The 10 Best Places Ecommerce Entrepreneurs Go To Find Product Ideas

Coming up with a great idea for a product to sell online will occasionally strike when you least expect it. Many times though, it’s something you need to be proactively on the lookout for. The internet contains a wealth of ideas and inspiration, but as a new entrepreneur, where do you begin? Aimlessly searching online will only get you so far so we have compiled a list of the best resources to give you direction and get you started.

As you go through all the resources listed in this post, it’s vital to keep two things in mind:

1. While searching for new product ideas, make sure to look beyond the products themselves. It may sound cliche but as we learned in the last post, there is heavy competition in the most common and popular product categories. Choosing a different or unique angle can be instrumental to your success. Try not to just look at products, rather look for potential in the product category. Consider new markets, new features and new ways to use the products.
2. Don't be afraid to look at smaller product categories and niches. Even though a niche is a smaller subset of a larger category with less potential customers, it makes up for that by way of less competitors and a more targeted audience. Less competition makes it easier to get to the top of Google, and is usually more cost effective and efficient to advertise to your customers.

In this post we will go into detail about the best places to look for product inspiration and ideas. We’ll start with some broad ideas to get your head in the right space to start your search and then get into more specific resources closer to the end of the post.

Let’s get started.

Make a List

As you go through this post and the list of resources, it’s best to capture all of your ideas on paper. Once you have all of your brainstormed ideas recorded, you will be able to return to them later and evaluate them for viability and potential.

1. Start With What You Have

Before you begin searching the depths of the internet and the ends of the earth for product and niche ideas, it’s always best to start with the ideas you already have. Maybe it’s a product or idea you have had for years. Maybe it exists in a half written business plan sitting in a folder somewhere on your computer. Even if you’ve discounted it at some point prior, it’s worth taking a fresh look at it. At one point you thought it was a great idea right?

Here are a few questions to consider when making your list:

• What products, niches or industry you are particularly passionate about or interested in?
• What products, niches or industries are your friends passionate about?
• What pain points do you have in your own life?

Example: Max had a big issue with his unruly, messy hair in the morning. Short of taking a time consuming shower every morning just to be able to style his hair properly, he set out to fix the pain point with his product, Morning Head. Morning Head is a shower cap with an absorbent towel liner that you can soak with water, place on your head and rub around for a minute to get your hair ready for styling.

Morninghead Commercial - Fix Bed Head in Seconds

2. Local Community

Sometimes, you don’t need a new idea at all. Traditional brick and mortar businesses have been around much longer than their ecommerce counterparts. Paying attention to trends in brick and mortar retail and adapting them to ecommerce can be just the ticket you need to create a profitable and unique business. Look around your community and take note of what new or interesting retail concepts people are talking about. Your local newspapers can also be a great resource for this type of news and information. 

Example: Yummy Tummy Soup Company is a perfect example of someone that saw an opportunity to take a brick and mortar concept and put it online. The Yummy Tummy Soup Company sends healthy homemade soups, cakes and pastries in a thoughtful care package to someone you love, giving them the tools they need to heal whatever ails them. They cook and bake all products daily and send them coast to coast in temperature controlled containers.

3. Online Consumer Trend Publications

A great place to start your search for product ideas is to look at some top consumer product trend publications. Following trend publications is great way to begin getting a sense of the direction consumer products are going and the ideas other entrepreneurs are introducing to the market. Following these publications can also expose you to new product categories and industries that you previously didn’t know about. Following what’s trending can help you to dream up new goods, services and experiences for your online business.

There are several popular trend publications online including, but not limited to:

Trend Watching - Trend Watching is an independent trend firm that scans the globe for the most promising consumer trends and insights. Trend Watching has a team of thirty professionals in locations like London, New York, São Paulo, Singapore, Sydney and Lagos all looking for a reporting on worldwide trends.

Trend Hunter - Trend Hunter is the world's largest, most popular trend community. Fuelled by a global network of 137,000 members and 3,000,000 fans, Trend Hunter is a source of inspiration for aspiring entrepreneurs and the insatiably curious.

