Honda sells multiple types of sedan. Allbirds makes several versions of its signature everyday shoes. Most brands do something similar: They offer related products that serve different needs or preferences. That collection is a product range, and it’s a useful tool for an ecommerce business to encourage repeat purchases, cross-sell, and strengthen brand identity.
Here’s a comprehensive look at what product ranges are and how they help businesses grow.
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What is a product range?
A product range refers to the complete collection of products that a business sells under a single brand or business category, typically differentiated by features, sizes, or price points. In the context of small ecommerce businesses, that might be a series of digital downloads, handmade candles in various scents, or different tiers of subscription boxes.
Businesses approach building out their product range in different ways. While some may cast a wide net, others will go deep, seeking to become the go-to name in a specific niche. For example, a fitness clothing brand may decide to develop a product range in a relatively narrow category, such as yoga apparel for women, or appeal to multiple fitness categories, adding running and hiking clothes to their portfolio. Alternatively, the brand may decide to develop products at various price points, creating affordable, standard, and premium collections differentiated by fabric and design.
To develop a product range that aligns with your brand, consider your goals and target audience. It’s also important to consider your capabilities—do you have the production, logistics, sales, and marketing bandwidth to expand to completely new categories, or is it more feasible to develop additional sizes, flavors, or versions of your existing products? Account for seasonality and trends—is a new product a short-term collection (holiday sweaters) that will boost sales for a particular season, or are you adapting to a long-term trend that may warrant greater investment (sustainable fashion)? Use sales analytics, customer comments and requests, and gaps in the market to identify what products are likely to be a sell and extend your brand’s unique identity.
Why is product range important?
Developing a thoughtful product range strategy helps small ecommerce businesses grow sustainably by balancing customer demand, brand identity, and profitability. A carefully curated product range can help your company do the following:
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Expand your customer base. You can cultivate a broader target audience by offering a range of products that appeal to different preferences or budgets.
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Encourage repeat purchases. You can inspire customer loyalty and keep shoppers coming back by offering complementary and upgraded products.
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Boost your average order value. When customers see multiple items that pair well—like shampoo and conditioner—they’re more likely to add additional products to their carts, which increases the total value of each purchase.
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Increase customer lifetime value. A strong product range gives customers more reasons to keep coming back.
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Keep up with market trends. You can stay up to date with evolving customer preferences by introducing new or seasonal items that keep your brand relevant.
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Stand out in a crowded retail landscape. A varied product range helps you differentiate yourself from competitors. Customers come to rely on your business for a unique mix of products aligned around a set of brand values and standards.
Product range vs. related terms
You may see terms like “product assortment,” “product offering,” “product mix,” and “product line” used alongside “product range.” They’re related but describe different levels of a brand’s catalog. Here’s a breakdown of what each of these terms refers to:
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Product assortment. This refers to how many different SKUs a retailer carries within a category—how broad and deep the selection is. For a scented-candle retailer, this might mean offering 40 different candles across various fragrances, sizes, and price points.
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Product offering. This describes the combined value of a product and the service or experience that comes with it. For scented candles, a retailer’s offering might include the candle itself plus free gift wrapping or a reusable glass vessel that doubles as décor.
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Product line. A product line is a subgroup within the product range, made up of closely related items that share a theme or purpose. For example, a retailer might have a “Seasonal Scents” line with Pumpkin Spice, Winter Fir, and Spring Blossom candles—all variations within one cohesive line.
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Product mix. This represents everything the company sells across all categories and lines. A scented-candle brand’s product mix might include candles, diffusers, room sprays, and wax melts, even though candles are the core product range.
Product range examples
Here are three examples of how three Shopify merchants approach their product range, catering to different customer segments within their target market:
City Seltzer
City Seltzer, a division of Ottawa’s Dominion City Brewing, offers a variety of non-alcoholic seltzer flavors, including Berry Whip, City Citrus, Cool Melon, and Orange Cream. This product range focuses on sparkling seltzer but gives customers a mix of flavor profiles and packaging sizes.
Dominion’s Josh McJannett created City Seltzer “to make something for everyone,” as he explains on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. Dominion’s core product offering—beer—has a narrower customer base due to legal drinking age restrictions.
To aid their marketing efforts, Dominion and City Seltzer decided to keep their product ranges separate. “It’s been fantastic having a product that can go anywhere, that can be enjoyed by our fans or by people who will never drink one of our beers,” Josh said. Keeping the brands distinct allows them to tailor messaging to two very different audiences—alcohol drinkers and non-alcohol drinkers—without diluting either brand’s identity or creating confusion about who each product is meant for.
Sabai Design
Sabai Design offers a wide product range of sustainable sofas, including models like the Essential Sofa, Eclipse Sleeper Sofa, and Essential Sectional. Its range focuses on one sales category—sustainable, customizable living room seating—while allowing the brand to serve different market segments, from apartment dwellers to large families in standalone houses.
As founder Phantila Phataprasit says on a recent episode of Shopify Masters, all the different products within Sabai’s catalog needed to adhere to the same core values, starting with sustainability. As Sabai has rolled out more options to accommodate a wider audience, its values have remained steadfast.
“[We also wanted to offer] products that span a range in terms of price point,” Phantila says. “People can shop where they’re able to shop, essentially, and we can speak to different customers that way.”
