[Fuerfsanv]

Another thought is to make the exiting competitor an offer.

If the owner is closing down their business you can ask if they will give/sell you their customer database so that way you can get a head start on stopping the employees starting their own business because you got to the customers first.

Another way is to aks if the exiting owner will give you a referall from his existing customers to come to you now.

I am interested in why two competitors are closing in similar time periods. Are they related in some way? Or is the market place demand drying up? Is it that they are older and dont want to change their business to meet the new demands from customers?

Is there a major change in your market that you are unaware of?

[soipguibbom]

Or do you approach the employees and offer them positions at your business? You could do it on an agent basis where you offer them commissions.

Or do you pick up on the weaknesses of these competitors (poor craftsmanship due to underpricing etc) and focus your advertising on that?

I think there are many ways you could approach this.

[indartwm]

Thanks for the tip Al, I never considered tapping into the overseas market.

I know someone in Sydney that goes to Canada a fair bit to sell his product so I might catch up with him and see if we can work together.

[Poowssnople]

are you able to do overseas orders?

Maybe also reaching out to different countries and tapping into different markets overseas will bring new life to the business.

If you do consider it though I suggest you research about it well. But I remember
a friend who had a company which imported computer parts from china and flogged them off to his local market.

A competitor who had a bigger business and larger client base decided to rough him up and put him out of business, not literally! figuratively speaking.

they sold parts at a way cheaper price to the his local market in order to put him out of business, few months down the track his competitor was shocked to see him in business still and wondered why.

Well he did save his hide, he ended up buying the cheaper stock than his from his competitor and was selling it off to overseas markets to keep his business afloat.

he was in the same situation he saw alot of signs of stores in his area were closing down.

[indartwm]

I found out today that two more of my competitors are closing up and moving on, and one of these sign companies have been around since the 1980's.

This is a concern for me because for every shop that closes, at least two more open with those employees deciding to go it alone.

The end result is saturation in the marketplace, causing prices to drop well below what the product is worth, people go broke and the cycle starts again.

I had to find a specialist field to combat this saturation. We invested in a CNC Router and after 12 months I am happy to say it was one of the best decisions we have made, although in those first 6 months I have had alot more downs than ups trying to get it off the ground, bugs with the machine and getting my head around CAD programs. We are now developing custom braille signs for a local council, if they are happy with the end product after 12 month trial we will be targeting all local councils.

We also launched Little Bird Decor - a specialist market in wall decals using existing equipment and years of experience in this industry.

What I am trying to say is you really need to find a niche market and keep going at it. When there is saturation, that niche market could well keep you afloat.