Water is one of the most valuable resources humans have. Its potential to be commoditized may not be the best thing, but its scarcity as a critical resource still forces it to be treated as a rare element. The bottled water business is a daunting business to get into without having a clear framework or plan to follow.
Contrary to common belief, you don’t have to be a millionaire to start a successful bottled water business. The main obstacle that your business plan should focus on is the fierceness of the competition, as you’ll most likely be competing with the whales of an industry. Fortunately, it’s still possible to successfully launch such a business. We’ll be providing you with a guide that should help you hit the ground running.
Buying a Franchise Vs. Starting a Company
The easiest way to get into the bottled water business is by purchasing a franchise. Any company that’s doing a good job in its bottled-water campaign will start selling its franchises to bigger competitors or those looking for investments. But buying a franchise isn’t exactly a practical option for those who don’t have the capital and resources required to handle such a transaction. Those who aren’t able to invest in a franchise or purchasing an existing bottled water plant will have to settle for starting from scratch.
Starting from scratch is better than purchasing a franchise because you’ll be able to control many variables that are going to affect your growth eventually. You’ll have more to say about what goes on in the company according to your financial state, business vision, skills, and previous experiences. You can even implement portable services by using a portable option of an osmosis system if you plan on changing locations often during the business launch. There is no denying that it’s going to take more work than purchasing an already-existing bottled water business, but it pays me off more in the long run.
Analyzing the Industry
According to the reports made by IBIS World, the United States the top 4 major companies are expected to generate 65% of the revenue, leaving a fair portion to smaller businesses. It’s quite understandable why the major economies of conglomerates are more suited to dominate such a line of business because of the bulk weight and the required complex transportation network. The US has around 565 licensed bottled water producers and distributors across all the states. Even though the number of businesses joining the industry is increasing, the growth is constantly on the rise with minimum odds of stagnation.
Market Research on Demographics
Just like any business, market research based on demographics and psychographics is an essential step. Since you can’t exactly target everyone who drinks water, essentially the world population, you need to spend some effort to narrow down your target audience and demographic to a sensible volume. You’ll want to focus on identifying and modelling as much information as possible of people’s financial class, cultural traits, religion, race, age range, and racial profile. This is going to be your key to defining the price and type of packaging you should use to appeal to the broadest sector of the market.
Determining a Niche
While the variety of niches in the bottled water industry is quite limited since water is expected to meet certain international standards, in addition to being regulated to a very serious degree because of the potential for abuse. This doesn’t mean that improvisation or niches don’t exist in the industry. On the contrary, as time goes by, new trends in bottled water businesses emerge. You’ll find a variety of different niches to choose from like flavoured, mineral, distilled, sparkling, PH-modified, and custom-sized bottled water. This is where local and small businesses can get a piece of the pie of the bottled water industry, in addition to dispenser-used bottled water.
Analyzing the Risk
When you decide to start your own bottled water business, you need to be quite aware of the regulations, risks, and responsibilities you’re going to take on. The location of the business is going to determine a lot of those variables since the regulations and laws related to bottled water production differ from one country to another. Expect to face mild or serious resistance from the government in the worst-case scenarios, such as economic downturn, laws, and new regulations.
There is no denying that a bottled water business is a very lucrative type of work to get into. The high number of entrepreneurs around the world that are interested in such an industry stands to prove how much one can stand to gain from pioneering it. Expect to spend a considerable amount of time researching and preparing to be able to successfully launch such a business.