Grind
Grind makes compostable coffee pods that fit Nespresso machines. Its product range spans multiple roast levels and bean origins. Grind allows customers to explore and trade up within that range, keeping their engagement high and building repeat purchase behavior as a result.
As your business grows, expanding your offerings within an existing product range—like coffee beans from the same region but roasted in a different way—can be easier than creating all new product categories (e.g., branching off into selling tea). In many cases, you’ll already have the manufacturing and marketing infrastructure to support these new products. This can jump-start your path to profitability.
Pros and cons of expanding your product range
Should you expand your product range to reach new customers and expand your revenue streams? Here are the benefits and challenges to be aware of:
Pros
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Broader reach. Expanding your product range enables you to attract more customers by offering additional categories or variations that appeal to different needs. For example, a sports equipment store could add baseball cleats to complement its existing soccer cleat selection.
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New revenue opportunities. You can find new ways to bring in cash by adding to your slate of products and services offered. These new offerings in related areas can diversify income, stabilize cash flow, and enhance overall revenue.
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Risk mitigation. Adding products helps you hedge your revenue bets if one category underperforms. For example, let’s say you sell an accounting software product made obsolete by advances in AI. If you’ve introduced other products in this range—like a team-building software application that isn’t nearly as vulnerable to AI—you’ve got a new product that can sustain you in the next phase of your business.
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Increased cross-selling opportunities. A broader product assortment allows you to cross-sell related or complementary items. For example, if you sell raincoats, you can add waterproof pants to your overall product mix. This can enhance customers’ shopping experience and improve your AOV.
Cons
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Higher inventory and development costs. Expanding your product range introduces several new expenses. This includes greater costs for warehousing and stock management, production costs, and storage—all of which may reduce profit margins.
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Risk of confusing customers. Adding the wrong items or diluting your core focus can make it harder for the average customer to understand your brand’s strategy or main value proposition. New offerings should be logically related to other products that you sell.
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Complex operations and data management. More products and services mean more data to analyze, more software tools to manage, and a higher likelihood of operational errors. If you’re a small retailer, consider whether you have the infrastructure and the ability to bring a new product to market without overwhelming your ecommerce business.
How to market your product range
- Use your campaigns to highlight variety
- Segment your audience by product interest
- Create topic clusters
- Bundle complementary products
- Develop tiered pricing strategies
Many ecommerce retailers strategically showcase their product ranges to drive site traffic and establish a brand identity. Here are some ways to market your product ranges:
Use your campaigns to highlight variety
Showcase the breadth of your product range through visuals or category-focused ads to help customers see your store’s full assortment at a glance. For example, a clothing company could feature multiple colors, styles, or versions of a sweater in a single campaign. Many social media platforms already cater to this type of advertising (e.g., carousel ads on Instagram). Utilize these tools to show off all the products you have to offer within a range in one go.
Segment your audience by product interest
Use data and customer behavior insights to target different audience segments with tailored messaging. Serve them content from the specific categories they’re most likely to purchase from. You can also craft personalized email campaigns, announcing new additions only within their purchased range (e.g., “New Night Cream Added to Our Essential Organic Line”), which improves open rates and conversion because the content is highly relevant to their interests.
Shopify Email includes marketing automation tools that can trigger emails based on customer behavior, such as post-purchase upsell emails or abandoned product browse campaigns, helping you stay connected with customers as they explore your product range.
Create topic clusters
Utilize the breadth of your product range to create comprehensive educational content that captures a wider variety of search terms. As a content marketer, you can create topic clusters that serve different stages of the buyer journey, linking products within the range to specific informational articles.
For example, if your company sells a range of coffee machines, you can write a blog post titled “Which Coffee Machine is Best for Espresso Beginners?” Within the post, you can link to some of your more affordably priced models, since cost may be a factor for customers who are just dipping their toes into the category.
Bundle products within your range
Create curated bundles or cross-selling promotions (e.g., pairing accessories with main products) to encourage customers to explore other products in your range and increase average cart value. You can also create “kits” to give your customers a one-stop solution to their specific needs. For instance, a gardening retailer could market a First-Time Gardener Starter Kit combining seeds, soil, and small tools.
Many retailers offer bundles and kits at a slight discount compared to buying the items individually. This creates a perception of high value and encourages a larger initial spend.
Use Shopify Bundles, a free app available on all Shopify plans, to create and manage product bundles. Create fixed bundles and multipacks, making it easy to group complementary products for purchase together.
Develop tiered pricing strategies
Structure your product range to offer clear value propositions at different price points, simplifying the purchase decision for various budget levels and needs. This is what Sabai Design does with its furniture pieces.
If you’re doing this from scratch, consider offering three tiers within a product line: Good (entry-level pricing and basic features), Better (mid-range pricing with the most popular features), and Best (premium pricing with all-inclusive features). You may choose to structure your feature and pricing to steer customers toward your Better option, increasing your average order value.
Product range FAQ
What is a product range?
A product range is the complete set of related products a business offers within a specific category to meet different customer needs and preferences.
What is an example of a product range?
An example of a product range is a series of tennis rackets sold by a sporting goods company. Each racket comes in a series of colors, and the series is segmented into three tiers, each offering different quality and features at three price points.
What are the four types of products?
The four main types of consumer products are convenience products (everyday items like snacks or toothpaste), shopping products (items you compare before buying, like shoes or furniture), specialty products (high-end or unique items such as luxury watches), and unsought products (things people don’t usually seek out until needed, like insurance or emergency repairs).
