Have you ever wanted to start your own online business? Perhaps it's time to try!
From the flexibility of working from home to the freedom of making your own hours, there are some fantastic benefits that come with it.
If you are looking to start an online one-product store, you might have some questions. Where do I even begin? How can I stand out? What are some tips for success?
To succeed, you will need patience, persistence, and the ability to stick with it through all the ups and downs.
This guide will help you start an online one-product store in 2024 and show you eight tips for success!
How do you start an online one-product store?
Now, it might seem like starting an online one-product store is an excellent idea, but remember that building a successful online store is not easy.
There are many pieces to the puzzle, and each of them should have the right shape for everything to fit. You will have to consider things like a business plan, website layout, and marketing strategy.
So, if you are convinced of starting an online one-product store, I will show you how to get started next.
When starting an online one-product store, one of the first things you will have to do is decide which product you will sell.
This is also a step that will have a significant impact on your success in the future, so be sure to put your complete focus on it.
Take a look at our guide on choosing what product to sell here, and if you are looking for some inspiration, you can check out these 16 winning product examples!
After finding a product you are interested in, this article will provide you with all steps and resources you need to build your own online store.
Tip: Have you already created your Shopify account? If not, sign up by clicking this link here to get a free 3-day trial + pay $1/month for the first 3 months!
Be aware, the article I linked to above isn't explicitly written for one-product stores, but the process of creating an online store will be pretty similar, regardless of store type.
In short, it’s all about finding a product and supplier, setting up your store, doing marketing, and optimizing the store to try and increase profitability.
While the overall process may be similar, there are a couple of tips I can give you specifically for starting an online one-product store. By following them, you will increase your chances of building a successful brand!
8 Tips for starting an online one-product store in 2024
The following tips will help you to start a successful online one-product store in 2024.
I will try to cover some tips to prevent common mistakes and improve the overall process of building a one-product store.
Let's start with the first tip!
1. Spend a lot of time on product research
As mentioned earlier, the product you choose will have a significant impact on the success of your online store.
Since you will be building a one-product store, you only have a single chance to select a great product!
Some products are simply easier to sell online than others, thanks to their winning product characteristics like a "wow" factor, excellent profit margins, or problem-solving abilities.
After studying these characteristics, you can start searching for the (near) perfect product using some product research tools.
Our personal favorite out of all the product research tools we tried is Sell The Trend. It's an excellent tool that comes with some mind-blowing features.
For instance, one of our favorite features they offer is called “The Nexus”, in which you can find a lot (like really A LOT) of products:
To be able to use Sell The Trend, you will have to pay a subscription fee of $39.97 per month. However, the great news is that you can get a free 7-day trial here!
If you are not 100% convinced yet, take a look at our in-depth review of Sell The Trend!
Related article: Wondering how to find gaps in the ecommerce market? Check out this article for seven great tips!
2. Create a buyer's persona for your product
When designing and writing your online store pages and advertisements, it's essential to keep thinking about the audience you are about to target.
- Which problems do they experience in their lives?
- What are their goals and challenges?
- What do they value?
- How do they communicate?
These are all important questions that you should know the answer to.
And if you do, you will be able to design your online store in such a way that it will engage your audience and make them much more likely to purchase your product.
Furthermore, your ads will target the right people and show the pain points that the audience will recognize.
So, how do you get to know your perfect audience?
A good framework that you can use is called the buyer persona. This is a fictional person that represents your ideal customer.
Here are some more questions that you could include in your study:
But how do you figure out your buyer persona's age, gender, hobbies, interests, and so forth?
Well, check out this article to learn how to develop a buyer persona!
When brainstorming about a domain name for your online one-product store, it's a great idea to choose one related to your product.
For example, the name of the one-product store example from before, SaveSealer, is related to the product they sell, a vacuum sealer:
Picking a name related to your product will allow your visitors to recognize that your store is specialized in the kind of product you sell, which can increase their trust in you.
