Читать книгу Start & Run a Gift Basket Business - Mardi Foster-Walker - Страница 9

What do you need to know? By properly defining your needs, you can save valuable time and avoid having to cope with too much information. In order to give your business a realistic chance of success, and to have the information necessary to write a comprehensive business plan, you must define what primary and secondary data is relevant for your proposed business.

Primary data includes the number of potential markets, size of markets, size of total market, market trends, customers and target market, competitive companies, and market share. Secondary data includes demographics, industry outlook, growth potential, economic trends, population shifts, consumer trends, and relevant economic indicators.

For example, if your proposed business is located in an area with a cruise ship industry, you could use that as one of your potential markets and gather all relevant data. The potential market would be cruise ship bon voyage gifts. The size of the market is the number of cruise ships and passengers leaving the port yearly. Market trends would be a shift in average age of cruise passengers, more families cruising, etc. Customers and a target market would be travel agents who purchase gifts for their clients. Competitive companies are the number of other companies in your area that offer delivery of bon voyage gifts to cruise ships. The market share is the percentage of the cruise gift business you realistically think you could attain.