Market Saturation. Does it really matter?
Being in a competitive industry that I currently work in, maintaining market share is quite an effort especially with a saturated market that my company is in. This also actually applies to selecting a niche.
These days almost every market is saturated, right? Very few new inventions are made so new markets are slow in the coming. So how does one stay ahead and maintain marker share? Well the obvious answer is innovation and constant upgrades to your current product. When you are lucky you not only outsmart your competition, you may actually create a new market. I mean just look at the evolution of the mobile phone. At first it was literally just a phone and now it is a number of devices all in one (GPS, camera, tracking device, flashlight, music player, computer, oh and also a phone). This evolution actually crushed some markets and opened a lot of new ones.
But let us get back to saturation. If you are trying to select your niche in the topic of food for example you are probably thinking that is not going to work, everything has been said and done with food, it is saturated. So how then can a new “player” be successful in a saturated market? Well there is at least two ways in my opinion.
Firstly by obviously studying the competition and finding weaknesess and exploiting those weaknesses with your own innovations, but face it, firstly, the competition has been in the game way longer than you and you probably do not have the experience and resources to do this.
The second way is do exactly what the competition does and to reduce your appetite for what you want. Start to think small in terms of market share. Let us use an example. Industry X is a $1 million dollar per month industry. 1% of a million is $10 000. That is quite a bit of money for someone starting brand new. Even if you do exactly what the competition does, you can probably do it a bit cheaper because you are not as big. There are definitely clients out there always looking for cheaper and sometimes a change in supplier to keep the current ones on their toes. Even if you get just 1% share in the market, you have a foot in the door and you will be able to build up your profits and resources to start investing in innovations and becoming better and faster than the competition.
To bring this back to selecting your niche. Never think your niche is not going to work and you are entering a saturated market. You are a unique human being with your own unique thoughts and opinions ans can thus always bring a new or different angle to your niche.
Lastly, if you have enough passion and love what you do, you WILL be successful and you will be able to get into a “saturated” market. Who knows maybe even create a new one.
This is also why Wealthy Affiliate teaches us to select a niche that we are passionate about.
I hope I have made it easier for some to select their niches as this thought process really helped me make up my mind.
Please feel free to leave any comments ore opinions below.
Recent Comments
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Some niches have unassailable competition. Most are wide open. It does pay to do your research and either find your unique selling position or choose a path that segments the niche in a unique way.