What is a Niche Product?

A niche product is one that is simple enough to have design, prototyping, manufacture, marketing, sales, and shipping all handled by only a few people.

They are tailored towards a specific market and have to be in a specific price window.  This pricing has to be right for people to want to purchase on the internet (i.e. not too low) AND still save enough money to make it worthwhile.

A car is typically not a niche product and neither is a paperclip.

For a prospective customer to purchase from you on the internet there has to be a benefit in price, quality, design, or all of the above.

There are many people online making either their car payment or their entire living selling a niche product.  If you work at it, your product business can provide a nice second income to you or can grow to entirely replace you job income.

Start with an existing product

Once you have decided to retail a product, the first goal should be to find a way of selling something that’s currently being manufactured. This is a good way to test the market, understand customers’ requirements, and get used to managing some cash flow for a business.

Browse Alibaba or Made-in-China for product ideas.

But once that is established, you should really look into designing your own version of the product to increase quality, reduce costs, or improve the looks. This will give you complete control over the entire product cycle and allow you to react to technology and trends.

Successful niche product examples:

Some examples of successful niche product businesses are:

– “http://mazda3carpet.com/” The owner of this site, obviously a Mazda 3 owner, had the problem of dirty, worn-out carpet in his car. He noticed that this was a common problem amongst Mazda 3 owners: the exterior still looked good, then engine and drive train ran fine, but the interior was trashed, dirty, stinky, or all of the above. He solved this by setting up a website to sell aftermarket carpet installation kits.

– “http://www.happyowlstudio.com/” is another very successful product business that is run online. They started with a premium case to protect iPads and – after selling more than 10,000 of them – have expanded from there to include more products. While still selling iPad cases, they are now selling iPhone and MacBook Air covers, along with the CashBox™ – a completely self-contained point of pour chase machine making use of an iPad, receipt printer, and locked cash drawer – all contained in a great wooden enclosure.