One of the most useful things I have bought in my local office supplies shop is padded envelopes.  These are made from durable plastic and lined with a plastic bubble material that protects things you send in the post.  You can’t send books in the post without the fear that the corners will get damaged from handling and these are ideal for that purpose. 

Most of the post handling is automated these days and involves things dropping from different heights onto conveyer belts, so it is essential that things are packed well and don’t get damaged.  There are other envelopes you can buy that are padded with a kind of flock material that are great for sending small items such as jewelry, they are so thick that it isn’t obvious what’s in these envelopes when you look at them. 

 I used to sell a lot on eBay and I was always in my local office supplies shop.  People who are thinking about selling on eBay should be aware of how much they will spend on office supplies - bubble wrap, envelopes, packing tape, boxes, and paper for printing shipping labels and packing slips.  It can add up to a lot of money and those costs should be factored into your handling fee, or else you will find you are not making a profit at all!

In developing their business plans, companies of all sizes face the challenge of determining the size of their markets. To begin, companies must present the size of their “relevant market” in their plans. The relevant market equals the company’s sales if it were to capture 100% of its specific niche of the market. Conversely, stating that you were competing in the $1 trillion U.S. healthcare market, for example, is a telltale sign of a poorly reasoned business plan, as there is no company that could reap $1 trillion in healthcare sales. Defining and communicating a credible relevant market size is far more powerful than presenting generic industry figures.

The challenge that many firms face is their inability to size their relevant markets, particularly if they are competing in new or rapidly evolving markets. On one hand, the fact that the markets are new or evolving is the reason why there may be a large opportunity to establish them and become the market leader. Conversely, investors, shareholders and senior management are often skeptical to invest resources because, since the markets do not yet exist, the markets may be too small, or not really exist at all.

In developing over 200 business plans for emerging ventures, venture capital firms, SMEs and Fortune 500 spinouts, I have encountered the challenge of sizing emerging markets numerous times and has developed a proprietary methodology to solve the problem.

To begin, it is critical to understand why traditional market sizing methodologies are ill-equipped to size emerging markets. To illustrate, if a research firm were to use traditional methods to size a mature market such as the coffee market in the United States, it would consider demographic trends (e.g., aging baby boomers), psychographic trends (e.g., increased health consciousness), past sales trends and consumption rates, price movements, competitor brand shares and new product development, and channels/retailers among others. However, conducting such an analysis for emerging markets presents a challenge as several of these factors (e.g., past sales, demographics of the customer when there are no current customers) don’t exist because the markets are presently untapped.

The methodology required to size these new markets requires two approaches. Each approach will yield a different approximation of the potential market size, and often the figures will work together to provide a solid foundation for the market’s potential. I call this first approach peeling back the onion. In this approach, I start with the generic market (e.g., the coffee market) that that company is trying to penetrate, and remove pieces of that market that it will not target.

For instance, if the company created an ultra high-speed coffee maker that retailed for $600, it would initially reduce the market size by factors such as retail channels (e.g., mass marketers would not carry the product), demographic factors (lower income customers would not purchase the product), etc. By peeling back the generic market, you eventually will be left with only the relevant portion of it.

The second methodology requires assessing the market from several angles to approximate the potential market share, answering questions including:

- Competitors: who is competing for the customer that you will be serving; what is in their product pipeline; once you release a product/service, how long will it take them to enter the market, who else may enter the market, etc.

- Customers: what are the demographics and psychographics of the customers you will be targeting; what products are they currently using to fulfill a similar need (substitute products); how are they currently purchasing these products; what is their degree of loyalty to current providers, etc.

- Market factors: what other factors exist that will influence the market size - government regulations; market consolidation in related markets, price changes for raw materials, etc.

- Case Studies: what other markets have experience similar transformations and what were the customer adoption rates in those markets, etc.

While these methodologies are often more painstaking than traditional market research techniques, they can be the difference in determining whether your company has the next iPod or the next Edsel.