Winning Products, Niche Products

Part 1 -How to Find Winning Products & Start your eCommerce Site

Sections:

Introduction
Helpful Terms
Where to Begin your Product Search (Opportunity Options)
Weathering the Brainstorm: Exploring Trends
Calming the Storm: Refining your Potential Product List
Choosing a Competitive Winning Product

Table of Contents

Part 1 -How to Find Winning Products & Start your eCommerce Site
Part 2 – Where to find suppliers who will stock and ship them (Published June 4th,2018 )
Part 3 -SEO Secrets of Google:How to find Expired Domains (Published June 15th, 2018 )

There’s nothing quite like starting your own online business. However, you’ll need a blueprint in place that helps you to understand which steps you should take towards success. In this exciting first compartment of our winning products case study, we’ll be looking at how to find a winning product, and brainstorming niche options.

With the right creativity, passion, and drive, you can find yourself in an exciting journey towards success (and huge profits). However, it’s worth noting that there’s more to building the right business than just having a great website. In the world of eCommerce, you need to discover how to choose the perfect product, source it from the right provider, and sell it to your customer if you want the best chances of success.

In this case study into eCommerce success, you’re going to discover how you can create a successful eCommerce website fast!all the way from conception to completion. In today’s lesson, we’ll be looking at that all-important first step for sales: choosing the perfect winning product, through each unit, you’ll unlock more insights into how you can earn online.

Winning products are the upcoming trend items that are perfectly designed to entice your audience and make you money -fast! Unfortunately, one of the biggest problems that most online stores have, is that they simply don’t know where to start searching for the ideal niche.

Blueprint in place that helps you to understand which steps you should take towards success. In this exciting first compartment of our winning products case study, we’ll be looking at how to find a winning product, and brainstorming niche options.

By the time you’ve finished this first step compartment, you should have:

Learned about each of the key product categories available for a budding business
Brainstormed a collection of niche items to sell
Decided whether your products have competitive clout
Discovered how to come up with countless ideas for your eCommerce store
Found out how to do quick, but quality market research to determine which ideas to move forward with
A good understanding on how each case study fits together.

After this module, you’ll have 3 candidates, and 1 top candidate to help you start working on the ultimate eCommerce store.

Let’s get started…

The Terms You Need to Know:

Before we start exploring your product opportunities, it’s worth making sure you know the lingo. Here are some of the industry terms we’ll be using throughout this compartment of the course. Feel free to make a note of these if you think you’ll need to refer to it later.

“Market”: In the business world, a “market” is a group of people who have similar expectations, desires, or needs. Basically, it’s the people most likely to be searching for your products, or the solutions that your products provide.
“Niche”: A niche is a smaller, and more targeted area of your market. For instance, while your wallet products could appeal to anyone with money, luxury wallets with RFID protection are more likely to appeal to the tech-savvy and style conscious.
“Micro Niche”: Sometimes, your niche will be refined even further. For instance, “travel” wallets are a more specific niche than standard wallets.

As you go through this chapter of your eCommerce education on “how to find winning products”, you might find it helpful to capture some of your ideas on paper. Once you’ve got all your ideas recorded, this means that you can come back to them later and evaluate each option for its market potential.

Make sure you download our goal sheets, as this will help you to get a more thorough understanding of the system you will be using in our initial compartment.

Download this cheat sheet [PDF

Brainstorming (Let’s Go Back to the Drawing Board)

Brainstorming is the first step in finding your winning product, and the first thing we’re going to be looking at in our three compartment course. It helps you to develop a large list of potential niches to build your eCommerce store around, which you can then refine into a priority list of your top three ideas.

In simple terms, brainstorming just means throwing as many ideas as possible down on paper – regardless of whether they’re viable or not. The key to brainstorming is not to spend too much time thinking about whether an idea is good or not. Think of it like you’re trying to fill up a page with text. Wait until you’ve got plenty of information in front of you, then you can begin to refine your choices.

While brainstorming is intended to be a way to expand your mind and give you inspiration for a powerful new product, one of the problems that today’s companies face, is they don’t know where to find some ideas on new Products to stock. With that in mind, let’s go back to the drawing board, and discuss some of the potential product types you’ll need to think about.

ideas_as_possible_down_on_paper_finding a winning products to start a ecommerce

If you have an idea of where your product selling opportunities lie, then you should find it easier to start brainstorming concepts within a specific niche or area. Ultimately, most entrepreneurs begin by looking at the following “opportunity avenues“:

Trending Topics (We’ll cover that more later)
Customer pain points
Opportunity Gaps
Personal Passions
Experience and Expertise

Customer Pain Points:

If you know the niche or industry that you want to work in, you can always start by thinking about the challenges that your customers face when it comes to inspiring your brainstorming session. Remember, you should have a basic idea of what your ideal customer looks like before you start searching for a product. After all, different types of people need different products, and the “persona” you market to will have an impact on the kind of business you run. Think about demographics like:

Age range (this doesn’t have to be precise, something like 20-30 years old might be enough)
Gender
Income or job title
Geographical location
Hobbies/preferences

Once you have a basic user persona, or customer “avatar”, you can start looking at products that respond to the pain points of that person.

Products that solve pain points for your customers are often very lucrative, because your clients are actively seeking solutions to these problems. This means that you don’t have to waste as much time advertising your product, as it basically sells itself.

Opportunity Gaps:

Opportunity gaps are things that you’ll begin to recognize more easily as your brainstorming experience progresses. As you explore more marketplace opportunities, and check out the trending products in your niche, you’ll notice places where your competitors have yet to offer a compelling solution to your customers. During your brainstorm, try not to worry too much about opportunity gaps, and instead focus on getting a broad view of your marketplace, so you can pinpoint potential later.

Personal Passions:

During your brainstorming session, you probably won’t have enough information about your target customer to know for sure what their passions and concerns are all about. With that in mind, you’ll have to think about what you’re excited about instead. Some people believe that choosing a niche or product based on personal passion alone can be a bad idea. However, this isn’t always the case. After all, if you’re passionate about what you’re selling, then you’re more likely to have the motivation to keep selling even when the going gets rough.

Experience and Expertise:

Why bother with the stress of researching and launching a business from scratch when you already have knowledge or expertise in a specific industry? Using your own life experiences is a strong way to give yourself a competitive advantage in the saturated marketplace. You could find that it helps you to jump quicker into the “research” part of choosing a winning product, rather than spending extra time on brainstorming.

I highly recommend downloading the Goal Sheets PDF for some more brainstorming resources, market research process flow and resource guidelines, a market research checklist, and a first module goal sheet.

Weathering the Brainstorm: Exploring Trends

Whether you’re choosing a product based on personal passions, or hoping to respond to a customer pain point, one of the easiest ways to get started, is to explore the trends in the industry. This will help to give additional weight to your brainstorming session so that you have as many ideas to sift through as possible when it comes to making your final decision.

Knowing how to capitalize on trends early can have a huge and positive impact on your new business, as it allows you to carve a place for yourself in your customer’s mind, and establish yourself as an authority before anyone else has a chance to jump in. Additionally, grabbing a trend early means that you have plenty of opportunities to get ahead in the search engine rankings.

So, where do you start searching for trends?

Here are just a few options to help you get started in this brainstorming compartment of your product search:

Magazines.com: Browse through magazines for ideas on products that will inspire and engage your audience.
Google Groups: Like Amazon.com, there are plenty of niche areas to explore in Google groups that will help you to choose a product that’s appropriate to your target audience.
SitePoint Marketplace: Here, you can find websites that already exist, then build your own online presence to compete with those in your chosen niche.
Yahoo Answers: Just like Google search, Yahoo answers will help you to find products based on trending keywords and phrases
EBay popular: This is a list of some of the most popular categories of trending products on eBay
Kickstarter Discover: Kickstarter is a website where people find funding for their new products. You can browse projects according to funding, staff picks, and popularity.
Trend Watching: An independent trend firm that scans conversations around the globe searching for insights and popular topics. There’s a team of thirty professionals on this website always.
Trend Hunter: The world’s largest popular trend community – fueled by around 3,000,000 fans, it’s a great place to find new product ideas.
BuzzSumo: A place to look for trending topics and products based on keywords or phrases.
Consumer product blogs: Consumer product blogs are online spaces where your customers review and comment on their favorite products like “Uncrate”.
Pinterest: One of the largest social media platforms available today, Pinterest is active with over 50 million monthly users, who all love opportunities to tag and share their favorite products. Check out the Pinterest “popular” section.
Polyvore: Much like Pinterest, Polyvore is a great service built around a global community. There are about 80,000 “sets” of products to browse through.
Alibaba: The biggest eCommerce company in the world (even larger than eBay and Amazon), Alibaba connects consumers around the world with manufacturers and wholesalers. Browse through some of their trending items.
Reddit: A huge social media platform and news aggregator, Reddit considers itself to be the front page of the internet, and it’s hugely influential. The system comes packed with thousands of subreddits, which are niches that cater to specific areas of interest.
Instagram: More than just pictures of kittens and food, Instagram is also an option for entrepreneurs who want to discover new product ideas. It’s easy to scan through your options quickly because the system is photo based.
Amazon Movers and Shakers: Amazon’s biggest gainers in sales over the last 24 hours – the most lucrative products are updated by the hour.

