With little competition and growing customer demand, eCommerce niches are a quick way to grow a profitable product line. To help you launch your own eCommerce store or grow a marketplace one, we’ve researched the five best eCommerce niches in 2020, along with the top product suggestions for each category.
Where to identify your niche
Identifying a niche that resonates with your brand and has the potential to drive customer numbers and profits requires research. You must establish customer demand, marketplace competition, future potential, and advertising costs. These four tools can help.
1) Amazon Best Sellers
Being one of the most popular eCommerce marketplaces, Amazon has a significant amount of data on products popular with both shoppers and sellers.
The Amazon Best Sellers page is a great place to begin identifying your niche. The page lists the products most popular with shoppers each hour, giving you an up-to-date insight on what’s trending.
To use Amazon Best Sellers to identify your niche, pick a product category to narrow down popular products relevant to your brand. For each item, click onto the listing to analyze the following:
- The number of sellers – what is the current competition for search ranking and winning the buy box?
- The number of reviews – how many people are buying this product, and how happy are they with the product and service?
- The number of questions – how engaged are customers with this product, and is there any room for product improvement?
- The amount of stock – how well are current sellers keeping up with demand?
2) Walmart BSR
If you’re a Walmart Marketplace seller, you can access the Walmart Best Seller Ranking feature to further your product research.
From Seller Central, select Growth Opportunities in the menu bar, and click “View” Walmart Best Sellers. From here, choose the Super Department and subcategory you want to view.
Conducting a similar research process to Amazon Best Sellers, use the returned information to analyze the following:
- The number of sellers – is there a low volume of sellers or a high proportion of 3rd party sellers?
- The average product rating – how happy are customers with the current product selection?
- The product ranking – how popular is this item on Walmart currently?
3) Trending on Google
A useful tool for predicting popular product niches is Trending on Google. Utilizing Google’s significant amount of search data, you can enter a product search term to see a graphical representation of search interest over time.
By filtering by country, timeframe, category, and search type (e.g., web or Google Shopping), you can quickly find items where search interest is steadily growing following a sustained period of inactivity.
Any potential niches can then be further corroborated using Amazon or Walmart to analyze seller volume, stock levels, and customer demand.
4) Google Keyword Planner
Finally, the keyword planner in Google Ads is a handy tool for identifying the advertising costs and competition for any product niches identified.
Enter a product keyword to establish the average number of monthly searches, the volume of competition, and the CPC (cost per click) ranges.
What to look for in a niche
In researching our list of the top five best eCommerce nices in 2020, we took into account the following crucial factors for success:
1) Competition
By its very definition, a niche product is one that has been overlooked by other businesses. Consequently, these categories have very little seller competition across online marketplaces, Google, and Bing. This gives you more chances of reaching the top of the search results, winning the buy box, and converting customers.
2) Demand
For a niche to be successful, there must be customer demand. This can be established by cross-referencing the above tools with recent media interest to spot current and growing market interest. Once you’ve identified a potential niche, you can further test customer demand by conducting market research or selling a small number of sample products.
3) Profit
Finally, there must be potential to profit from the niche. This means products that can be affordably sourced and attract a profit-making price, while also being cheap to advertise, store, sell, and ship quickly enough to meet fast shipping program requirements – no mean feat.
5 Interesting eCommerce niches to explore in 2020
So what are the five top trending eCommerce niches and products in 2020?
1. Vegan products
Veganism is gaining significant popularity as a lifestyle choice. More people are taking an ethical interest in their wellbeing and, accordingly, sourcing food free from animal-derived products. Searches on Google for “going vegan” have steadily increased over the past two years, but what hasn’t increased is the availability of related products.
Veganism is more than a diet. It involves ensuring that nothing you use or consume contains animal products, including cosmetics, cleaning products, and even hair care.
As of yet, the eCommerce industry has been slow to notice this increasing demand. A search for vegan mascara on Amazon returns just 261 results, compared with more than 3,000 results for regular mascara. Couple with significantly lower CPC (cost per click) rates on Google Ads, this is a great example of a growing eCommerce niche for 2020.
Related vegan products that you could capitalize on include:
- Vegan cosmetics
- Vegan clothing
- Vegan footwear
2. Natural pet care
Millennials have become the largest generation of pet owners, and, accordingly, pet spenders. Known as “pet parents,” this generation is responsible for tripling American pet spend, and it’s not just vet bills and dog walking that money is going on.
Increasingly motivated by a more sustainable and natural lifestyle, pet owners have become more interested in natural pet care products and remedies, and are willing to pay.
For example, Google searches for “CBD for dogs” have high-jumped over the past two years.
However, a similar search on Walmart’s marketplace returns just one relevant product. This opens up a significant untapped market for eCommerce sellers – especially those struggling to find a unique product to enter the natural remedies industry with.
Relevant pet care products that could flourish in 2020 include:
- CBD for pets
- Organic pet food
- Homemade pet treats
3. Eco-friendly items
The world is on a mission to save the planet, giving eco-friendly products the spotlight. While the niche-days have been and gone for many environmentally-friendly items, there are still gaps in the market for those wanting to innovate or think outside of the box.
For example, the number of Google searches for reusable tissues is predicted to surge this year, as shown by Google Trends:
Yet, CPC rates for the keyword “handkerchief” remain low, and a similar search on eBay returns only reusable tissue holders, not reusable tissues themselves. This is a great example of an old niche that still has room for development.
Other eco-friendly product ideas include:
- Reusable food wraps
- Reusable makeup wipes
- Reusable feminine products
4. Mental wellbeing
Mental wellbeing is now considered just as important as physical wellbeing, and everyone’s taking note. But those looking to invest in a little self-care and indulgence aren’t faced with a huge product selection.
Bullet journaling, for example, is pitched as a great way to overcome anxiety and embrace positivity. As a result, Google searches for the practice have risen since 2016.
Yet, a quick search on Walmart shows only 133 results for bullet journals, compared with over 1,000 results for regular journals. Other mindful and anxiety-related products return similar product levels, despite growing Internet searches and consumer interest.
If you’re interested in promoting positive mental health, this is a great product line to combine your personal passion with your business achievements. Other product gaps include:
- Weighted blankets
- Gratitude logs
- Worry keepers
5. Wearable tech
Smartwatches have demonstrated that consumers want to wear their tech, but the smartwatch market is highly saturated, with big names including Apple and Fitbit to compete against. However, there is still an opportunity in other wearable and smart technology.
Interest in smart backpacks has steadily risen since 2012, with people looking for an on-the-go bag that comes complete with USB chargers, solar panels, Bluetooth speakers, and more.
However, a smart backpack search on Walmart returns just 27 results; a low number for a high-volume search term. This is a great example of a high-cost item that has very little competition – allowing you to establish market dominance and profits before the market becomes over-saturated.
Other wearable tech items that could take off in 2020 include:
- Smart handbags
- Smart sportswear
- Smart water bottles
This is just a small selection of the eCommerce niches that could be used to build a unique and profitable eCommerce business in 2020. We hope that this article has not only provided product inspiration but has also demonstrated how you can identify and capitalize on product niches yourself. With a little Internet research and industry awareness, you don’t need a crystal ball after all!
