I’m cracking open the niche notebook again this morning to share another idea with you. Yes, you read that right – Starbucks Collectibles. It’s not just about coffee anymore.
You would be surprised what people collect from the coffee powerhouse franchise. Some people even collect the gift cards that are available, and will pay you quite a nice sum if you have the hard-to-find design they’re seeking. I was really surprised to see “empty” and “unused” Starbucks gift cards being sold on eBay during the holidays.
But, when I scribbled this niche down in the notebook I was thinking more about the coffee mugs. There are several different design sets, many with limited edition designs, that collectors strive to get in completeness. The Halloween mugs and the different city mugs seem to be among the most popular.
A few months ago I saw a full set of the city mugs sell on eBay for several thousand dollars. (Which is what led to this niche being written in the notebook in the first place!) I did a quick search on eBay this morning to see if there were any more full sets and found one, with a buy it now price of $10,000.
It’s not a huge niche, most of the keywords are less than 50 searches per day according to Wordtracker.
However, I think it would be a really fun niche for a side project. And it could easily be supplemented with additional offerings, like coffee and all the other things that Starbucks offers. You could even add recipes for “make it at home” versions of your favorite drinks.
In fact, the recipes could be the niche and the collectibles could be the additional monetization method. If you do offer the collectibles I think you’ll definitely want to be an eBay affiliate, because that’s where the retired coffee mug designs end up. If you look at the screenshot above closely you’ll notice that Starbucks even has it’s own category under collectibles on eBay.
If you’re doing something in this little niche or you start something up I’d love to hear about your adventure and how things are going. I hope this Niche Notebook post has given you an idea or sparked up some sort of little tidbit in your mind today.
Happy marketing 🙂
Transcriptionist, passionate cross stitcher, writer at heart, wife, mom, and finder of lost shoes… Loretta Oliver, married to the comic book geek of her dreams and mother of four amazing young men, has been working from home full time since 2001. With a busy transcription service business, a few niche sites, and a handful of other internet marketing projects on the go, the computer is always fired up and the ideas are always flowing.
As soon as I saw the title, I was like, ‘Aw yeah! That’s a great idea!’ Every time I go into a Starbucks, I cannot keep myself away from the ‘wall of goodies’. I love all the cool stuff that they sell!
I do love the wall of stuff, but I’m usually pretty good about not buying anything. My kids got me one of the holiday mugs for my Christmas gift ~ I use it every day!
Ha – I once had a friend ask me to send him a Starbucks mug for his sister who was collecting them from every city. I wonder if I helped her create a pricy collection, lol.
Crazy, right? :-p