We’re giving you the insights you need to choose your niches.

When it comes to brainstorming, and how to find winning products winning products, there are countless choices out there, and your solutions just get better if you know what kind of niche or marketplace you’re looking for. In fact, something as simple of a Google search for “money clip wallets” could be enough to lead you down a rabbit hole of potential product options.

Calming the Storm: Refining your Potential Product List

With a little luck, by the time you’ve finished going through that hefty list we’ve just revealed, you should have a pretty large list to work through when picking your winning products. That should take you onto the next compartment in your education.

Ultimately, you should aim for a minimum of at least 20 brainstorming ideas to take to the next phase of your product development campaign – market research. Keep in mind that the best products are the ones that appeal to a smaller sub-section of the community.

The reason for this is that sub-niche, or micro-niche level products are generally less competitive than standard everyday items. The more refined you get with your choices, the less you’ll have to fight against other companies with bigger budgets for your chance of a substantial market share. However, when you’re brainstorming, the key is to develop as many ideas as possible, and go from there.

Once you’ve got your list, you can begin to dig down into what makes each product more appealing or applicable to you. Refining your list can be even more difficult than creating it in the first place – particularly if you feel passionate about many of the ideas that you’ve come up with. However, it’s important to be brutal at this stage.

Remember, you’re looking for the ultimate winning products here – so not just any idea will cut it. If you’re having trouble, you could try speaking to your friends and family and asking for their ideas on which products most suit your style and personality. Remember, it’s you that’s going to be selling these products at the end of the day. Besides asking for help from your support network, you could also:

Think about which products you feel the most strongly about. Passion does count when it comes to selling a product successfully.
Consider what niches you’ve worked in before, and whether you have any experience or expertise that would help you to sell your product.
Determine whether there’s enough demand for your product by using Google’s Keyword Tool.

Google’s keyword tool can be particularly useful if you’re deciding between trending products and you want to determine which one has the best profit margin and sales potential. While checking how popular a product currently is won’t tell you whether you have an item that’s going to have sales potential in the long-term, it at least lets you know whether your product is going to have an impact right now.

All you need to do is enter the name of the product you’re considering into the Keyword tool and find out how many people are searching for it at this moment. You’ll also be able to see whether it’s been persistently successful over time, or it’s just experiencing a spike in searches.

Remember, if you’re unfamiliar with keyword research you should:

Look at the “exact” match for the most accurate results
Look for keywords with plenty of long-tail variations (For instance, if you’re looking for a health and fitness product, you might consider the weight loss niche)
Local at the local results, rather than the global results

Choosing a Competitive Winning Product

During this compartment of choosing a winning product, you don’t necessarily need to refine your list down to one or two potential items. Instead, you’re looking to take around 20 ideas with you to the market research stage. That way, you’ll have plenty of options to explore if you find that your first idea doesn’t have a competitive advantage.

To choose a winning product, you need to weigh market demand against the strength of your competitors. However, if you end up with hundreds of potential products at the end of your brainstorming session, you don’t want to waste hours going through which products have the most potential.

By the time you’ve finished your brainstorming experience, you should have:

20 or less ideas to take to market research
A strong idea of the “type” of product you’re going to sell (niche)
Keyword phrases for your store idea.

Now that you have your list of potential winning products, it’s time to derive an ultimate selling tactic from your list. Over the next chapters in this eCommerce course, you’ll learn how to evaluate your chosen product, find your suppliers, price your products, and start selling to your target market.

By the time you finish this compartment of the module, you’ll have:

– Plenty of solid online store ideas, including a top “1” candidate to begin building your online store around.

