When Your ‘Unique’ Biz Idea Is Already Taken
Let’s pretend that you started the new and exciting business of making scarves for people’s pets. Eventually, your neighbor decides to do that for himself. And so does your (former) best friend. Suddenly, the neighborhood pets are dizzy from the choices.
Your business idea will get stolen. It can be re-hashed and repackaged and there will be no credit to you. You may never find the culprit who did the filching, either.
If you are selling scarves, your first point of departure is unique marketing ideas.
Develop a niche market. Your competition may be catering to all kinds of pet owners, but you may want to build your scarf market on what customers really needs. You never know, there might actually be a bigger need for owl scarves than anything else.
Improve on that website you’re putting up. Do you blog about your latest scarves and how well they fit your cat? Do you have pictures? Find ways to keep people on your site longer, such as a “Prettiest Pet” contest.
Do business with a business near you. Tie up with the local pet store and give them a commission from the sales. On your site, you can advertise their store. They can do the same for you when a customer walks into their doors looking for a new owl scarf.
Never least, learn from the entire experience. Record all your ideas, both the good and bad ones. Sometimes, bad ideas can lead up to good ones when concocted a different way, just like a magic brew.
Photo by mompes.
Max Westphal on July 9th, 2008 11:15 am
Nice article. I used http://www.dreamfranchises.com/ to start my own small business selling fast food .
Home job site on July 9th, 2008 3:56 pm
I continually use other peoples ideas and improve upon them. If they use mine, then that is just the way it goes. Improvements are made every day from vehicles, to fast food operations.
cassy on July 11th, 2008 5:26 am
Here in our place, if somebody is selling, like foods, then the neighbors saw that the business is selling good, dont be wonder if the next day you saw the other neighbor is also selling what you sell. I dont know why some people have this kind of attitudes.
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