Jeremy, the founder of Trend Hunter says, "Like many of us, I was an entrepreneur at heart, but I didn't know what idea I wanted to pursue. I chose careers that I thought would lead me to my business idea... but after years of searching, I was still hunting for inspiration. It was then that I started Trend Hunter - a place for insatiably curious people to share ideas and get inspired."

Springwise - There are millions of business ideas spanning the globe that operate in a specific way, have their own style, and market in a unique fashion. It’s not always possible to travel the world searching for these ideas to bring home though. That’s where Springwise comes in. Sources such as Springwise travel the world for you, on the search for new entrepreneurial ideas, trends, and stories. Springwise publishes a daily and a weekly newsletter, which you can subscribe to for free.

Example: A great example of someone that noticed a trend from another country and brought it home is Dan and his product, Inkkas. Inkkas are beautiful, unique shoes using authentic South American textiles. The idea came about when Dan noticed the trend for these style of shoes in Peru. Determining this was a great product that would also do well in the North American market, he brought the idea home and successfully funded his Kickstarter project, raising over $77,000 in pre-orders.

4. Industry Leaders

If you know the industry or niche you would like to be in you can use various tools to discover the influencers in the industry. Following the right people on social media can help inspire new ideas via a constant stream of carefully curated content from the people in the know. It’s up to you to uncover the opportunities.

There are several online tools you can use to discover the influencers online for a particular industry or niche:

• Topsy
• FollowerWonk
• LittleBird

5. Product and Trend Discovery Review Sites

Product review and discovery sites can also be a fantastic source of ideas and inspiration. Sites like Uncrate (men’s products) and Outblush (women’s products) are great ways to see new curated product trends daily. What better way to get inspired than to get a daily glimpse into the new and interesting products other entrepreneurs are bringing to the market.

Here are just a few examples of popular consumer product blogs to get you started:

• Uncrate
• Outblush 
• Bless This Stuff
• Cool Material
• Gear Moose
• Werd
• HiConsumption
• Firebox

Don’t just look at the big and popular sites but explore niche reviews sites as well. Consider what types of products and niches you're particularly interested in and search for consumer product review blogs in those niches.

6. Social Curation Sites

Pinterest and other similar image curation sites can be a goldmine for product and niche ideas. Many of the images contain interesting, new and trending consumer products. Using the built in social signals you can sometimes get a sense almost immediately of their popularity. This could be your first clue if there is a market for the product or niche.

Several of the larger social curations sites are:

• Pinterest - Pinterest is the fastest growing social network with over 50 million monthly users. Don’t forget to check out the popular section for what’s trending.
• Polyvore - Polyvore is a new way to discover and shop for things you love. Polyvore's global community has created over 80 million collage-like “sets” that are shared across the web.
• Fancy - Fancy describes themselves as part store, magazine and wish list. Use Fancy to find a gift for any occasion and share your favorite discoveries with all your friends.
• Wanelo - Wanelo (Want - Need - Love) describes itself as a community for all of the worlds shopping, bringing together products and stores in a Pinterest like product posting format. You can start by checkout out trending people. 

7. B2B Wholesale Marketplaces

What better way to get product ideas than right from the source. This has been a popular option amongst ecommerce entrepreneurs for a while and this list wouldn’t be complete without it. Wholesale and manufacturer sourcing sites like Alibaba exposes you to thousands of potential products and ideas. It can be easy to get overwhelmed with the sheer amount of product available so take it slow.

Some of the more popular B2B wholesale product sites are:

• Alibaba - You’ve likely heard of Alibaba. They are one of the biggest ecommerce companies in the world, up there with Amazon and eBay. Alibaba connects consumers all over the world with wholesalers and manufacturers from Asia. With hundreds of thousands of products, there’s not much you can’t find on Alibaba. 

Although it’s generally accepted that Alibaba is the largest online wholesale and manufacturer database, there are many other sites similar to Alibaba you can use for inspiration and to find product ideas.