– 3 keyword phrases for each store idea, along with traffic SEO and competition SEO numbers

Download this cheat sheet [PDF]

Action Plan:

Brainstorm approximately 20 markets/niches
Apply market research to each idea to ensure that you select an opportunity that gets traffic (at least 500 visitors per day), is commercially viable, and can get into the first page of Google then move up to a “top five” position.
You should have an idea with no more than 1 competitor with “five yeses” in our SEO analysis and at least 2 competitors with a DA 50 or below, and 1 competitor with less than 30 to 50 backlinks.
Research your other factors and considerations
End up with 3 ideas you can build your online store around.

Closing

I want to wrap this up by driving home the importance how to find winning products winning products is very important .Because When time Arrived to the Compartment # 3 SEO Process will make different . Alright

Part 2 – Where to find suppliers
who will stock and ship them (Published June 4th,2018 )

Identifying Potential Suppliers

You’ve got an amazing eCommerce idea, you’ve chosen your winning products and you’re ready to start making some profits.

So, now what?

The first thing you’ll need to do is find the suppliers and manufacturing partners you want to work with to launch your eCommerce business. After all, it’s hard to run a successful company if you don’t have the products to sell. Seriously!

Before we jump into finding your suppliers, here’s a quick glossary to make sure you understand everything we’re talking about below.

Manufacturer: The creator of a product line. This is the organization responsible for building or constructing the product you sell. Sometimes, you can build a direct relationship with a manufacturer, while other times you may need to use a middle-man “distributor”.
Distributor/Wholesaler: This is the middleman that many eCommerce companies work with, rather than the manufacturer themselves. The distributor purchases the product at a discount price then sells it on to you. They don’t make the products.
Brand Name: The “brand name” is the label that the manufacturer gives their product line. For instance, “Sony” for PlayStation products.
Dropshipper: Drop-shippers are suppliers who send your product directly to your customers on your behalf. Drop-shippers may be a distributor, manufacturer, or a hybrid of the two.
Retailer: A retailer is anyone who purchases products and sells them on at retail prices. In other words, YOU are a retailer. Regardless of what you’re selling, you’re buying products at wholesale prices and selling them on for a profit.
Dealer or Reseller account: This is what you’ll be looking for in this section of our course. Your reseller account is the agreement you establish with your supplier that authorizes you to sell their products at a higher price.

I know, dictionary definitions aren’t very exciting, but it’s important that you know the difference between drop-shippers, manufacturers, and wholesalers before you start this chapter. Now that you’re educated, we can look at how you get the reseller account of your dreams.

Finding your Suppliers: How to Get Started

During this chapter, whenever we use the word “suppliers” we’ll be referring to anyone who can provide you with inventory and products. This will apply to manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers.

The first step in choosing a supplier, is deciding what kind of support or partnership you’re looking for. There are plenty of options available, including:

A manufacturer that allows you to produce your own product idea
A supplier who can also be a distributor or wholesaler
A drop-shipper who fulfills existing orders between you and your customers

No matter what kind of supplier model you choose, your goal will be to establish a strong and reliable reseller account with a supplier that’s specific to your niche. If you want a drop-shipping relationship, it’s worth noting that many of today’s manufacturers and distributors will be willing to drop-ship for you. However, if a supplier won’t go that extra mile, it will be up to you whether you want to pass on that supplier.

Aside from the options, we’re offering below to help you find the perfect supplier, remember that you can always consider contacting your manufacturer directly. This method will result in some of the best profit margins, as it means that you don’t have to give a cut to any middlemen. In some cases, if the manufacturer you reach out to doesn’t want to supply to you directly, they can tell you about the authorized distributors they have available to buy from.

Step 1: Searching for Supplier Options

Now we come to the first step in our supplier search, looking for people who can provide the products you’re looking for. There are plenty of opportunities out there to choose from. For instance:

Directories:

Finding the right supplier doesn’t have to be difficult. A free online supplier directory can be a powerful resource when used correctly. These directories come packed with resources for hundreds and thousands of manufacturers, suppliers, and wholesalers. Some popular directories include:

Keyword Searches

In recent years, many of us have grown accustomed to being able to search online to find the things we need. However, it’s worth noting that many suppliers have struggled to keep pace with the rise of the internet, and as such their websites can be old, sparse with information, and not exactly search-engine optimized.

An easy way to find suppliers using search engines like Google, and trending topic solutions like Buzzsumo, is to find the keywords that you’re searching for in your niche and type them into the search bars. Buzzsumo can give you an insight into some of the top sellers of the products you’re interested in, so you can see where they’re getting their supply. It’s also worth making yourself familiar with the Google Search Shortcuts, so you can improve the quality of your searches.

