groups from a group of people that's passionate about the sector/industry can assist in providing the feedback you require. With the data collected, figuring out the product and the right positioning of the price and features might yield a unique offering that can hit the market by storm.

Consumer lifestyle publications: While not exactly the place to have a product idea to be revealed, it may be a source of finding the fit and demand of the type of product that's been sought after. Social media groups might be in tune with that lifestyle and it can then give you places where validation and feedback can be obtained.

Discovering the best product ideas

eCommerce startup of an industry veteran it is important to keep driving new and innovative product ideas to keep your target audience engaged and keep your product mix fresh. With strong and cost-effective ideas based on the target market, it can keep driving demand, and engagement by communities, and when competing with others in the industry be a market leader.

Print-on-demand

This is a fast-growing sector of the market and allows you to have a low risk of inventory cost, as well as a way to catch trends in social settings to print creative designs that resonate with public opinion, group-based badging, and brand, and have a fast and effective response to your target audience. Printful has found that 45% of its customer have seen a surge in sales when engaging with its services. With this business model as an online store digital artist, all of this can be done working from home. Being a remote worker with print on demand saves a significant logistical burden, and cost of operations just by focusing on the target audience, finding trends, and gauging with social media to validate the art. Printing on-demand services are going to be one of the largest personalized clothing segments that bridge creative services to a larger market, but not all print-on-demand companies deliver the best of experiences, but the likes of the Printfull have kept a high-quality standard in product and delivery services.

Summary

Whether you are a full-time product purchasing employee of a larger online store, or you do remote work to find new products for your store, seeking out the next product that has engagement is not an easy journey. Market research takes many different angles of validation, and timing is also another variable to measure and strike at the right moment. With the shifts in market demand, disrupted supply chains, and new technologies appearing almost daily, being selective and having the pulse of your audience is going to be crucial in being successful at this task. Hopefully, the right elements come together for a successful product venture which fills the demand to the customers' satisfaction. Feel free to contact us at wish@thegenielab.com