Some of the largest competitors of Alibaba include:

• TradeKey
• Global Sources
• Made-in-China

8. Online Consumer Marketplaces

Another rich source for product ideas are online consumer marketplaces. Million of products is probably an understatement so you may want to begin your search with some of the popular and trending items and branch out into other interesting categories that catch your eye from there:

eBay - eBay is the largest online consumer auction site. 
eBay Market Research - A way to find some of the most popular product categories on eBay.

Amazon - Amazon is the largest internet retailer. 
Amazon Bestsellers - Amazon's most popular products based on sales. Updated hourly.
Amazon Movers and Shakers - Amazon's biggest gainers in sales rank over the past 24 hours. Updated hourly.

Kickstarter - Kickstarter is the largest crowd-funding website.
Kickstarter Discover - Browse all projects by popularity, funding, staff picks, as well as many other options.

Etsy - Etsy is a marketplace for handmade items.
Etsy Trending Items - Check out the current trending items and listings on Etsy.

AliExpress - AliExpress is a new consumer wholesale marketplace from Alibaba that allows you to order in small quantities.
AliExpress Popular - The most popular products being bought on AliExpress.

9. Social Forum Communities

Reddit is the largest social media news aggregator. It describes itself as the front page of the internet and is enormously influential. Reddit has thousands of “subreddits” which are sub-sections or niches that cater to different topics and and areas of interest. It’s within these subreddits that you can find lots of inspiration for your next product or business idea. 

If you have an idea for a particular industry, niche or product category, it’s worth doing a search and finding a suitable subreddit community to join and actively become a part of.

There are also many product focused subreddits that are packed with ideas.

Here are a few examples:

• Buy It For Life - For practical, durable and quality made products that are built to last.
• Shut Up And Take My Money - Interesting, clever, useful products that that people want… badly.

There are also several subreddits for curated Amazon products, make sure to check out the following:

• The Best of Amazon
• The Best of Amazon Canada
• The Best of Amazon UK
• Find It On Amazon

If you're active on Reddit and pay close attention, occasionally you have come across interesting posts like these:

• Reddit, What is One Product Under $20 That You Recommend Everyone To Buy?
• What $100 Item Has The Single Greatest Ability to Increase Quality of Life?

No matter which approach you take, Reddit is has been and continues to be a valuable source of entrepreneurial ideas and inspiration, coupled with a great and supportive community.

10. Instagram

Instagram isn’t just pictures of food and dogs, it is also an interesting option for inspiring product ideas. Because it’s photo based, it makes it easy to scan through many ideas and photos quickly.

There are a few ways you can use Instagram to search for product and niche ideas:

• Hashtag - Once again, if you have a particular interest in a product category or industry, you can try searching for applicable hashtags. Another great option is to do a search on Instagram for applicable hashtags that insinuate buyer interest and intent like #want and #buy.
• Product Curation Accounts - There are many accounts on Instagram that post curated product content. Like many other examples above, you'll likely want to search for and find accounts within the niches you are particularly interested in. As an example, Shopify curates interesting and unique products from Shopify’s 90,000+ online stores. It might just provide the idea or spark for your next product.

[B2B] - Business To Business Reasearch...

Article Abstract

This article reviews five recent books: First Among Equals—How to Manage a Group of Professionals; Stakeholder Power; Defining Markets, Defining Moments; The Great Tween Buying Machine; and Customer-Centric Product Definition.

With spring in the air, it seems like a good time to clean off the old bookshelf, so here are quick-hit reviews of five of the more noteworthy books to cross my desk in the past several months.

First Among Equals - How to Manage a Group of Professionals, by Patrick McKenna and David Maister, isn't about research but could certainly come in handy to researchers or anyone in the business world who needs to lead a team of co-workers, whether it's on an ongoing or one-time basis. The book is comprehensive: the authors show how to define your role as a leader, how to deal with many types of people (the prima donna, the underperformer, etc.), how to clarify group goals, and how to measure the group's success. If you don't want to take your role as a leader seriously, don't bother picking this book up. But if you do, there's a lot to work with here.