Referrals

Finally, some of the best leads can come from referrals offered by friends, family, and people you know. Social media networks have made it incredibly easy for today’s consumers to get the word out, so it’s worth checking these forums when you’re searching for suppliers.

As you start to uncover supplier options, remember to ask them whether they can help to point you in the right direction if they’re not necessarily the right fit for you. Most good suppliers will be more than happy to send you towards someone who might be a better fit.

Step 2: Identify Popular Brand Names

Once you’ve started to build up your pool of potential suppliers, you’ll need to think about what kind of brand names you want your store to carry. After all, while there are plenty of suppliers out there that might carry the items you want, there may only be a handful that delivers the specific name brands you’ve been searching for.

A good way to make sure that you pick the right brand names is to conduct a little competitive analysis. Find out which brand your top-ranking competitors are selling. Most of the other companies in your niche will have brand labels and filters you can use to create a list of items you’ll want to sell.

You can also use solutions like Google to find out search frequency for the names of certain brands. For instance, if you’re trying to decide on a beauty brand, you can compare the search volume for one against another to see how potentially popular your brand of choice might be.

Step 3: Gather Contact Information for Your Manufacturer

Once you’ve built up the list of brand names you’d like to carry on your website, the next step will be to track down the website for your manufacturer and get as much contact information as possible. Usually, you’ll find that this process is as simple as typing out a google search for the name of the brand. If you have any trouble, add the product name to your search too.

To make sure that you reach the manufacturer site, and not just the website of another distributor, check the “About Us” page for information on the company’s plant or factor and make sure that the brand name you’re looking for is the only name displayed on the website.

Step 4: Preparing to Contact Suppliers

Okay, you’ve got your list of manufacturers, and you know who your suppliers could be.

Now, hold on for a moment. Before you start contacting people, make sure that you’re properly prepared. The more prepared you feel, the more likely you are to secure the reseller account you need. In other words, you need to organize yourself so that you can appear as professional as possible to the people you want to work with.

The nature of the planning you’ll need to do before you reach out to a supplier will depend largely on how difficult you think it might be to impress your chosen manufacturer. After all, if you’re reaching out to a huge corporation with a well-known brand name, then you’re going to need to work a lot harder to impress your suppliers. On the other hand, if you’re setting up an account with an unknown brand, then you probably won’t need to do much preparation at all. Either way, here are a few best-practice tips to get you started:

1. Register your Domain Name

Any supplier you contact will expect you to have your own domain name. After all, how do you expect to sell your products if you don’t have a website where your customers can find you? Register your domain name before you start talking to your suppliers, and make sure it’s something that’s going to help drive profits for your business. In other words, it should be:

Short (With no strange spellings)
Relevant
Easy to remember

We’ll go into more detail on this later in this article.

2. Register your Business Entity

Though running an online business might not require as much running around as launching a brick and mortar store – that doesn’t make it any less of a legitimate company. As such, you need to make sure that you have a legitimate business name you can operate under. A DBA name (Doing Business As) gives you a title that you can use on your tax returns.

If you want to make sure that you’re in the good books of the tax office, and you also want to give your supplier the right impression that you’re a serious, professional, and legitimate business, then you’ll need a DBA name. You may also consider registering an actual business entity such as an LLC instead of a DBA. Make sure you contact a professional accountant for advice here.

3. Create a Placeholder Website

You might not want to set your full website up when you’re still searching for a supplier, and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, you will need to at least create a placeholder website using your domain name, so that potential suppliers can see that you have the means(serious player ) to start your business.

Essentially, a placeholder site gives your suppliers something to look at when they check out your company name and start to decide whether they want to work with you.

Alternatively, you can always create a simple corporate site for your business. If you’re committed to your eCommerce business anyway, then you’re going to need to create a website, and this is a great way to show your suppliers that you’re invested in your new idea.

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4. Add a Number to your Site

Finally, make sure that you have a toll-free number available for suppliers and customers to contact you on. A lot of companies assume that it’s enough to have an email address on their website, but the truth is that a phone number can help you to appear more legitimate and professional.

A toll-free number helps to set you apart from all the dime-a-dozen eCommerce sellers out there today so that you can truly shine as a professional partner for your new supplier.

Step 5: Know how to Secure a Reseller Account

Ok, so you’ve identified your top brands and tracked down the right manufacturers. All your ducks are in a row, and you’re ready to present yourself to suppliers looking like a top-notch professional.

