Marketing Compost (EAWAG) - The Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

5.4 Business location
Many factors influence the decision of where to locate your business, and the
decision will invariably be a compromise. Factors include:
availability of raw materials;
labour supply;
land rents;
location of competitors;
acceptance by neighbours;
transport distances and costs; and
location of customers (businesses must always be accessible to
customers).
The following fictional examples illustrate how the market approach
could affect your choice of location:
1. A market assessment reveals a market segment consisting of a mediumvolume
nursery in a peri-urban area. This could convince you to locate your
business close to this market and develop a product, packaging and delivery
system suited to nearby nurseries.
2. A market assessment identifies demand among wealthy households
in the centre of a town. This convinces you to locate your business in the
centre of town and package your compost in small bags to be sold at a
premium to this low-volume cash market.
3. You identify market opportunities with a large fruit grower with his own
trucks. This prompts you to set up your site near a peri-urban vegetable
market and establish your business on a main road, easily accessed by
large trucks.
4. You want to add a door-to-door waste collection service to a composting
facility. You locate your site in a middle-income residential area where
households appear to be willing to separate organic waste and pay for
waste collection. You also assess markets in the vicinity (e. g. hotels, nurseries,
households etc.).
Marketing Compost—Product, positioning and location 63