16-Step Guide Reaction

REACTION PAPER

        The 16-step guide to evaluating the viability of any product idea is very useful and helpful to entrepreneurs and business owners especially the beginners and the ones who plan to start a business online and offline. It can help businessmen determine properly their product before launching to the public and to help them minimize and avoid wasting their time and energy, or even worse, waste their money to ideas of products that will not sell and work in the market. The guide is very handful in the business because it provided specific steps that will help in selecting and determining the product idea that can help satisfy the needs and wants of the consumers and it was divided into two criteria: the market based and the product based.

        Each factor is not 100% confident in the product choice but it is the combination of all factors that will help complete and select the best possible decision. However, there are parts in the 16-step guide that I have questions and wonders about. On the part of deciding on how we want to build our business they provided four: make, manufacture, wholesale or dropship.

        For make, I think we should also consider the cost and availability of the materials that we are going to use especially the place where you are located in making the product because it will require additional expenses if you have to buy it from far places. There must be an alternative solution when the material is not available. You should also consider and include the process in making the product to avoid danger and risk to both makers and consumers.

        For manufacture, I agree on what they said because it requires big transactions and it is only built when expanding the business. As for their example of using coconut oil based hair care product, it is better to establish first their name and trademark in the market before becoming a manufacturing company. They must obtain loyal consumers and widen their customer base to have a high demand on the product and be able to manufacture the product so that it can fulfill the customers needs without having shortage or surplus on the supply.

        For wholesale, I think it is better to go straight to the manufacturer or company who sells the product to have bigger discounts and it is cheaper. It is also better to buy products that do not expire easily to avoid having loss since it is more difficult to sell online. For the pricing, you should consider the given price of the manufacturer and also the price of the distributer or resellers. You must not under price or overprice it.

        For dropship, I wonder how could there be no inventory for the seller and I am thinking on how is the payment of the shipping fee. Would the shipping fee be included in the product's price? Will the buyer have to pay for it or is it the seller? I think for this kind of business, sellers must think and plan better ways and strategies to sell to customers and have a deal with the dropshipping partners.

        They provided 16 guide questions that could help evaluate the product idea and each of the criteria are meant to help understand better your own product choice and all the factors of building a business around it. These questions are framework in order to get idea for the potential of your product and help avoid dangerous potential pitfalls that can waste the time, energy and the money invested in making the product.

        The market based criteria involve and includes external facing like the market size, target customer, trending trajectory and so on. I think you should consider to where is the extent of your target customers especially that your business would be sold online and you are just beginning or still starting. I think using the Google Keyword Planner Tool and Buzzsumo could somewhat help but the range of it is very wide because the whole world is using Google and Twitter.

        I think determining the competitors would be very helpful because you can study what their strengths and weaknesses are. You can turn it into an opportunity for your product to make in the market. You can use the strengths and weaknesses to improve on your product and can help solve the problems that the competitors cannot give their customers. This could make and give advantages to your product.

        What I understand about the market is that it changes over time because of the impact of new products, technologies, innovations, inventions and many more. As time pass by, people's preferences would change according to the trend that is happening around them. Many factors could affect the market that is why it is not stable.