Before you pick up the phone or start typing out your email, make sure that you keep the following tips in mind:

Do Your Research & Talk to the Right Person

Before you reach out to a supplier or manufacturer, check out their website to get a better insight into their brand and product selection, so you can explain why you chose to sell their products. Then, make sure that you connect to the right person when you pick up the phone. Ask to be connected to the individual responsible for setting up reseller accounts. Remember to download our private webinar to get more advice and guidance on connecting with suppliers.

Call Don’t Email

It’s always better to speak to a supplier on the phone, rather than simply sending them an email. Emails can get buried in an inbox all-too-easily, and phone calls give you that personal touch that brings the humanity back to your conversations with suppliers. On a call, you can introduce yourself as the representative of your company and give yourself the professional air you’re looking for. In an email, it’s hard to make the right impression, no matter how good your grammar is.

Talk yourself Up, but Compliment Their Brand Too

When you start talking to a supplier, you want to make sure that they’re excited about the opportunity to work with you. That means that you need to brag about yourself a little and talk about all the ways that you’re going to help them make money. However, remember not to go too over the top with your boasting. Always bring your comments back to their brand, and the benefits they’re going to see. Complement their products and let them know why you want them to be your manufacturer or supplier.

Ask the Right Questions

Your supplier will expect you to ask plenty of questions that help you to get a better understanding of the relationship you’re going to have in the coming months of years. Don’t be afraid to cover everything you need to know, including:

What are their payment terms? Do they need payment up front?
What are their turnaround times? How long does it take to get your product to you, or to your customer if you’re using a drop-shipping model?
What is your minimum order quantity? Make sure that their minimums are manageable for your eCommerce company.
Do you have a no online only policy? Some suppliers don’t want to work with internet-only businesses. If you’re planning on staying away from the brick-and-mortar retail store, you’ll need to know about this in advance.

Remember to be enthusiastic and personable during your conversation. Don’t just think of the person at the other end of the phone as a company. Talk to them as a person and be as friendly as you can. When the timing feels right, you can ask whether they’d consider setting you up with a reseller account and whether they’d be willing to ship orders directly to your customers if so. Remember that some manufacturers won’t be familiar with the world “drop-shipping” so keep it simple by talking about whether they’re willing to send orders directly to the customer.

Step 6: Verifying Your Profit Margins

Okay, you’re ready to start contacting your suppliers and figuring out the initial set-up for your business. That means that you’re almost ready to move onto the next phase of your eCommerce experience, where you set up your store and start making some serious profit.

There’s just one more thing you’ll need to do first – and that’s verify that the supplier you’ve chosen has the power to give you reasonable profit margins on your products. In simple terms, this means finding out whether the difference between the amount you pay to your supplier and the amount you receive from your customer is enough to give you a significant profit.

Before you commit to working with any supplier, it’s crucial to conduct a profit margin analysis on a small sampling of the products you’re going to sell. Simply pick a bundle of 3 or 4 mid, low, and high-end products from your portfolio, and follow the process below.

This whole process should only take about 60 minutes. That means you could be only 60 minutes away from building your store and generating profits.

Exciting right?

1. Determine your Wholesale Cost

So, the first step in verifying your profit margins is knowing how much you’re going to pay your supplier. This means adding up all the costs that you incur when ordering a product, including the cost of the items, the shipping costs, drop shipping fees, handling fees, and other charges.

If this is the first time you’ve ever looked for a supplier, you’ll learn one term very quickly, and that’s “Minimum Order Quantities”. It’s not uncommon for some manufacturers to require commitments to a specific number of units. This is something you’ll need to consider when determining your wholesale cost.

The trickiest part of this calculation is figuring out your shipping costs. Some suppliers make this element easy by giving you free shipping or charging you a flat-rate fee depending on what you order. However, if your supplier charges the actual shipping for each order, then you have a hard time calculating the amount you can reasonably earn with your product sales. Ideally, we’d recommend going with a supplier who keeps shipping simple.

2. Know Your Retail Price

Okay, so you know how much you’re going to pay your supplier. Now you need to figure out how much your customers are going to pay you. This includes the retail price of your products and any additional amount they might pay for shipping.

The first step in choosing your retail price is finding out whether your manufacturer has a MAP policy. This policy, otherwise known as the “Minimum Advertised Price” dictates the smallest price you can sell your products for. MAP is a great thing because it stops retailers from getting into price wars with their competitors that could damage your profit margins over time. If you’re allowed to sell at any price you want, there’s always a chance that your products will keep falling in value.