Leadership of another kind is the focus of Stakeholder Power. To show other interested businesses how they might assume a corporate leadership role, authors Steven Walker and Jeffrey Marr of the Indianapolis research firm Walker Information take the reader inside a number of companies that have aligned their quest for corporate integrity with corporate success. Walker and Marr argue that by conducting business at every level with integrity and fostering and sustaining an image of good corporate citizenship, a motivated company can achieve the newest business-world Holy Grail: customer loyalty.

Two other books focus on market segmentation. Defining Markets, Defining Moments paints portraits of seven American generational cohorts (Depression-era, World War II, Postwar, Leading-Edge Baby Boomer, Trailing-Edge Baby Boomer, Generation X, and N Generation) by examining the cultural and historical experiences that have shaped each group's outlook. There's not too much new here - most of the advice on how to market to the different cohorts is (or should be!) of the common sense variety. Still, the book is an entertaining read and provides a solid overview of the American consumer, making it a good reference for marketers trying to bring a specific age group into focus.

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Selling to and understanding 8-12-year-olds is the subject of The Great Tween Buying Machine, a thorough look at one age group's fears, hopes, likes/dislikes, and media and consumption habits. The book's later chapters give battle-tested advice on how to reach tweens with advertising and marketing campaigns and how to develop new products.

Product development is the sole focus of our last book, Sheila Mello's Customer-Centric Product Definition. Mello, managing partner of Product Development Consulting, Inc., uses the phases of her firm's Market-Driven Product Definition methodology as a framework for showing readers how to truly incorporate the voice of the customer into their new product efforts. But Mello has avoided penning a book-length commercial and instead has packed 224 pages with advice on using the Kano method, establishing metrics, conducting customer visits, and seeing through the customer's eyes.

First Among Equals - How to Manage a Group of Professionals (288 pages, $26), by Patrick McKenna and David Maister, is published by The Free Press/Simon & Schuster, New York.

Stakeholder Power - A Winning Strategy for Building Stakeholder Commitment and Driving Corporate Growth (258 pages, $28), by Steven Walker and Jeffrey Marr, is published by Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, Mass.

Defining Markets, Defining Moments - America's 7 Generational Cohorts, Their Shared Experiences, and Why Businesses Should Care (364 pages, $24.99), by Geoffrey Meredith and Charles Schewe, with Janice Karlovich, is published by Hungry Minds, New York.

The Great Tween Buying Machine - Marketing to Today's Tweens (224 pages, $47.50), by Dave Siegel, Tim Coffey, and Greg Livingston, is published by Paramount Market Publishing, Ithaca, N.Y.

Customer-Centric Product Definition - The Key to Great Product Development (224 pages, $34.95), by Sheila Mello, is published by Amacom, New York.

Tips For Bloggers To Gain Advantage

First things first: why blog? We all know that blogging is one of those things we should be doing, but if you don’t know why you may feel yourself lacking in the motivation department. The primary reason for a blog on your website is to keep the search engines happy (Google in particular). Fresh content will keep your website relevant and active, and will contribute to a higher search ranking. Reason number two is the image that your blog helps to create around your brand. If you provide valuable content, you can establish yourself as a credible go-to for information, and if people engage with you then your blog can also be a great place for building customer relationships. 

Top Tips for Blogging

1. Draw up a publishing schedule and stick to it. It’s a good idea to post regularly (weekly would probably suit most businesses). If you have time to write more than one blog post at a time the do. Write them and schedule them so they’re out the way.
2. Draw up a list of blog ideas that you can keep adding to when something comes to mind. You can then fit each topic into your blog schedule.
3. Have a look at the blogs of other businesses in your sector. You can learn a lot about what people respond to best and what goes ignored.
4. Get to know your audience. Find out what they’re interested in, what they need help with, and what would be useful for them.
5. Use relevant quotes, examples and studies to add further validity to your blog.
6. How to’s and tutorials are a great way of engaging people through useful content. Valuable ideas and information will help to establish you as a trusted authority in whatever you’re writing about, which in turn will help to generate leads.
7. Use keyword search terms when you write (not too many though) to optimise your blog and get it found more easily on search engines.
8. Ask people questions. This turns blogging into a dialogue rather than a monologue and makes it far more engaging.
9. Don’t be afraid to find your own voice. Write in a tone which suits your personality and that of your company.
10. Start an email list and send links to the blogs on your website (not excessively, or else people will get fed up with you).

