#1 Biggest Mistake Online Start-up eCommerce Stores Make

[leon0021]

good idea. at the beginning I targeted too wide and it is almost impossible for me to do marketing accurately. After I changed everything to a sub-niche, the results went great

 

[AzulluCo]

When marketing in these sub-niches, what strategies would you recommend? Specifically for an online shop in the cannabis space. I have been actively reaching out to other small accounts in my sub-niche to develop relationships and partnerships. I know it is only a matter of grinding and putting in the time but I was wondering if there are other strategies. Thank you for your post!

 

[Babalot]

Sounds really good, thanks for the advice. i have readed a lot of threads of people that want to open their ecommerce store, and they all think that after promotion their campaing they will start getting a lot of sales and some get frustrated because they don't sell as they expected. I think this advices will help a lot of people to start their own ecommece and have patience and do the things right. Thanks.

 

[Sameer Chadha]

Really Awesome! You Nailed it! You have so simply explained the trend we beginners should walk on! Thankyou so much!

 

[William702]

Definitely worth a thumbs up, thanks OP.

 

[wize]

Nicely stated El gringo monkey, nicely stated.

 

[RA1NMAN]

i still feel if you get too specific on a niche you wont have anyone to market to, or so few people that the chances they buy something are very slim.

 

[GringoMonkey]

i still feel if you get too specific on a niche you wont have anyone to market to, or so few people that the chances they buy something are very slim.

The worst thing that happens in the way I suggest is you have to go back and make your ad sets a bit broader. So you lose a bit of time.

Start broad, as you suggest and you blow all your ad money or a big chunk of it, before you have made any real sales anyway, because your niche is too competitive and your not optimised.

Which is why I suggest it is best to start small and scale up rather than too broad and run out of cash.

 

[RA1NMAN]

What if I never spend ad money and just run IG accounts

 

[GringoMonkey]

What if I never spend ad money and just run IG accounts

Its perhaps easier to explain it using my initial product example rather than ad spend.

If you have a product tailored for a sub niche ie: Yoga Fashion Fitness wear for pregnant women. It is a lot easier to stand out and get noticed.

If you start direct in a popular niche ie: Yoga Fashion Fitness wear. Good luck standing out your up against Nike and the rest.

 

[Strawberry John]

Damn, thanks a lot for opening my eyes regarding this! I just opened an aliexpress dropshipping store but it's just to get my feet wet. I thought I chose a good enough niche but now it's clear that i'm waaay to wide.

I was already planning on getting rid of aliexpress products cause i just can't stand the quality of the photos, even if i chose the best one.
I'll now remake my store with a deeper niche, with POD and maybe a couple of very good products from AliExpress.

 

[Followlix]

This was actually really helpful. So let me see if I got it right, let’s say I want to sell jeweellery, instead of going Women> Jewellery> Necklaces and then stop I’ll go like this: Women > Jewellery > Jewellery mainly about cats, right?

 

[GringoMonkey]

This was actually really helpful. So let me see if I got it right, let’s say I want to sell jeweellery, instead of going Women> Jewellery> Necklaces and then stop I’ll go like this: Women > Jewellery > Jewellery mainly about cats, right?

Not exactly, there are usually 5 stages from the vertical down to the sub-niche each one getting more specific, so when you get to the sub-niche it should be very specific, so it would be more like this...

Vertical = Jewelry
Category = Womens Jewelry
Sub-Category = Womens Necklaces
Niche = Womens Animal Necklaces
Sub-niche= Womens Cat Necklaces

So that sub-niche is very specific - so not "mainly about" but exactly is, Womens Cat Necklaces. It is that specificity that makes it easy to understand your target market.

You could then expand like this:

Vertical = Jewelry
Category = Womens Jewelry
Sub-Category = Womens Necklaces
Niche = Womens Animal Necklaces
Sub-niche= Womens Dog Necklaces

or like this:

Vertical = Jewelry
Category = Womens Jewelry
Sub-Category = Womens Earrings
Niche = Womens Animal Earrings
Sub-niche= Womens Cat Earrings

or like this:

Vertical = Jewelry
Category = Womens Jewelry
Sub-Category = Womens Brooch
Niche = Womens Animal Brooch
Sub-niche= Womens Cat Brooch

and keep going for different products in your store...

