Target customers characteristics

Hi everyone,

Another lurking Orchidian coming out of the bytes of the network.
I’ve been enjoying the posts from everyone and am now working on a
research topic I hope the orchid community can help me with.

For those customers who want to buy unique one of a kind jewelry that
"probably" isn’t diamond oriented… meaning style and composition
(one might call it art jewelry) are more important than how big the
diamond is… What are those customers characteristics,
demographics, psychographics?

How old are they?
What's their gender?
Where do they shop?
How often do they shop?
How much income do they have?
Or maybe how much discretionary income?
Are they collecting?
Are they buying gifts?
How much unique jewelry do they own already?
Why do they buy?

Do these characteristics vary by jewelry purchased i.e… those that
shop for necklaces are different than those who buy rings?

Do these characteristics vary by target price. Obviously the income
characteristic will vary but what about gender, age others?

As many of you may have guessed, these are typical business plan
questions about the target market. I’m currently taking a business
course and thought it would be worthwhile to write up a business plan
for uniquely designed jewelry. Will I implement it, well that’s
another story. :slight_smile: Comments on both how to research customers
characteristics and on things to consider in the business plan are
really appreciated.

Cheers,
Heather.

Hi Heather;

You are not going to get an answer for that question that will in
any way provide you to an avenue towards your demographic. Why?
Because you have not really defined a product yet. It’s like asking
the question, “What kind of people like really good music?” You see,
you are working primarily from a description of what this jewelry is
not . . . “probably not diamond oriented”. That’s OK, but from
there, you don’t go on to tell what it is. Even so, if you said, “who
buys jewelry that isn’t about showing how much it costs”, the answer
would be, well, probably just about anybody and everybody. Even an
answer to the question, “who buys diamond jewelry” is going to give
you too broad a sample. I’d suggest, and I do this most sincerely
and in an attempt to be helpful, not critical, that you really narrow
down the category, and do this in as many terms as you can, such as

1. price range
2. materials (pick one or two, say, colored gemstones and gold)
3. traditional or not
4. one of a kind, or mass produced

From that point, you’ll have a product that by it’s nature, will
give you a demographic that is limited enough to in fact track. Once
you get a feel for how this works, you can develop more extensive
and complex systems to extract data from. Best of luck on this
class, and please keep us posted on how things are going.

David L. Huffman

I think another question you might want to ask about your target
group is about education: What level and in what field? Where did
they go to school (high school and beyond)?

Tas