Looking To Start An E-Commerce Brand? Here’s How Niche Businesses Can Stand Out

When Ben Leonard started his former e-commerce business Beast Gear, he was frustrated by the quality of the jump ropes he used in his workout. Leonard—an ecologist by profession—began tinkering with other models and created his own product offering by combining several features he liked into a prototype, which he tested on his friends at the gym. Armed with their feedback, he found a manufacturer and introduced the Beast Rope, promoting it through YouTube demonstration videos.

That was in 2016, and the best-selling jump rope he created became the foundation for Beast Gear, an online fitness gear store. He grew the business to seven-figure annual revenue before selling it to Thrasio in November 2019. Thrasio found that one draw was his branding, noting that “the owner had built personal connections with many of the brand’s customers” in a case study on the acquisition.

Leonard’s experience in creating a brand from scratch led him to write the book Quit Stalling and Build Your Brand: You Don’t Need an MBA to Crush It In E-commerce. Based in the U.K., he also runs an e-commerce consultancy, Ben Leonard E-commerce Mentorship and Ecom Brokers, an e-commerce brokerage, teaches budding e-commerce entrepreneurs through the course Product Empire and is now in the final stages of developing a new take on the baby carrier, tapping into a gap in the marketplace he spotted as a dad.

Many budding entrepreneurs are interested in following a similar path in e-commerce, given its growth spurt since the pandemic. U.S. e-commerce sales grew to a record high of $268.12 billion in the first quarter of 2024, making up 22.2% of all U.S. sales, according to an analysis of U.S. Department of Commerce Data by market research firm Digital Commerce 360.

However, competition in the field is intense. In an industry now dominated by big players such as Amazon, many one-person and tiny businesses find unique branding gives them an edge.

“We live in a time where you can learn and do anything you want,” says Leonard. “Almost anyone can turn an idea into a real, grown-up business that can be very small in headcount and generate life-changing sums of money. The mistake many people have made is they’ve gone into it with a ‘sell stuff on the internet to make money attitude,’ rather than a build-a-brand attitude.”

So how do you build a strong e-commerce brand in a one-person or tiny business with a very small team? It’s about understanding your customers and the problems they face, learning how to effectively develop products that meet those problems and finding the best way to market to them, he says.

Here are some strategies he shared with me recently.

First, understand what a brand is: There’s a lot of debate about what constitutes a brand, but essentially, says Leonard, “A brand is a group of products or perhaps services that solve problems for a particular group of people.”

But simply developing a helpful product or service does not mean you have a brand. “A brand is how you make people feel,” Leonard says. “Ideally, brands are intentional about how they want to make someone feel, and marketing is the vehicle for delivering those feelings. You can have the best brand in the world on paper and wonderful brand DNA, but if no one has ever heard of you, what’s the point?”

Think of people first, then the product. Your first step should be identifying your target customers, not your product or service. When Leonard ran Beast Gear, his target market was fellow fitness enthusiasts who were serious about their workouts and wanted high-quality equipment but weren’t hardcore bodybuilders. “I’m a huge fan of people building brands around things they are passionate about because they will deeply understand who their people are,” he says.

Often, you’ll uncover the best product or service offerings by targeting people very much like yourself, with similar wants and needs. “Scratch your own itch,” he says. This approach will help you to avoid reinventing the wheel. If you’re already an avid consumer of a particular product, you’ll already be familiar with the other offerings and be able to spot gaps in the marketplace.

Know what makes your product unique. The more clearly you can explain to customers why your offering is different and better than the other options, the easier it will be for them to see that. Take the time to understand and perfect your messaging. “You want to make sure that you understand your unique value proposition both at the product level and at a brand level, and then you want to position that in a way that appeals to your specific audience,” says Leonard.

Ditch the “side hustle” mindset. Many people first look to e-commerce as a way to supplement their existing income. That can be a mindset mistake if you want to build a valuable brand. “When you do that, whether subconsciously or consciously, you put a ceiling on what you can achieve because it’s a just side hustle or a way to make some money, whereas if you treat it like a ‘big boy, grown-up’ brand—even though it’s not and it’s just an idea in your head—you are giving it space and freedom to achieve whatever it might achieve,” he says.

Reframe your thinking with brand-building in mind. Commit to getting serious about your idea, and don’t worry if you don’t have an MBA to back you up—there are no required credentials for e-commerce. “I encourage people to change their current point of view and say, “Okay, I’m passionate about this. I’ve identified problems in the marketplace. I can solve those problems for these people because I understand them and I’m going to create a brand around that—and it doesn’t matter whether that’s going to be huge or not, so long as it looks and feels and behaves like a real brand,’” says Leonard.

So how does a “real” brand behave? Study your favorite brands and how they present themselves, he advises. Even without their giant budgets, there are many ways to mirror their best practices in your podcasts, videos, social media posts on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, how-to guides, ebooks, or physical books. In doing so, you’ll build connections and get feedback from current and potential customers.

Don’t be afraid to be the face of your brand. Leonard wasn’t the conventional pitchman for a fitness brand when he launched Beast Gear. “I am 5’8”, averagely fit,” he says. “I made myself the face of a strength and conditioning brand because I love strength and conditioning and other people related to me. A teeny, tiny percentage of my customers were going to be elite athletes, but the vast majority were average Joes who took their training seriously. When they heard from me, saw me in videos and on social posts and emails, they felt a connection with me.” Ultimately, connecting with customers is what brands are all about—and once you find the right ones for you, those connections are likely to come naturally, through the passions you share.