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| Placing Harbor Bank ATMs in Stop, Shop
and Save markets was a natural union…the ATMs helped bring in
customers and the machines helped reduce the shortage of banking facilities
in West Baltimore. |
Joseph Haskins Jr
Chairman and CEO
The Harbor Bank of Maryland. |
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| challenge: |
solution: |
| Suburban markets are saturated while demand
for goods and services is unmet in inner city and rural markets.
How can you secure a competitive edge in selling to this expanding,
new customer base? |
Low-income communities and minority populations
comprise the fastest growing customer base in the country. Community
organizations
offer improved access to lucrative untapped markets |
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Confronted with today’s competitive
business environment, businesses are accelerating their push
into foreign markets. But, according to research conducted
by the nonprofit Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC),
there are substantial, underserved markets very close at hand:
the densely populated inner cities of America. They offer
businesses highly concentrated buying power and the opportunity
to develop new ideas and products for specialized markets.
The unmet demand in these areas ranges from 25 percent to
60 percent.
Research shows that inner-city residents
have preferences that are common to all consumers; they want
quality goods and services, branded offerings, competitive
prices and quality customer service. And they have the dollars
to back up their preferences. According to ICIC, “conservatively,
inner-city consumers constitute $85 billion in annual retail
buying power” — far more than the entire country of Mexico.
Businesses are discovering that underserved
communities — rural, as well as inner-city areas —
can be a profitable source of revenue. Many of these companies
collaborate with community organizations and nonprofit brokers
to gain access to these substantial, underserved markets and
to engage in new product development.
find an expert that can help your company with developing untapped markets |
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