Why Would Someone Want to Buy What You're Selling?

Today, as I am looking for ideas, I find this interesting article by my favorite writer on my collection.

I think this article could be useful for you who looking for something to sell, at least you have to find out what kind of product are you going to getting involved with.

Why Would Someone Want to Buy What You're Selling?
By Michael Masterson

There are two kinds of products: need-to-have products and want-to-have products. Knowing which kind you are selling is critically important to your success.

Need-to-have products include houses, furniture, food, water, and electricity. Selling these products is usually a matter of providing good value. The great thing about need-to-have products is that customers keep on buying them. The difficulty is that you are usually competing against a host of like products - so the pressure to keep rates low is enormous. (Think airline travel. Think coffee.)

Want-to-have products include jewelry, perfume, draperies, and art. To sell these products, you need to create a perceived value for them. You also need to create the desire in your customers to own them - and that takes a great deal of skill. What's great about want-to-have products is that they tend to be viewed as being unique. So if you promote them properly, you can charge a lot of money.

Most products are not clearly one way or the other. In that case, you need to make a decision as to which way you are going to push your marketing.

Take coffee, for example. If you want to sell your coffee beans to the need-to-drink market, you'll have to accept very small profit margins. You'll have to cut big deals and move a ton of beans. Once locked in with vendors, you might enjoy very good ongoing business and very nice (though small, percentage-wise) profits. But you won't have to keep on selling very hard.

If, on the other hand, you want to position your coffee beans to the want-to-drink market, you will have to come up with a good reason why people should pay a premium price for them - and you'll have to keep the creative process going to continue to support your argument.