5 Less Contested Ecommerce Business Ideas that You Can Pursue in 2019

Every business these days are turning to eCommerce for the sheer scope of outreach and business opportunity. Businesses right from the brick and mortar stores next door to the upmarket garment store, every business now want to turn to online stores. Businesses feel more inspired by the hundreds of success stories from eCommerce retailers and online ventures around the world.

Well, your wish to start a new online store with some unique merchandise is really great. But such a wish needs to be equally supplemented by some decision making and your gut. To make things easier for you, we are going to explain some unique business ideas for eCommerce app development.

1. Niche Fashion Store

Opening a fashion store may seem to be a dull idea since there are thousands of such stores selling all kinds of fashion garments, accessories, and jewelry. But when it is about creating a niche store with a smaller but specific audience, you can get a better buzz and hype. For instance, your garment store may only be specialised in hand-woven fabric prepared in Northern Italy. Or, you may just prepare custom-tailored shirts after taking measurements of your customers in a virtual or Augmented Reality environment. Such a fashion store with niche merchandise or unique value proposition may quickly find engagement.

There are some ground rules to become successful with such stores. Let us see them one by one.

• Don’t opt for a highly contested niche with too many competitors or many global brands.
• Always opt for some unique specialties for making a value proposition.
• Before elaborating your business plan or building the store research well to know your target audience.
• Always insist upon delivering unique value to your customers that none of your closest competitors can provide.

2. Exotic Food Store

Among the eCommerce business niches food is possibly the most uncontested category that still offers huge scope for every new entrant. Food is always a culture specific and highly individual choice centric. In a globe where the mingling of cultures and tastes is the latest trend and fad, the Mexican tapas can easily become the favourite street food in Paris or quintessential British Fish n’ Chips can turn into an Arab favourite. On the other hand, you can always surprise the taste buds of your customers with some unique home-grown exotic and traditional food items. With culturally tuned global taste buds exotic food store can be a great eCommerce niche. Here are some key tips to remember.

• First of all, research well and know the target audience for your food delicacies.
• Make detailed research on which market and audience are to welcome which delicacies.
• Maintaining authentic taste and using high-quality ingredients is the key success factor.
• Give your food packaging, promotion, and online visuals a befitting cultural twist to appear lucrative and engaging.

3. Store for DIY Products and Tools

Modern urban populace love to test their skills and abilities in all everyday things. That’s why cooking classes are becoming so popular among travelers. Why not give this audience of fast-paced lifestyle some unique DIY tools that they can easily use to get things done? Do you have some unique ideas about making a handbag in minutes by using old and unused garments? Or, do you know how to make some portable all-purpose furniture using simple stuff? Why not sell these ideas or sell your unique produce online? DIY products are the latest lifestyle fad in many parts of the world and you can easily capitalise on this through an online store. But keep in mind the following tips.

• You can sell DIY guide, videos and simple tools or else, you can simply sell some cool DIY products you produced. You can’t sell both.
• When selling DIY tools or guide, showing a few interesting tricks to engage customers is the way to go.
• Make sure your DIY techniques and stuff actually work without exceptions. In case of conditions, constraints or exceptions, mention them beforehand.
• It is a business that heavily relies on creativity to get going. So, make sure you always have dozens of unique DIY idea in the pipeline to make your business thrive.

4. Online Cooking Class

Since the explosion of social media, people’s affair with food has almost reached a peak. Now, people are more interested in the food of other cultures and distant regions than ever before. You can really bank on the business potential of this trending interest in food and cooking. You can sell online food classes on a variety of cuisines, experimental food, and delicacies of all sorts. You can further have a niche approach to target specific interests like “cooking class for students” or “cook food with homegrown veggies” or “cook healthy food”, etc. If you are a foodie with a trained global taste bud, this eCommerce idea is for you. But before you start, consider the following tips.

• Don’t start with the same stuff people are seeing for ages. Look for innovative and unique stuff.
• Show your audience a short video to give some glimpses of wonder waiting for them.
• High-quality engaging video with crisp visuals can only engage your audience.

5. A Budget Travel Planner

Till today travel makes the biggest online revenue among all niches simply because people spend a lot on everything related to travel. But most people are also very budget-conscious while planning their trips. This is exactly where we can spot the potential of a great eCommerce business. Why not make a store that only sells budget travel planner for locations around the world? Yes, if you can cover this vast globe city by city and region by region with precise and relevant information about costs of food, accommodation, transport, camping, and others, you really can be unbeatable. But this eCommerce idea involves some challenges as well. Here are some useful tips for this eCommerce store idea.

• Make sure you know your stuff very well. This idea can only be monetised by a seasoned traveler having every bit of idea about the challenges for budget travelers.
• Don’t fall in the trap of sharing commonplace wisdom as it would make your online service irrelevant.
• You can also sell budget travel guidebooks coveting every sites and location in detail. Always make sure they are written by experts and real-life budget travelers.
• You should optimise your chances of search engine rank by publishing regular travel blogs with an emphasis on budget travel tips.

Conclusion

Well, there is still a lot of uncontested and unique eCommerce ideas that equally deserve a place in our discussion. Remember, coming with a unique idea is one thing and executing the idea to a successful business is another thing. So, always embrace the idea that easily resonates with your capability, natural inclination and preference.

Author Bio: Atman Rathod is the Co-founder at CMARIX TechnoLabs Pvt. Ltd., a leading eCommerce development company with 13+ years of experience. He loves to write about technology, startups, entrepreneurship and business. His creative abilities, academic track record and leadership skills made him one of the key industry influencers as well.