And if coming up with a name for your new online store isn’t really your thing, then remember that some tools and methods can help you come up with a great name!
So, if you are looking for help with choosing the best possible name for your one-product store, check out our ten tips here!
4. Find a good supplier with fast shipping times
As you now know, one of the big advantages of an online one-product store is that you only have to do many things once, allowing you to dedicate your entire focus towards it.
One of those things is finding a supplier.
You will only be selling a single product, so it's crucial to find a supplier with fast shipping times, fair prices, and excellent customer service to keep all your customers happy.
But how do you find such a good supplier?
Well, usually, you would have to spend many hours doing research and making comparisons to find the best suppliers.
But, luckily, we have done the hard work for you and published many articles that cover a list of the best suppliers from a specific region.
If you’re interested in all the options, check out this huge article of all suppliers we have covered so far!
5. Choose a theme that fits a one-product store
After choosing a product, domain name, and supplier, there will be a point where you should start designing your one-product store.
One of the most popular ecommerce platforms for this is Shopify. However, even if you decide not to use Shopify, many ecommerce platforms will work with themes that provide the initial template for your online store.
Here is the point. Did you know that certain store themes are best suited for a specific type of store?
Maybe not.
But it's true!
For example, general stores benefit the most from themes that are suited for large inventories.
Niche stores can take advantage of themes designed specifically for their niche. Last but not least, one-product stores benefit from themes that are suited for small catalogs.
So, how do you find a store theme that fits a one-product store?
Well, as I said, you should try to look for themes suited for small catalogs. If you are using Shopify, you are in luck since you will be able to filter the themes based on this exact criterium:
Most themes in this category will allow you to showcase your product without the clutter of unnecessary features.
If you are interested in seeing a list of the best Shopify themes for one-product stores, check out this article here!
As you can see, this will save you a lot of time with web design - instead of starting from scratch!
6. Focus on building an excellent home page as well
Since you are building a one-product store, it's essential to focus on your homepage as well.
You should put all your blood, sweat, and tears into creating two main pages that will impress your visitors. Not only the product page but also the home page!
An advantage of starting an online one-product store is that you can design your homepage like an ecommerce landing page, which is where you can already start the process of selling the product to your visitors.
An excellent example of such a page comes from the one-product store Myro:
You should definitely check it out to see how they have designed their homepage!
To maximize conversions, they have used elements like:
- An enticing headline, description, and call-to-action
- Professional product images
- Social proof in the form of testimonials from various media sites and previous customers
- A list of reasons why you will love their product
- A selection of their scents
And all along with the homepage, Myro has added call-to-actions that lead to their product page, where they will seal the deal with their visitors!
7. Consider working with a private agent
A one-product store provides an excellent opportunity to work with a private agent.
If you don't know what an agent for your online store does, let me shortly explain the concept.
An agent is an alternative to a supplier. It’s a person that will source, store, pack, and ship products for your online store.
Your private agent will be the middleman between you and your supplier:
By working with an agent instead of a supplier, you may be able to benefit from a couple of things.
Among others, a private agent is specialized in finding the best suppliers, negotiating for the lowest prices, offering the fastest shipping times, and can help you with the branding of your product and packaging:
To learn more about deciding whether or not to use a private agent, check out this article. If you want to get started directly, then you can learn how to find a high-quality private agent here!
8. Work on building a post-purchase upsell page
Some online one-product businesses sell just a single product.
However, sometimes it's a good idea to offer your customers one or two extra consumables or accessories that are related to your product as an upsell.
For example, SaveSealer has the main product, the vacuum sealer. However, they upsell their customers by providing consumables for it, like vacuum seal bags and storage containers:
More often than not, it's better not to offer these upsell products at the beginning of your customer's buying journey, when they may start to doubt if they really need the product.
A great way of upselling your customers is using a post-purchase upsell page. At that point, you have already secured the sale of your main product and can now offer the upsell without the risk of losing your customer!
