While you may have a great - tasting farm intersection , you still have to prove it in the market . It ’s one thing if everyone you know loves your muffins — peculiarly if they ’re barren . It ’s something completely different to see if customers will buy them at $ 2 a pop . The same holds truthful for your organic pickle , which you depend should retail for about $ 12 a jounce . This process of testing the market place for your ware is often promise a feasibility study ; it may take the following itinerary .
1. Testing
This may regard evaluate taste , pricing , fortune size , packaging , the recording label and even the sales event venue itself .
2. Feedback
Besides reaching out straight off for feedback , you could also explore accompanying sources of information about your most bright markets . How are other food enterprises sell their products ? Having some contender is a great matter , since that means there ’s a grocery store for what you want to trade . Evaluate each of the 7 Ps of marketing ( mathematical product , price , place , advancement , mass , partnerships and use ) in relation to your contender to ascertain how your products are unlike — and well .
3. Refinement
Take what you ’ve determine by way of direct customer feedback or observing decisions made by your customers or the market place , and refine , modify or adjust your mathematical product and selling consequently . For deterrent example , did your blueberry bush muffins deal out in the first 60 minutes , but you turn back home with your uncivilised cherry red variant ? Did a intensity discount pricing strategy for your giving jelly allow you to profit more by selling a greater volume than if you sell them all one at a prison term at full price ? Did a flavor sampler set sell better than a four - plurality of the same nip ?
Keep refining until you ’ve reached a level of confidence before launching your product . think of , you require to have a product that enough customers want and are willing to devote for at a fair toll to forget you with enough profit at the close of the daytime to make it worth undertaking .
4. Product Launch
Finally , synthesise your examination , feedback and refinement into your net product and implement your launching campaign .
Keep in creative thinker , however , that modification is constant . client can be quicksilver , follow vogue and fads , or have sense of taste that change . One twelvemonth , gluten - free is the rage ; three years later on , it ’s sugar - free or low - lucre . In most case , even though your feasibleness survey may unveil substantial products to market , it ’s always possible that market condition will convert , a new competitor will show up across from your John Wilkes Booth or some of your primal customer will move away .
The food industry , especially specialization nutrient products , can be cyclical and very sensitive to economic booms and busts . By their nature , many of these food item are perceived as impulse purchases . A breakfast of chocolate crescent roll is not the same matter as a hearty spaghetti dinner in the heart of many , even if both cost about the same .
Be realistic , pliant and adaptable with your products and marketing and you ’ll do just fine . And keep listening to the needs of your customers . They might just direct you in the direction of the next great affair .
This article was excerpted fromHomemade for Sale , by Lisa Kivirist and John D. Ivanko ( New Society Publishers , 2015 ) .
