What is a niche market?

I am trying to understand niche market. Is niche market basically an item that is in demand but it's what people need and not want? i.e. Kids, teenagers, and adults are going back to school and they need some type of school supplies (essential needs of school life).

Am I getting it right or getting close to that path? Selling what people want is ok such as selling a computer or something unless you have your capital money to invest to sell online or locally. That's why I want to understand niche markets since I think it would seem like it would cost lesser.

Everyone may have their own definition of a Niche market, but I'll share mine.

I consider a Niche market, to be one where there is a need for a product, but supply does not outsrip demand. Now that's a very broad description, but that's my definition in a nutshell, but typically a Niche is a specific segment amongst a much larger market.

For example, you mention school supplies. School shoes on their own is considered a primary market, but perhaps there is a style of shoe, a colour or even a brand that is more popular among kids than others, but that hasn't yet been discovered by sellers as yet and so that is then a Niche.

Some Niche's stay Niches because the demand for the product isn't great enough to encourage sellers to waste their time, sales are just too slow to worry about it and then others don't stay Niches for long because once discovered, others then storm into the market and flood it to the point where supply outstrips demand and then you have a saturated market, the very opposite to a Niche.

So Niche markets aren't always easy to find, if they were, then everyone would be dealing in them for the most part. How do you find them, you have to drill down through products, just as I used for me example with the school shoes. Perhaps there is no Niche to be found in colour, style or brand, perhaps you have to drill down further to the shoe laces, maybe chrams that hang fro the laces and so on.

There's never any guranatee of finding a Niche, but they take a lot of effort in searching for them unfortunatley. That said, if you do find one, then all that looking can pay of for you.

If I may add as well, Niche Marketing is a smaller portion of the whole target market. It is a more specific segment wherein you narrow down the customers you are targeting to capture. i.e. You plan to sell School Supplies. You may then explore its niches like selling mainly school supplies for Engineering students or Fine Arts students. Or you may also find other niches like you cater to grade school pupils therefore, supplying cartoon character designed school supplies. To give you other ideas of Niche markets, for example in the food category. It is a very broad scope so you will the explore its niches such as Organic food products or non-gluten food products so you will have a more specific target market who needs only organic and non-gluten products.

There are a lot of different Niches in every product category. It is up to you how to identify which market you want to serve. The good thing with niches is you have more specific definition of your market therefore, it is easier for you to capture them and focus all your marketing efforts cohesive to their needs.

Hopefully, this helps! :)

Cheers,

Karen