Product Expansion Ideas

I am super a creative thinker. I come up with more ideas for cool Etsy shops or cool things to sell than I could possibly make in a lifetime. Ever since I started selling and writing marketing guides and reports, it's one that I've wanted to add to my shop...a custom product expansion guide type thing. I would basically analyze a seller's shop and then give the seller ideas on how to diversify their product lines to encourage more customers and sales.

I decided that today was it. I’m going to create a listing and start offering this for sellers. But before I did that, I wanted a little more information. I wanted to do a search in the forums on Etsy to get an idea on how this type of guide would be received. And boy did I hit the jackpot! I found this thread first thing.

http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6546678&page=1

How awesome is this? There is honestly nothing better than seeing other sellers help each other. It’s truly refreshing and a huge part of what makes Etsy such a great place to do business. Definitely read through this thread, as there are some good ideas in there and it’ll probably inspire you and give you ideas for your shop!

Finding this thread was excellent for me, for two reasons. First of all, it let me know that this is something that people are open to, that sellers understand that by expanding what they sell to include more types of items, they can draw more buyers in. Second of all, it let me know that this is something that is on people’s minds…Yay! Time to get that listing up!!

Now one thing that I noticed in this thread…there were so many ideas that were overlooked! Here are two things that didn’t get suggested (at the time I read the thread, it was up to page 10…if either of these ideas got suggested after, I digress.) that really have huge buyer generating potential.

No one suggested doing a line directed at teens to any of the jewelry shops. (What better way to get your shop exposure than to have teens talking about it? Think of the potential in social media marketing, alone)

No one suggested designing career themed items and I saw quite a few shops that would lend itself to this type of design idea. We all know that if you have a great item and you offer personalization, it makes it sell even better. But often times, that means you have to put more work into what you are selling, which is not a bad thing but by offering career themed items, you are making your item a little personalized and upping the appeal of the item, but not having to put quite as much work as personalizing it would require. It’s a fantastic way to generate some more sales without necessarily getting overwhelmed and feeling like you can’t keep up. Not to mention it's super easy to market an item like that.

So these are just two ideas….I came up with a lot more reading that thread. :-)

But I'm off to add a listing to my shop! I would so love to do this for sellers!! Plus the fact that this thread was started RIGHT when I was planning on starting to offer this service, tells me, it’s meant to be! LOL Yes, I look for “signs” and when they tell me yes…I listen!!

And I’d love to hear what you guys think… do you guys have any cool product ideas?