Stick to a manufacturer with a MAP policy if possible, then take a few moments to check out competitor’s prices to see what they’re charging for shipping, and the product itself. If you see someone selling at under MAP, you can call a rep and see whether they do anything by it. If they don’t, then you might want to reconsider the manufacturer you’re using. If your competitors are using MAP, then there’s a good chance they’ll be offering free shipping too. If that’s what you’re seeing, you’re pretty much done with this step, because you know exactly how much you need to charge.

If your manufacturer doesn’t have a MAP policy and you still want to work with them, you’ll need to work a little harder on finding the right price for your products. Ultimately, you’ll have to make sure that you know the overall amount your competitors are charging for the products in your sample, so you can make sure that you charge the same amount. Once you have your numbers, you’ll be able to move onto the next stage.

3.Analyze your Potential Profit Margins

Finally, it’s time to analyze the profit margins you can achieve with a specific supplier and decide whether you want to engage in a reseller contract. The profit margin is the difference between the amount you pay your distributor and the amount your customers pay you. You can find out more about getting your “ducks in a row” here.

Ultimately, you want to make as much money as possible in your profit margin, however, you won’t need to make nearly as much profit on the low-end products as you do on high-end, and mid-range products. Make sure that you don’t get overwhelmed by the different numbers you’ll have to work with. Remember, in some niches, the average order price will contain a range of products, and the number of dollars in profit you get is much more important than profit percentage.

Find out if you can make around $25 or more in profit on the average order. If you can, then you’ll be ready to contact your supplier and complete phase one of the eCommerce journey.

Congratulations!

If you can’t quite make that much, you might want to reassess your offering or look for a supplier who can give you a better profit margin. Remember, every supplier is different, and once you’ve figured out how to analyze your options with the steps above, you’ll be in a much better position to find the right solution for your business strategy.

With these preparations, you’ll be ready to move onto the next step of your eCommerce strategy – setting up your business store! Join us in the next chapter of our case study for a complete rundown of how you can accomplish exactly that!

Part 3 -SEO Secrets of Google:How to find Expired Domains
(Published June 15th, 2018 )

Picking a Domain Name

So far in our series, we’ve covered how you can choose winning products, and how you can find a supplier. Now, we’re going to look at how you can pick the perfect domain name.

When you were in the initial stages of planning your business, you might not have thought much about your domain name. Perhaps you assumed you’d just use your company name or think of something on the day. After all, it’s easy to assume that if you have great products to sell, people will visit you regardless of your domain name.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Your domain name is a key element of your online presence. It’s how you show people your brand and earn their trust. The right name is:

Your first opportunity to leave a lasting impression: Your URL is one of the first things any visitor will see. A great domain name can make a fantastic lasting impression, while a bad one leaves your customer confused. For instance, our case study domain name is “Bestwalletsonline.com”. It’s simple, describes what it sells, and it’s easy to remember.
An important component of SEO: While exact match domains aren’t always critical in today’s digital world, keywords in your domain name can be a powerful partner to your SEO ranking.
Your chance to define your brand: The right domain name is a wonderful way to build recognition for your company and start developing a relationship with your audience. (We’ll talk about this more later).

So, how do you choose the right domain name? That’s exactly what you’re going to learn today.

Choosing Domain Names: What You Need to Know

A domain name is much more than just your address on the web. Domain names have a huge impact on everything from search, to click-through rate, and even your social media results. Ultimately, if you want to be successful with your eCommerce campaign, then you need an amazing domain name.

Fortunately, choosing the right URL isn’t as tough as it seems. The following steps will help you to choose a name that launches your business into the stratosphere.

Step 1: Make it Brandable

Making your domain name “brand able” means that when you hear or see that name, it sounds like a company. While a name like “bestwalletsonline.com” sounds like a brand, something like “wallets9234.com” doesn’t.

Here’s how you can choose a more “brand able” domain name:

Create a new word (but make it easy to spell): You can make up catchy new words like Bing, Yahoo, or Google.
Use words that fit your brand: For our case study, we didn’t just choose “wallets online”, we brought the word “best” in to let customers know they’re buying quality.
Use domain name generators: These can give you some great inspiration. We’ll highlight a few of our favorites later.

