Research helps in determining a potential market

30 August 2007 - 02:00
By unknown

The success of a manufacturing business will be determined by the market for your product.

And determining if there is a market should not come from speculation, but must be based on the product research you have done in the real market.

The lack of a product in a community does not mean they need it, for they may have already chosen an alternative. So the aspiring manufacturer must determine from the prospective consumers themselves what they need.

This means even if you plan to introduce a product you should first identify a market for it and then test how it will be received.

Running a manufacturing company is different from running a shop, an office, or any other services business.

A shop can succeed purely by identifying a good location and by marketing, but a manufacturing business relies more on factors such as the quality of the product, your technical knowledge, keeping production costs down and the affordability of the product.

Your product must be affordable and benefit the customer. You must know how it adds value to potential customers and what visible features it has that make it more desirable than competing products.

The aspiring manufacturer should assess potential sales by analysing the sales and financial performance of similar products. That will give an idea where your product will fit and the success of your chosen market.

The exercise will also give an indication of the prices that your target market is prepared to pay for your product.

Research is king, so read whatever you can find about your product. Start with trade magazines and product reports.

Many publications contain detailed information on sales and profits across a range of companies and products. Though expensive, they can provide you with researched data that will help you understand your product's potential better.

Learn how to analyse this data because if you don't know how to interpret the information you find, it is wasted.

Another thing to think about is that in addition to a workshop, manufacturers need a warehouse to keep finished products before distribution. To avoid warehousing problems you should consider manufacturing your product when you have an order.

You must also ensure that the product gets packaged and leaves your workshop once it is finished. By doing this you will be saving yourself the stress of storage when you should be concentrating on manufacturing.

You will need funds for all stages of your operation. If you don't have this capital your comprehensive business plan and operations plans will tell prospective funders much about how capable you are of running this type of business.

lInformation for this article came from www.bizhelp24.com.