As you probably know by now, I’m a HUGE advocate of keeping your eyes and ears to the street, using tidbits of information to direct your online ventures. So when I saw an article on Yahoo named “Hot in recession: Cheaper wine, chocolate, Spam” I knew I had to click. Instead of guessing where interest and traffic are surging, it looks like they’re laying it all out for us so we can easily follow the money.

If you read the article, you’ll learn that the following products are “hot” which, although ambiguous, suggests they might be a good idea to target with your current related websites or a new websites altogether:

• Chocolate
• Running shoes
• Cheap wine
• Gold coins
• Gardening seeds
• Tanning products
• Spam
• Dinty Moore stew and chili
• Condoms
• Dating
• Laxitives
• Pepto-Bismol and other stomach medicines
• Bike helmets
• Guns (because of Obama administration)

I would recommend you read the entire article to get a feel for the psychological aspect behind these product category increases. Learning these types of behavioral things now will help you predict future behaviors and then instead of being RE-active and reading this information on Yahoo we can be PRO-active, anticipating the type of things that will soon become hot.

This small head start can often be the difference between success and failure. Here are a couple sections that point out this behavioral aspect:

Consumers have trimmed household budgets and postponed buying cars, major appliances and other big-ticket items. Yet they still are willing to shell out for small indulgences and goods that make life more comfortable at home, where they are spending more time.

“People are much more focused on their homes and their immediate happiness and they’re buying things that they can use themselves — seeds, fishing equipment. Lipstick and chocolate are small rewards that make you feel better.”

Remember that all of the above aren’t created equally. For example “gardening seeds” would make a great stand-alone website but by the time you’ve got your site built just to your specifications, planting season could be over. This is a site you’ll want to make for the long-term and another question is… how will you monetize it? Most of these people will probably stop by their local home depot to purchase the plants and pots and all that jazz.

Get creative. Come up with an angle.  Personally I think that running shoes and cheap wine have the biggest upsides when all things are considered. But then again, I’m sure a lot of people might decide the same thing which means larger opportunities could be elsewhere. Speaking of larger things (that’s what she said?) why not make a condom site? People might prefer to purchase in privacy… potentially huge opportunity.

Anyways, that is enough from me for now. Hope this information was helpful/interesting and remember… always be on the lookout for great opportunities that are disguised as regular, every day information!