Bob Kochem
bobk
26,500
Insider Points
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For any invention it is desirable to know what the available market size is – i.e. how many of similar products are sold every year?
Here’s an experience I recently had;
If there are any similar products, or products serving the same market place, go to some stores and ask the store manager or department manager how many of them they sell in a week, month, or year.
I’m working on what I’ll call a ‘hand tool’ for tradesman and do-it-yourselfers (“DIYs”). There are other products serving the same customer base. I went to Home Depot, Lowes, a True-Value Hardware Store, a Sears, and a Walmart and spoke with various people. While not jumping up and down with excitement, they were willing to provide estimates of sales of comparable products. The Home Depot and Lowe’s people were actually willing to go into their computer system on the spot and tell me how many units they’d sold in the last year. I then also did research on the internet to find out how many of each type of store there was in the US.
I projected my raw single-store data across the quantity of each type of store. Between the ranges the store managers provided, the range of prices, and some “common sense” I was able to come up with Low, Medium, and High estimates for the total size of the market I would be entering. (Note; this is called TAM – Total Available Market – we would expect at best to capture a small percentage of that market) On the common sense side, it’s fair to assume that any item, or SKU, on the shelf at Walmart will sell at least one per month or it wouldn’t be worth the shelf-space for them to carry it.
I was also able to provide notes for factors that could raise or lower the actual numbers. For example, the hardware stores (not Walmart or Sears) listed above totaled 13,000 across the US, but trade sources indicate there are 30,000 total in the US, providing a potential upside to my estimates.
The people you would be presenting your product to should be favorably impressed by any such market research. If nothing else it shows you’re serious and thinking things through.
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Evelyn Katz
ekatz
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I’ve read that the Census beureau is a good source. I don’t know the details of how to gather the info. Perhaps somebody can elaborate. Thanks.
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Frank Xiques
frankeinstein
112,000
Insider Points
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Wow Bob, that’s a great way to think about it. I have a product designed for the marine industry and that might be the best way to to get some sales estimates.
I’ve been looking online and it gets hard find accurate sales and market date for the marine industry. Maybe I’m not looking in the right places, if anybody has any recommendations that would be great.
For the time being I’m gonna take Bob’s advice and visit some West Marine & Outdoor World stores.
Thank,
Frank
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Frank Xiques
frankeinstein
112,000
Insider Points
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I was looking around on the U.S. Census Bureaus website for a while and while it seemed promising at first I never was able to find the data I was looking for on the marine after-market industry. It always seems like I’m going in circles on government websites like the uspto.gov or the U.S. Census website.
I’ve heard people talk about websites like Hoovers.com or ThomasNet as good sources for market date and company information but I’ reluctant to sign up for their service until I know they have marine industry statistics.
Oh well, just gotta keep looking online and going to stores and asking questions like Bob.
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Julie Brown
sleepyhead
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Frank, If you don’t already subscribe to FREE Trade Magazines, I suggest that you look into it – lots of info. I found this link by searching for “Free Marine Trade Magazines” but I’m sure there are other words you could also search. Good luck.
http://www.ibinews.com/ibinews/forms/ibi_freesu...
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Andrea Zabinski
zabber
422,250
Insider Points
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Frank, I got a free trial with Hoovers last month for my company. Go to their website, sign up for a free trial, they will call you and give you demo and pull up your request. You can tool around in there for a day and see if it’s worth a monthly subscription ($150 to $250 month).
I found it didn’t have enough of what I was looking for to make a full move to lease monthly for a year. They will not do it for just 1 month by the way.
Good luck!
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Criterion Dynamics
criteriond
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For what it’s worth – an easier way but imperfect way to search US Census Data – try this – tr.im/quickstatistics (copy and paste the url since it’s not recognized as one)
Google is an underrated source for info actually, particularly if you get used to advanced boolean operators and play around enough.
For a pay site – I recommend Factiva (www.factiva.com). It’s both fairly extensive and rather easy to use. Factiva occasionally offers free trials I believe.
I really like Bob’s approach though, too. It might not always be ideal but to me it exemplifies the right way of thinking.
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