Its not a load of old flannel!!
In some of my earlier posts I have mentioned the importance of finding a niche market to operate in. The advantages are often little competition and bigger mark ups.
I thought it may be worth giving a few examples that I personally know about of people making a secondary income in niche markets.
A work colleague of my friend sells towels to hair dressers, tanning studios and beauty parlours. His wife notice the poor quality of the towels used at her local hair dressers. This started her thinking that if she could provide a better quality product at a cheaper rate they could make a very respectable second income.
They started by sourcing good quality towels from a local wholesaler, visiting local salons and offering a better product at a competitive price. They soon started making a second income. They then expanded this idea by visiting salons further a field.
Just by using Yellow Pages or yell.com they were able to find a huge amount of business within a 20 mile radius. They now have a turnover in excess of £3000 a month.
They have started to import directly from china which allows them to offer better discounts whilst still improving margins. With literally scores of businesses within a 20 mile radius of home, even if only fractions want to purchase from them it’s still a considerable customer base.
As towels are disposable items they will need to be replaced at regular intervals. They aim to offer outstanding value and service. However one simple mistake has cost them a few thousand pounds. They had an e-commerce website built to sell these items further a field. It was disaster with very poor sales conversions. This is a great example of where the face to face approach is much better than the anonymity of a website.
I’m sure you will agree that this very simple idea has been very effective.
More soon
Rob
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