Getting your Focus On!

We are often asked if it is better to have a large product list or focus on a few. Often this question is driven by access to hundreds or even thousands of products from Drop Shippers at no additional cost, so why not list them all?

While it may seem that more is better, I will make the case that less is more and that your chances of long term success are much better with a well thought out and typically smaller product line. Here at Germinate the first thing we do with new clients is ask them to develop a vision for the brand. A great resource to develop Shopify and business skills is SkillShare. To start determining your vision, take a look at Storytelling for Small Business by Beth Mueller. Once you start that process it becomes clear that it is very tough to write a compelling story with a large catch all product line.  

The goal of vision building is to understand and give voice to your brand's differentiation. It's tough to be different when you are not focused. I am not suggesting that you cannot succeed with a large volume of products, but if you do it will likely be on price rather than having a unique story. We would much prefer you to carefully curate a collection of products around a clear brand vision. 

For example let look at two hypothetical stores; one All-Jewelry and another Upcycled-Jewels. The first store carries thousands of sku's and has very little that is unique. It finds it tough to use its brand message on social media as it is very general. It makes sales by competing aggressively on price. Upcycled-Jewels, on the other hand  focuses on handcrafted jewelry made from recycled materials. It has a few discrete collections and a clear brand message. It is able to tell strong stories on social media and has a clearly defined audience. Upcycled-Jewel has a clear presence on social media as its fans are interested in what they are doing. Customers looking for Jewelry have lots of options so All-Jewelry has very little customer loyalty. Because  there are very few options for well-curated upcycled jewelry pieces, Upcycled-Jewels does not need to rely on price discounting as a driving force because it is telling a great story. 

So which store do you want to be - the store with everything and a weak message or the store with a curated line of products that has a great message?