Identifying Opportunities for Your Online BusinessIdentifying opportunities for an online business does not need to be entirely subjective. Using the proper tools, merchants can learn a lot about their online customers and potentially identify new niches related to or in their industry. The key is analyzing demand and determining how to meet it.
One of the first things a merchant can do is analyze the search queries performed in his or her own online store. Good e-commerce solutions will keep track of the search terms and phrases entered by customers. If a golf retailer sees 40 searches executed for "head covers," that returned zero results, that could mean as many as 40 lost sales. This golf retailer should consider selling head covers in his online store.
Aside from looking at searches within an online store, it is also important to look at search volume before potential customers get to the site through the search engines. There are numerous tools available to do this:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/?term=
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
With the Overture Tool, consider printing out a list of terms monthly and analyze how their search volume has changed. Google's tool won't provide the exact number of searches, but does offer a way to plot the volume over time. If term's search volume increases month to month, there could be a new product or category that should be added to inventory.
Reading industry specific blogs can also provide insight into what customers may be looking for in the future. Bloggers love to write about their thoughts on the latest and greatest technologies and news. Maybe there is a group of bloggers excited about a new product that will soon be released.
With the help of Google Alerts, staying up to speed in with an industry no longer needs to be a full time job. Just enter some industry specific keywords and let Google email links to news about an industry. Merchants that do this might learn about a new product that could be a future top seller.
Finally, whether a merchant is talking with a customer on the phone or live chatting, it's a good practice to ask the customer if they have found everything that they were looking for. Should the customer mention products not currently available, the merchant should have a process in place for tracking them.
When trying to identify new opportunities, bare in mind that the customer is king. If a merchant can give the king what he is looking for, he'll give the merchant what he is looking for – more orders!