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Many small businesses often fail to understand the purpose of a blog and how it is different from their corporate website. Many company blogs are just bland reproductions of the existing website. There is often no personality on display just a grey suit which uses an officious tone announcing the play-by-play updates of company news that invites no interaction with the reader, which is probably the customer or supplier. With this in mind we’ve been thinking about what makes a good corporate blog. So, inevitably, here are our top ten tips for successful corporate blogs.

Set your guidelines

When creating a blog you must be able to define the value that it’s bringing to the reader. Choose a blog name and theme that fits well with your company’s expertise, but don’t be afraid to branch out into a larger space. Your blog should provide pertinent information for consumers interested in your area of business.
Once you’ve chosen an area to cover, create a set of editorial guidelines that your bloggers can follow. 

Dress down

If your website is the ‘suited and booted’ face of your company, then your blog is your Dress Down Friday look. A blog is a place to let down your corporate hair and get to know your customers. Think of it as a conversation between people, not between a brand and an audience. In order to have a conversation, you need two people – a blogger and a reader.
Give your corporate bloggers the freedom to be themselves. Encourage them to have their own personalities and writing styles. This type of diversity is more representative of your company than any monotonous tone that you could manufacture on your own.

Avoid PR and marketing

Might seem like strange advice coming from a company that specialises in public relations and marketing but the insight, knowledge and expertise that a blog can impart is far more useful than any PR pitch that you could post. Stay away from trying to selling and marketing – you can do that on your website or in deadwood media publications.

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Choose a blogging team

Not everyone can write – at least not in a manner that draws in the reader. More crucially, not everyone wants to write and many positively avoid it. So choose individuals that are knowledgeable and comfortable writing about the areas you would like to cover. Some companies prefer to elect an editor or group of editors to have a final look at all blog posts, while other companies allow their bloggers to publish directly. We prefer the later – if the guidelines are clear you should trust the people your working with.

Outline your comment policy

Open up your blog for full feedback, you will get a variety of comments – positive, complimentary, hateful, and spam. Be prepared for everything and create a comment policy that your team can follow. Your policy could read like this:

Commenting on our blog

It is our policy to review all comments before publishing them, partly to reduce the possibility of spam comments and partly to ensure comments are in line with our ethics below:

• We will tell the truth. We will acknowledge and correct any mistakes promptly.
• We will not delete comments unless they are spam, off-topic, or defamatory.
• We will reply to comments when appropriate as promptly as possible.
• We will link to online references and original source materials directly.
• We will disagree with other opinions respectfully.

Take it on the chin

Many organisations run scared off social media in the belief that some people (and there will be some people) will just use it as an opportunity to say bad things about you. But they would probably be mean about your anyway whether it’s through social media or in a pub conversation.
Accept that you will have detractors but make a point of welcoming criticism and using it as an opportunity for providing feedback and improvement.

Promote your blog

Just as you would promote any other company initiative, get the word out about your blog. Share the URL on your website, social networks, business cards, e-mails, and advertisements.
Without promotion, building an audience can be difficult. Get behind the quality work that your team is putting into the blog and promote away.

Get social

Use share tools, such as Facebook, Twitter and Digg. Share tools allow your users to pass along your content and that’s a great way of creating brand ambassadors. Why not use a simple addthis button to make sharing easier. Also, integrate you blog into other social media platforms by creating profiles across social networks that your readers and customers are active on. Facebook and Twitter are a good start, and YouTube is a must for video-sharing.