If you want to add a post-purchase upsell page to your store, then ReConvert is an excellent Shopify app. It allows you to customize your thank-you page and add a post-purchase upsell:
And remember, you don't have to always offer physical products as the upsell. You could also try something digital like an eBook or a video!
4 Advantages of starting an online one-product store
If you are going to start an online store, you will have three choices when it comes to the type of store you are going to create:
- A one-product store
- A niche store
- A general store
In short, a one-product store sells just a single product. A niche store sells several products that fit in a specific niche. And lastly, a general store can sell anything and everything.
Each type of store comes with its own benefits when compared to the others. So, what are the advantages of starting an online one-product store?
Note: Are you interested in the advantages of the other store types as well? If so, check out the advantages of an online niche store here and the advantages of a general online store here!
1. You can dedicate your focus towards a single product
When running an online niche or general store, you are selling and advertising multiple products.
The most significant advantage of running an online one-product store is that you only have a product to market!
When selling multiple items, you will have to spend days and weeks writing product descriptions, selecting images, and creating the perfect pricing strategy for each product.
With a one-product store, however, there is only one product that requires your attention. Therefore, you will have the time, energy, and resources to ensure it is being shown to visitors in the best possible way!
In short, a one-product store allows you to optimize your whole website, including the home page, product page, cart page, and more, with the sole purpose of selling your product.
2. It's easier to optimize marketing campaigns
One of the advantages of starting an online niche or general store is that it's easy to test different products when it comes to online marketing. (For example, via social media)
If the ads for one of your products aren't performing as well as you have hoped, you can simply try to create ads for another one of your products and see if they perform better!
However, this also comes with disadvantages.
First of all, it's a lot of work to research your audience, recreate the ad content, and focus on different pain points for each product.
Furthermore, you will often need a decent marketing budget to find out the most effective ad copies, content, and pain points and optimize the product's ad performance.
So, here comes the marketing advantage of running a one-product store:
With an online one-product store, you have a single product on which you can spend 100% of your marketing budget to test all kinds of audiences, ad variations, and pain points.
In short, you will have a much better chance of finding the optimal combination and running a profitable ad campaign!
3. Improve your conversion rate
The third advantage is that a one-product store is likely to improve your conversion rate.
Now, you might think that this is not true. Offering your visitors a more extensive choice of products will increase their likelihood of finding something they like, right?
Well, this could be true in some situations, but sometimes the human brain works in ways we don't expect.
Barry Schwartz, a psychology professor, points out the following in his book "The Paradox of Choice":
As the number of choices we face increases, the psychological benefits we derive start to level off.
Barry Schwartz (source)
So, if you offer your customers lots of products, it can make them less satisfied with the product they buy, and they may feel like they are missing out on the others.
Therefore, some argue that by limiting the number of choices you offer, potentially to just one with a one-product store, there will be three positive outcomes for the customer:
- It will improve the quality of their decision making
- It will make the buying process less stressful
- They will have a higher satisfaction level after the purchase
4. A good opportunity to private label your product
If your online one-product store performs great, it can provide an excellent opportunity to private label your product.
One of the cons of private labeling is that suppliers often ask for a minimum order quantity because it's not worthwhile for them to produce these unique products one-by-one.
Often, this isn't practical for an online seller. Online retailers often offer multiple products on their online store, so they would have to make a significant investment to private label all of them.
However, this isn't the case for a one-product store.
Since you will only sell a single product, private labeling becomes much more accessible!
Conclusion
We have written this article to guide you in the right direction of starting an online one-product store.
Remember that one of the most important aspects of a one-product store is the product, so make sure to spend a reasonable amount of time on your product research.
Also, remember to find a good supplier, research your target audience, and design an excellent homepage as well. And finally, don't forget to check if you can upsell your customers with any complimentary products!
I hope that this article has covered most of the things you need to know. But if you are left with any questions, please write them in the comments below.
We will try our best to answer them!
Good luck with everything!
6 Comments
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