Excerpt from "Niche Marketing Strategies on eBay"
by Skip McGrath
What denotes a niche market?
A category is not a niche. For example, if you sell all kinds of toys, you are a
toy vendor. If, however, you only sell action figures, then that is a niche.
Benefits of Niche Marketing...
There are two primary benefits of niche marketing:
- Sourcing
- Selling
Let's look at sourcing first. The more time you spend in a market or product
category, you will learn all the sources of supply for that market. The more you
know about a product the better you will be able to buy it.
Remember our adage on pricing: You make money when you buy - not when you sell.
When you decide to specialize in a niche of any kind the first thing you want
to do is become expert in that area. Learn and read everything you can about it.
Study the history of the product. Get to know the companies that manufacturer the
product and their distributors. The more you know the better you will be able to buy.
The other benefit of niche marketing is selling. The very fact that you are selling
in a narrow market segment means you will have less competition and therefore you
can command higher margins. The other factor is that people prefer to buy from
someone who is knowledgeable.
(Another) selling advantage of niche marketing is the ability to accurately
describe products in your auction descriptions. The added knowledge you have from
being a specialist allows you to add more data and "insider" information that
someone else can not. A potential bidder looking at your auction will have more
confidence and perhaps bid more liberally than otherwise.
Finding The Right Niche...
Finding your niche is a matter of research and brainstorming.
Work is always more fun and usually more profitable if you are doing something you
like. If, for example, you enjoy computers, this is a great area to start your
search for a niche.
Almost any broad category on eBay has sub-categories, some of which are small
enough to qualify as a niche and others in which you can find a niche. The key is
that the niche you find be active enough to generate large sales and not be crowded
by hundreds of other sellers.
Remember you do not have to totally "own" your niche to be successful, but you
will need to be one of the handful of major players to have consistent, predictable
and long-term success.
