Today’s venture capital companies are constantly looking for new style trends and products to improve their portfolios and market shares. These businesses are managed by savvy entrepreneurs who constantly harvest the latest data and then add market knowledge to help them create and implement best strategies. Sounds like a good formula, right? Is this how your business works?
In our DPH world, each vendor and showroom has its unique ways of market testing, and the most popular process is each business’ perceived reality is intuition or gut feelings. You know it well; over a short period of time, a few showroom salespeople sell a job or two in a matte black finish. Then they frantically search for manufacturers that offer matte black finishes and run to management proclaiming “We absolutely have to have this on the sales floor NOW! This is getting really big!
We all thought rose gold would be the next oil rubbed bronze. Well, we all know what happened with rose gold. Before adding new finishes or products, do you look at the showroom sales history and your product quote report? How about calling a handful of manufacturers and simply asking them for a “most popular finish report”, noting percentages with a 3 to 6-month percent change? Would that help? Why in the DPH world is DATA not the foundation for market evaluation, merchandising and forecasting?
I can hear the words ringing in my head - “I know what is going on in my business and my gut instincts have gotten me to where I am.” This is the way so many DPH showrooms and manufacturers have governed their business since the 1960’s. Granted, a lot of those businesses are still quite successful. However, would you invest in a business with intuition as its sole source of market research?
Perceived reality plays a large part in all of our lives, but it should be based on solid business data, key vendor partners and monitoring popular style media. Understand that it takes time to dig through sales figures and quotes, as well as sharing vendor information and referencing 10 good style sources. But at the end of the day, don’t you want to have the right product on display at the right time? Don’t you want your customers to know your showroom is the place to see the popular, new and classic looks?
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