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Monitor and Feedback

Make sure your web analytics tools are switched on. We generally integrate Google Analytics into any blog we are managing. This tells us how much traffic the blog is receiving, where it’s coming from, where the referral websites are and which posts are being read the most.
Armed with this data you can then tweak future posts to ensure that we are getting the tone and content right.

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Improve Your Home's Wi-Fi Signal With These Router Tips

A typical home's Wi-Fi signal can be improved in just a few minutes with some basic tweaks. For more improvements, look to your hardware -- routers, repeaters, and extenders. And be sure no ancient Wi-Fi devices are dragging down your network.



Upgrade to 5 GHz Wi-Fi

Most wireless routers out there are still operating on the decade-old 2.4 GHz frequency, while modern 802.11ac routers operate both on 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz. New devices compatible with 5 GHz automatically connect to the 5 GHz Wi-Fi, while your older devices can connect to the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi.

5 GHz is a less cluttered part of the spectrum. Most of your neighbors are likely still using 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, so there's less interference on 5 GHz. More importantly, 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi only offers three non-overlapping channels -- channels 1, 6, and 11. Meanwhile, 5 GHz Wi-Fi offers 23 channels, and none of them overlap. Older 2.4 GHz wireless devices like cordless telephones and baby monitors won't interfere with 5 GHz Wi-Fi, either.

The bottom line: Assuming you have 5 GHz-compatible devices, upgrade to an 802.11ac 5 GHz wireless router for less interference. Devices that support 5 GHz will get a boost, and 2.4 GHz devices will continue to function like they did before.

(Image: Keith Williamson)

Extend Your Coverage With a Repeater

Repeaters allow you to extend your Wi-Fi coverage. They are useful if you're trying to cover a large home -- or a home that has nooks and crannies where the signal doesn't reach. You can extend Wi-Fi to the farthest corners of your property with one or more repeaters.

Head to Amazon (or another store where networking equipment is sold) and search forwireless repeater or wireless range extender. Be sure to buy one compatible with your router -- so, if you're upgrading to an 802.11ac router, get a range extender that supports 802.11ac. It'll work even if it only supports an older standard, but it'll repeat traffic using that older, slower Wi-Fi standard.

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5 GHz is a less cluttered part of the spectrum. Most of your neighbors are likely still using 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, so there's less interference on 5 GHz. More importantly, 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi only offers three non-overlapping channels -- channels 1, 6, and 11. Meanwhile, 5 GHz Wi-Fi offers 23 channels, and none of them overlap. Older 2.4 GHz wireless devices like cordless telephones and baby monitors won't interfere with 5 GHz Wi-Fi, either.

The bottom line: Assuming you have 5 GHz-compatible devices, upgrade to an 802.11ac 5 GHz wireless router for less interference. Devices that support 5 GHz will get a boost, and 2.4 GHz devices will continue to function like they did before.

Get a More Powerful Antenna

Rather than using a repeater, you might purchase a stronger antenna for your router instead. A more powerful antenna can boost the range of your router's Wi-Fi signal, extending Wi-Fi coverage and improving all around-signal strength.

Check your router before buying an antenna. You'll need an antenna that's compatible with the connector on your router. Buying a pre-made antenna isn't the only way to go, though. There are all sorts of DIY antennas you could make out of everything from an old aluminum can to some tin foil.

Decommission Wireless B Devices

If you have any devices still using 802.11b Wi-Fi, they're slowing down everything. Wireless B was the first successful Wi-Fi standard, and it debuted in early 2000. It was replaced by 802.11g in 2003.

Modern routers are still compatible with these old 802.11b devices, but they have to function in a sort of compatibility mode when 802.11b devices are connected. This slows down the Wi-Fi connection for every device on your network a bit. If you have any old devices still using 802.11b, it's time to replace them. Modern Wi-Fi standards don't have this problem -- you can connect an 802.11g device to an 802.11n network and it'll function at wireless G speeds, but not slow down those wireless N devices. Check your oldest Wi-Fi-enabled devices and ensure they support 802.11g at a minimum.

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