Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

 Hello Sun forum,
 
  I`m new here so please easy on me. What a great site and you guys are so informative and supportive. Here is my situation. I`m currently trying to see if there is a market for a decorative product line that i have created. They are all in prototype form and so far family and friends love it. Some good reaction from acquaintance.
 So here is my problem. Before putting more money into it (beside my gut telling me yes) I want to assure my brain that this has real chance of taking off. I`m about to do a survey and see what kind of reaction I will get from potential customers. My target market, those beautiful, mysterious, wise and loving women. Where money would  not be important without them. (N. Hill)  This is where I get lost. I have no market skill to do a survey. Questions, price line , location, etc.

Thank you for your wise and helpful advise


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Window and Home Jewelry LLC.
Artist designed window ornaments.
www.wahomejewelry.com

Using Google`s Adwords can be an excellent (and very cost-effective) means of market research. Sign up, bid on as many related keywords as you can think of, set a conservative daily budget.

Within just a few days you`ll see how many people are searching for your type of product.

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Accounting Made Simple | Sole Proprietor Tax Guide

Try going into the Census Bureau web site.  There is a lot of free information there.  You can also use t he search phrase “free market research information” and bring up some hits.  Then you will have an idea where to start.

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The older we get, the more excuses we make for not chasing after our dreams. But truth is, goals are attainable at any age.

Hi,

Try doing a research with information available on sites related to your products. Find out if you have similar products by using likely key words, that has features, specifications, product specific terms etc on google or yahoo search engines. I`m sure you`ll get lot of information of the market.

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Deepak
Analyst Zone, a value delivery approach

You might look up in the Yellow pages, a company that creates surveys. That might also be a bit expensive. Another option is to try selling one or two items on eBay. That`s a flea-market mentality, but it still gives you a general sense of whether or not there`s a market, particularly if you check the number of people who view your auction. Anything over 30 viewers would indicate some pretty positive interest.

Another option is to take a booth or table at a local craft show for 1 time, and see what kind of interest you get. Or, you might speak with a professor teaching Marketing in a local community college. Ask him or her if they`d like to have your product as a test example for their students to do a practice survey or market research analysis.

The response have been great and I`ll try to cover over some variables that I might not have not thought over.

Thank you Nevaduscal

  I tried the  Census Bureau web site And that confirmed some  of my gut instinct . Again the target are women ages 18- 65. The decorative  product line will cover most of the income level in that the prices of the product will be from  low to high end. But I need reaction data.


Thank you Deepack,

  I have searched the web and there are products out there that are similar but they generally are simple in design. I guest this is where the better mouse trap scenario comes in.  The design is the new thing here in that I have never seen anything like it. Working in construction for years and have been in hundreds of houses. I have never seen  any thing like it. Again not saying that it does not exist just have not come across it. It was one of those AHA moment.  (This probably applies to most of the products here, and that`s why I love this site).

Thank you CraigL.

 Your insight are always great. After trolling this site for a week now, you always perk up my ears. Maybe because I have the same interest in philosophy and also in general I`m trying to combine the mind and the body into one(hard and does not last).  Not to get side track here, but I only have a copy wright on these design since they are sculptural by definition and they are still in prototype as of now. The quality could be tweaked more. I don`t want to start throwing it on the Net. or the craft show just yet. Maybe I`m over cautious here(secretly I want someone to copy it, then I know that it is a good idea ).
 I like the community college idea I`ll give that a try. I was going to do it my self and have a focus group but again I have no back ground in the matter.

Again thank you for the answers and if there is more that can be added like the copy wright or patent question I will be more receptive in hearing them.



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Window and Home Jewelry LLC.
Artist designed window ornaments.
www.wahomejewelry.com

Hi there CraigL,

Question for your concerning your comment "You might speak with a professor teaching Marketing in a local community college. Ask him or her if they`d like to have your product as a test example for their students to do a practice survey or market research analysis.". This is a great idea. Stupid question, but should you have an actual prototype available to use for this purpose OR use the market analysis based on the concept you have envisioned and then create the prototype? It`s the whole chicken and egg question. Before creating your product, you should do sufficient market research, but without something tangible to present during the research, it makes things a bit more difficult. Just interested to hear your thoughts on this.  Thanks for your reply!