Carving out a Niche

After choosing a big niche, I must carve out a smaller niche to focus on.

This was a little harder that I thought it would be. It's hard to stay focused on a micro-niche especially because a lot of the competition seems to be really broad and because I'm so interested in everything.

I decided to resort to the good ol' fashion way: a pros and cons list. Well in this case, instead of two columns there were 4: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. I listed as many possible smaller niches as I can. For each one, I did a brief SWOT Analysis. Brief in that I concluded they were all the same because they're still part of the same niche. So I added another column: target audience. There was one whose potential target audiences is wider than all of the other smaller niches. (I also considered if there were merchants, I am confident there are many because of the competition. ) Now I have a small niche.

I am sure there are many ways to hone in on a smaller niche.

• visiting merchants' and competitors' sites and see what their focus is
• what am I in the market for?
• are there any new products/services being introduced?
  

I will continue researching this niche to find more about the needs of the customer, what the competitors have to offer, what the competitors don't offer, etc..