Step 2: Make it Pronounceable

Most people don’t think about making their domain name easy to pronounce. After all, most people will be typing the name out or clicking a link. However, the fact that your name is pronounceable is important because of a cognitive bias known as “processing fluency”. Human beings remember and have better feelings about things we can say out loud.

If your name isn’t easy to say, then you’re going to lose out on memorability, and all the benefits of the brand ability you created above.

Step 3: Use Broad Keywords

Finally, the right keywords in your domain name can improve SEO and help with cognitive fluency too. The key is to choose an aged domain with the right broad keyword to let people know exactly what you have to offer. Remember, broad terms are best. In our case study, the word “wallets” in “Bestwalletsonline.com” is our target keyword.

If you can get a broad term into your domain that highlights the nature of your business and shows your customers what they can get from you, then do so. However, don’t run the risk of trying to cram keywords into your URL where they don’t belong. A keyword that looks out of place makes your link look spammy, and that means fewer click-throughs.

Step 4: Make it Short

The length of your domain name matters more than you’d think. No-one wants to type out a long and exhausting URL, and extra lengthy links can look dangerous too. Why do you think so many affiliate marketers use link-shortening tools to improve their conversions? The fewer characters your domain name has, the better off you’ll be.

Step 5: Stick with the .Com Suffix

The internet has been around for decades, and in that time numerous domain suffixes have emerged, all the way from .co.uk, to .info. When there are countless TLD extensions to choose from, why is .com so important? The simple answer is that it’s the one your customers feel most familiar with.

The concept of cognitive fluency mentioned above dictates that Domain names should go with something easy, and something that customers have a strong association with. As far as TLD extensions go, .com will always be the best.

Step 6: Make it Clever and Intuitive

There’s an important balance that you’ll need to find when choosing a brand name. While your URL needs to be simple, it should also be intuitive enough that it conveys the essence of both your company, and website. A play on words can be useful because it makes your name more memorable. However, the key is to describe what your customers can get from you.

“BestWalletsOnline.com” is a name that instantly showcases what you’re going to get from the website. It’s not witty, but it does make sense, and that’s what counts.

Step 7: Be Cautious of Copyright/ Trademark Infringement

There are a few legal considerations to be aware of when you’re choosing your domain name. Doing your research in advance ensures you’re not stepping on anyone’s toes. This doesn’t just mean you need to avoid the names that already exist. If your name is similar enough to another company to confuse the average customer, you could be in trouble.

There are plenty of guides out there that can help you with avoiding trademark infringement, including articles from Nolo.com and Entrepreneur.com. You can also speak to an attorney. Remember, the more unique your name is, the less you have to worry about legality-wise, and the more brandable your URL becomes.

What if My Domain Name Isn’t Available?

If the domain name you wanted isn’t available, then you might need to get a little creative. For instance, you can use an alternative TLD, but if the domain name you want is active with a different company, this could lead to trademark problems. The best thing you can do is rethink your strategy and decide how you’re going to create an identity that’s unique and relevant.

It might be helpful to do a little brainstorming to get you started. When you do this, don’t worry about evaluating each name as you go. Just write everything down and once you have a huge list of name ideas, you can start narrowing them down with the criteria outlined above.

Remember, there’s also online tools that can help with your domain names, like:

Wordoid which allows you to generate ideas based on a specific keyword.
Lean Domain search which helps you to generate a list of available domain names based on a key term.
DomainHole which allows you to find expired domain names and generate new names too.

Let’s wrap up our first series!

Ultimately, your domain name will always have a significant impact on the success of your website. Choosing a domain name is a critical step in launching your eCommerce company. If you’re hoping to build your business through organic traffic (customers who find you through the search engine result pages) an aged domain is key. Choosing an older domain name gives your website some weight, and allows you to avoid the scrutiny that comes with being a brand-new URL.

Of course, not all aged domain names are created equally. You can find out if yours is any good by looking at how old the domain name is – 1 year or more is great. BestWalletsOnline.com is actually 3 years old. Once you’ve checked the age, you can go to archive.org to check out the history of the domain name and examine screenshots that should help you to check the domain is good quality. With the screen shots available on archive.org, you can see the homepage and any websites linking back to the site which might help to launch your link strategy.

Copy all the links you find into a text file so that when you’re ready to build your website, you can use 301 redirect codes for those links and you’ll already have a start for your SEO strategy.

Make sure that you use the tips above to choose yours and stay tuned with our series to find out more about creating the ultimate eCommerce site.

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