If there is a gap in the market…Is there any market in the gap?

I have stated for a couple of times that I am running my own company which is currently evolving to two different business units. Since the establishment, one of the partners has been willing to volunteer to let his house to be our head quarter. The house is very big and we could literally combine both the warehouse and the office together. I have told a story on how our emerging company is still facing a lot of problems to be solved. It starts from the diminishing sales, crowded competition, and the progress of business networking is also a tricky issue. It all does not end there!!

Approximately a month ago my partner was noticed by the owner of the house that it will be sold in the near future (my partner rents the house). It means we have to move our office and warehouse immediately. It does not sound very exciting, does it? Our business is not strong enough to rent a warehouse. Firstly, it is expensive and secondly, our items are just not enough to fully utilize the space of the warehouse.

In Australia, and probably in the other countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, United States, and United Kingdom there are a unique business which is called self storage. The basic idea was developed from the fact that people often do not want to throw their items even they are not needed anymore. I am no longer using this item, but I might need it later (sounds familiar??). It often happens that we feel that our house is no longer convenient and not big enough for our items. Hence, self storage basically provides us space to store our items.

The typical self storage is a very huge warehouse and a lot of cubicles are set up in order to create a lot of storage rooms. The size varies from very small into a 40 feet container. This idea really answers the needs of the society. With the proper marketing, the society being more and more educated about the importance of self storage. It now evolves into wine storages, and even a lot of businesses use them as their warehouse (including us hehehe).

A great marketer told me that when there is a gap in the market, it does not always mean that there is market in the gap. I have seen a lot of unique businesses that did not excel in the market (could you name the examples?). It takes more than mere market research to actually understand the market. Sometimes we have to educate the market in order to create the sense of necessity of our product or service. I am also still learning these marketing principles and would like to hear more sharing in regards to this issue.

What about your business? Does it fill the gap within the market? What marketing strategy did you introduce in order to promote the unique positioning of your business? How did you determine the niche market?

Comments, opinions, and questions are greatly appreciated

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst