how to find ideas for new products Archives

by Gail Oliver, Online Marketing Consultant

Adding more products to your online shop is another obvious way to increase your sales. Now, it might not always increase your profits right away because costs could increase with the addition of the new products, but it is another obvious way to grow your business. So, what are some creative ways to expand your current product line?

Start by taking a look at your current product line and see if you can offer different:

Colors
Materials / Ingredients
Shapes
Sizes
Scents
Languages
Embellishments
Styles
Prices
Uses

For example, one of my customers, Bad Tags, sells cute dog tags in a variety of sayings, colors and shapes. They even have tags that indicate if a dog has special needs and add-on accessories such as rhinestone rings for the tags. Therefore, how do they expand their current product line even further to increase sales? Since their tags do have sayings, maybe they could offer them in different languages other than English to broaden the market; or they could do a higher priced line of dog tags with embedded birthstones or diamonds (trust me, there are customers for this); or they offer a dog tag that has an LED light in it so the dog is seen when walking it at night. They have customers buying tags for animal fundraisers, so they could offer a value bundle strictly for fundraising purposes.

I know a lot of art and photography shops have taken their art and put in on everything from t-shirts to mugs, which is great, but now everyone is doing it, which is not so great. However, these shops could take their work and sell it in a different form, such as an image spliced into three images. They could try putting the art or photograph onto a trendy new medium, such as glass, or onto supplies such as fabric and ribbon and now they can sell to other businesses instead of just to the end user.

Even repackaging items can help if you don’t wish to add new products. If you sell monogram necklaces, for example, sell a mother daughter monogram necklace set, which means you now get two sales but to the customer it looks like one. If you sell baby blankets, sell a set of three together that are embroidered with “crib”, “car”, and “stroller”. Simple ways to turn your current products into more listings.

Need ideas on how to expand your product line? I can take a look at your products and give you ideas on how to expand, just book my 30-Minute Phone Consultation.