Hope you can see that now you can build a store around a whole set of sub-niches, each with their own target market that is easy to identify.

 

[Followlix]

Not exactly, there are usually 5 stages from the vertical down to the sub-niche each one getting more specific, so when you get to the sub-niche it should be very specific, so it would be more like this...

Vertical = Jewelry
Category = Womens Jewelry
Sub-Category = Womens Necklaces
Niche = Womens Animal Necklaces
Sub-niche= Womens Cat Necklaces

So that sub-niche is very specific - so not "mainly about" but exactly is, Womens Cat Necklaces. It is that specificity that makes it easy to understand your target market.

You could then expand like this:

Vertical = Jewelry
Category = Womens Jewelry
Sub-Category = Womens Necklaces
Niche = Womens Animal Necklaces
Sub-niche= Womens Dog Necklaces

or like this:

Vertical = Jewelry
Category = Womens Jewelry
Sub-Category = Womens Earrings
Niche = Womens Animal Earrings
Sub-niche= Womens Cat Earrings

or like this:

Vertical = Jewelry
Category = Womens Jewelry
Sub-Category = Womens Brooch
Niche = Womens Animal Brooch
Sub-niche= Womens Cat Brooch

and keep going for different products in your store...

Hope you can see that now you can build a store around a whole set of sub-niches, each with their own target market that is easy to identify.

Thank you for taking your time and making it clear to me. I have one question, so I don’t have to make a store only with Women Cat Necklaces for example, but I can have sub-niches in my store like:
Main: Jewelry
>: Men Jewelery & Women Jewelry
> Men and Women Jewelry categories: Rings, Necklaces, Bracelets, Earrings
> Women: jewelery related to animals, jewelry related to flowers, jewelry related to painting, etc Men: to cars, to sports, to music, etc

And then take the Women Jewelry Related to cats and promote it in front of women that have cats and like jewelery. Right?

 

[IamNRE]

Solid. Nice 1.

 

[hashem_wpd]

Great post! very helpful for ecommerce owner.

 

[GringoMonkey]

Thank you for taking your time and making it clear to me. I have one question, so I don’t have to make a store only with Women Cat Necklaces for example, but I can have sub-niches in my store like:
Main: Jewelry
>: Men Jewelery & Women Jewelry
> Men and Women Jewelry categories: Rings, Necklaces, Bracelets, Earrings
> Women: jewelery related to animals, jewelry related to flowers, jewelry related to painting, etc Men: to cars, to sports, to music, etc

And then take the Women Jewelry Related to cats and promote it in front of women that have cats and like jewelery. Right?

The most important thing is you understand how to drill down products to the niche/sub-niche level to be able to better target your marketing.

How you do that and structure your store can differ. For example you could have drilled down like this:

Vertical = Jewelry
Category = Womens Jewelry
Sub-Category = Womens Animal Jewelry
Niche = Womens Animal Necklaces
Sub-niche= Womens Cat Necklaces

Then you can build a store around the sub-category of Womens Animal Jewelry or swap out animals to flowers etc as you say and drill down to the sub-niche level for the actual products in the store.

 

[Followlix]

Then you can build a store around the sub-category of Womens Animal Jewelry or swap out animals to flowers etc as you say.

Can my store be with all sorts of Jewelry but have products that are drilled down to Womens Cat Necklaces and advertise this product to womens that bla bla bla and have let's say Men Gear Box Necklace and advertise that to men that bla bla bla?

I mean, RingToPerfection have over 3k products and all sorts of jewelry, yet they rock the place.

 

[GringoMonkey]

Can my store be with all sorts of Jewelry but have products that are drilled down to Womens Cat Necklaces and advertise this product to womens that bla bla bla and have let's say Men Gear Box Necklace and advertise that to men that bla bla bla?

I mean, RingToPerfection have over 3k products and all sorts of jewelry, yet they rock the place.

I am simply showing you the way to get the biggest bang for your ad buck by drilling your products and target audience down to the sub-niche level.

If you want a big store that sells everything and specializes in nothing that is up to you, but the closer to the main vertical you start the more money you need to compete.

 

[Followlix]

I am simply showing you the way to get the biggest bang for your ad buck by drilling your products and target audience down to the sub-niche level.

If you want a big store that sells everything and specializes in nothing that is up to you, but the closer to the main vertical you start the more money you need to compete.

Undestood. Thank you!