How does Sean get an idea for a Niche Store?

February 7, 2008

I am always thinking of new ideas for a niche store.  The main one is just what ever comes too thought from the things that are in my everyday life.  To give some other creative ways, I also get ideas by the items we buy, what the retailers are stocking, what we find interesting, listening to other people, watching television ads and seasonal trends.  I think of myself as an Internet Retailer with endless possibilities.

As an example, we live in Michigan where it snows and snowblowers are very popular.   I came up with the idea of a snowblower store because winter is the time that people start to buy them.  Nobody buys a snowblower until they have to, I was one of them.  I purchased mine about a year and half ago - after the first snowfall of the year.  When I went to Lowes there were only 2 left.  One was really pricey ($1,000), but the one I wanted was about $600.  While I was checking out at the cashier, there were 3 telephone calls requesting that the store reserve it for them.  The salesperson said they were very popular right now because we just got our first snow of the year.  I was glad I got there when I did.  He said it would be over a week before they got any more in stock.  That is how I came up with my store idea for SnowblowerOutlet - I was reflecting back on how great it was to have my snowblower - maybe I like my snowblower too much.  I didn’t have any intention to develop the site right away, but when I saw that it was getting a visitor every other day and a few clicks after I parked it at a Domain Parking website, I decided to develop it.  It made $6 in January.  Not much revenue, but I’ve only had the site up for about 2-3 weeks.  I think I am about 2-3 months too late in putting that site up because it is a seasonal trend.  With trends and seasonal items, you have to have your category ready to go ahead of time - just like the brick and mortar retailers are always 1-2 months ahead of the demand.  Which reminds me, last week I found a couple of Halloween names, I went ahead and registered them knowing that I will develop them in about six months in anticipation of that holiday season.  The Google Adwords Keyword Tool will show search trends for your keywords.

Some of the tools I use are:

Excel (This is how I keep track of possible domain names/markets)
Word Tracker (Free Version)
Google Suggest
Google Adwords Keyword Tool
eBay Pulse
eBay Hot Items
eBay Keywords
Top Searches at Ebay
Expired Domain Names
Television (I have a tv on my desk.)

When I come across a domain name or niche, it is entered into a spreadsheet for safekeeping and ease of remembering it.  I register domains faster than I can develop them, but as long as I already own a great keyword domain name, I am prepared.  In the spreadsheet there is a long list of keyword prefixes and suffixes, such as Discount, Supply and Cheap for creating names and performing expired name searches.  One reason I register a domain when I find one is because more often than not, when I come back a week or month later to register the name, it ends up being registered by someone else.  This has happened to me several times.

This may be off the wall, but when I do keyword searches at WordTracker or use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, I copy the list of keywords into the Bulk Domain Registration section at my Domain Register.  I then see what names are not registered to see if I could develop a site based on that keyword.  Last week I was searching for “sporting goods”.  From the list of “sporting goods” keywords I found an available name called “Indoor Sporting Goods” - I liked the name so much that I registered IndoorSportingGoods dot com.  Plus, eBay has an Indoor Sporting Goods category.  That was my thought process for that idea because I believe that having the keywords in the domain is important.

Another method is looking for expired domain names from Godaddy TDAM, this is one of my sources for that service.  If you haven’t already done so, you might want to consider looking for expired domain names.  Expired domains are great, especially if the domain used to have an established website at one time.  This gives you the ability to take advantage of the efforts that someone else put into developing the domain.  Expired domains that were once developed usually have traffic, you will also find that some will back links and link partners.  This is why I buy expired domain names.  As an example, I was looking for domains with “bargain” in the name and happened to come across Bargain Zippos.  I felt lucky at buying it for $20, especially since it has consistently made a few bucks a month without any promotional efforts.

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