Small Business Ideas for 2010

Based on the extensive data available on social trends, copious opportunities are available for business in 2010 and beyond.  You will need some imagination, courage, financing where appropriate, basic business strategy, and a network of people smarter than you to assist you when needed.

Hip Trends with Big Opportunity

1. Rentals
2. Copy Cats
3. Do it for yourself (DIY)
4. Everything is Green
5. Upscale Discount

Rentals

The shortage of credit available coupled with North American’s present mood to avoid more debt means consumers are buying less.  Rental options have become a great way to meet the need for basics and beyond.

Now buyers can rent designer handbags for a weekend, gowns for events, baby equipment for their holidays, GPS units to keep them going in the right direction or impressive furniture for their next party.

If they can’t buy it, they still want to enjoy it short term.

What can you offer?  Do a keyword study with one of the free tools online and find out what people are searching to rent in your area.  If the demand is right, and the competition reasonable, you may want to give it a go.

Copy Cats

The recession has given a new meaning to the word KNOCK OFF. It’s hip to be thrift, so offering “look alike”, or dummied down versions of the real McCoy, can yield returns.

Do it Yourself - DIY

In a recent article I mentioned a student of mine that is launching a business targeted to would-be mechanics.  The customer will bring their badgered auto to the garage, so they can fix it themselves. 

Of course, there will be a mechanic on site for advice, and peers up to their elbows in grease, sharing one another's burden. Essentially, they are renting the shop, the tools, the expertise, and maybe sharing a beer.

There are DIY art studios, grocery check outs. even do- it-yourself hotels and serve yourself pubs. What could you simplify, thereby reducing costs, and allowing your customers to be self-sufficient, save money and cultivate their creativity?

Sexy Green

You are a sensual, sexy, savvy individual if you eat, wear, dispose of, clean with and drive green.  Green is the new COOL.

There are new products on the market everyday for items that protect or respect our natural environment.  To name a few:

• You can recycle your old vinyl albums – into serving bows, picture frames and coasters.  What could you do with milk jugs, discarded light bulbs, used batteries?
• Industrial Artifacts takes cast offs from manufacturers and recreates something useful. 
• Commit to Care for An Acre of Land. The Nature Conservatory encourages buyers to purchase an acre for preservation in endangered rain forest areas. Could you sell sponsorship for care of a block of city streets? What about selling shares for community expanding recycling stations? Some new business models are built entirely on collaboration.
• There are green septic tanks, children’s toys, clothes and furniture, office equipment, eco-friendly travel, and water bottles. 

Do you remember what we thought when someone first put WATER into bottles and wanted to charge us for what had always been free?  Who could have dreamed that the industry would grow to global usage of 188,776.6 million liters in 2007 with a compounded annual growth rate of 7.6%? 

To add insult to injury, the largest manufactures of bottled water, Coca Cola and Pepsi, use municipal water. 

Who will make the new water pill popular?  What if a handy dispenser was available that you could carry in your pocket or purse?  Filled with tiny pills that effectively oxygenates the water while cleaning up the unwanted up toxic residue?  Possibly, they are displayed in local grocery stores next to the mints and gum.

The new fashion would be to carry designer “green” water bottles with us and fill them up anywhere (using the same municipal water no doubt).  We then pop the pill into the bottle as mindlessly as we would a piece of gum into our mouth, and bam, purified water that doesn’t pollute as a result.

My imagination takes me a couple years ahead when the competition for pill manufacturing has taken us to new heights.  Now the water pills have vitamins in them too, or bio-identical hormones, or weight loss stimulators.

Upscale Discount

Discount is in.  People still need underwear, trousers for work, kitchen tools, baby clothes, kids toys and laundry detergent, and automobiles but for the best price they find.  Even though the price is cheap, that doesn’t mean consumers want to feel cheap.  Feelings have a significant impact on where and what we buy. 

Luxurious attitudes can make discount shopping a rewarding emotional hit.  While the economy slugs through the recession and gradual growth spurts, businesses that offer great pricing, for less quality but great “feeling,” position themselves significantly in the marketplace.

For businesses in a discount-targeted business, consider adding a line of products that customers can use short term and enable them to continue to do business with you.  Or perhaps, use the rental idea.  Established businesses can offer discount items online, or consider trade-in options, using the trade-ins to sell through other distribution channels.  Don’t hesitate to offer coupon savings, coupons are making quite the comeback!

Related Article: Trends the Small Business Owner Must Know

To our Success

Harmony Thiessen

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