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Spot The Next Hot Trend
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Article 2: Trends You Might Have Spotted
Unless you live the life of a hermit, you can spot a trend. That’s because trends attract attention. That’s what makes them trends.
As easy as the major trends are to spot, they almost always include in themselves the seed of other trends not as obvious, but waiting to flower and be discovered by astute entrepreneurs.
As online auctioneer eBay flourished, an astute observer might have foreseen (and capitalized on) the concept of drop-off points for sellers who didn’t want the hassle of dealing directly with eBay. An entire subculture – a sub-trend you might call it – has emerged consisting of intermediaries who take what people want to sell through eBay’s vast network and provide the service of processing and posting the goods on behalf of the seller.
Such trends within trends abound.
Consider the potential for a bakery owner who might have spotted within the low-carb diet trend an opportunity to supplement her own bread products. In capitalizing on that trend, she might have avoided a sales downturn, while simultaneously retaining her customer base. That would have favorably positioned her business to rebound after the low-carb diet faded from popularity.
Online selling was a highly noticeable trend that got off to a remarkably slow start. Nevertheless it has grown considerably. The 2005 Christmas season was projected to post a 24 percent increase over the previous year, which itself was a record. How many company Web sites were originally created to capitalize on the trend of online brochures and customer service contact points, but later capitalized on the emerging online sales trend? The number is vast and growing every day.
If your small business provides computer service, such as information technology or help desk assistance, is there a trend within a trend in the booming home entertainment market in which computers, televisions, stereos and video devices are strung together on a computer network?
There are hundreds of products and countless vendors selling the hardware for such networks. But how many companies are selling services to install all the tech connections and turn the hardware into a no-worry, turnkey system? The number of people requiring such a service is certain to grow substantially. That is a trend worth spotting.
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