Building Trendy Products

If you haven’t already, register a username for yourself so you can discuss this topic in our Development forum.

The ability to detect and interpret trends gives you keen access into not only what consumers want now, but also what they’ll be looking for tomorrow. Trends give retailers a huge edge when it comes to selecting product lines. It’s important however, to know what a trend is and isn’t.

A trend, for example, is not a group of popular items that everyone is buying. A trend is an expression of what matters to consumers at the moment. It’s a sign of what they’re excited about. Trends grow, evolve, and morph, but they have rhyme and reason. Unlike fads, they don’t just come out of nowhere.

Trend Analysis

A Good Read: The Next Big Thing: Top Trends from Today’s Leading Experts to Help You Dominate the New Economy

Lisa Suttora of WhatDoISell.com defines trend analysis as “looking at a definable group of customers that you can get coming back time and time again. You’re not sourcing products in a vacuum, because you know exactly what types of products people are looking for.”Though it may take more time to study market trends in the beginning, the end result saves a lot of time because in the long run, you aren’t trying to figure out why you can’t move certain products, and you aren’t guessing at what you think will sell.

Become a Trend Spotter

There are many avenues you can use for research:

• Most major search engines offer keyword tracking tools that show how many people are searching for a given item. Worldwide Brands, for example, offers a Market Research Wizard that shows how likely a product is to be successful based on market statistics.
• Consumer magazines and websites are also great sources for gathering information.
• Trade shows, associations, and publications work well too. Though trade publications tend to be pricy, the information in them is the result of millions of dollars of research. And they project out from 12 to 18 months, which really gives you a jump on buying trends that haven’t even evolved yet.
• The media can provide some really valuable trending stats as well. Newspapers often give numbers and demographics. Look for indicators of growth and decline and be sure to get in on the upswing of a trend — not when it’s on its way out.

Current events can be found in our Business Trends News section.

The key is to be consistent and do your research daily. Says Suttora, “Trending information is not something you do once and then stop. Every successful business owner is going to continually be reinventing their product line… on an ongoing basis.”

External Resources:

1. Spotting and Forecasting Consumer Trends for Profit
2. Anatomy of a Trend
3. How Entrepreneurs Profit From Business & Technology Trends