Hello! I was wondering how you would tackle this question. I considered only businesses that use plastic bags, but I do not think that is inclusive enough.
Sounds good, I will practice with this method again. Thank you!
(edited)
Estimate the demand for plastic bags in the US.
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Hi!
I would go from the consumer perspective:
- Approximately 300 Mio people in the US
- Out of them: 75% who go to the stores (total population divided into 4 age groups: 0-20; 20-40; 40-60; 60-80 -> those who are 20 to 80 go to the stores) = 225 Mio
- I would divide those 225 Mio into urban (80% = 180 Mio) and rural (20% = 45 Mio) because they have a different frequency of going to the stores and different demand for plastic bags
- We could assume urbanites go to the stores at least several times a week (buying small quantities of food), let’s say 3 times using on average 1 plastic bag per visit = so, 180 Mio * 3 = 540 Mio plastic bags a week for urban population. Multiply it by ~50 weeks in a year and you get = 27 bn plastic bags a year for urban population
- Rural population visits to the store are probably less frequent, like 1 every two weeks, so we could calculate with 0,5 times a week but they probably use more plastic bags, let’s assume 5. So, 45 Mio * 0,5 times * 5 bags = ~ 112 Mio plastic bags a week. Multiply this by 50 weeks and you get = 5,6 bn plastic bags a year for rural population
- Overall yearly demand for plastic bags in the US = ~ 33 bn per year, or around 110 plastic bags per capita per year – which sounds realistic.
Hope this helps! If you want to brainstorm more on this feel free to reach out!
Best,
Daniel
(edited)
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Hello!
I would first of all clarify demand from which segments (e.g., consumers, companies, etc.)
If, for instance, was for consumers, you can try to extrapolate the # of bags you use weekly:
- For groceries
- In stores
- For storage purposes
- etc.
Once you have the number, you can extrapolate to different age groups (e.g., babies and childen won´t barely use any, very elderly people will use less, etc.)
Cheers,
Clara
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Hi,
I would suggest that you should present your own approach and I would be happy to review.
Meanwhile please see below my approach to segmentation in market sizing as well as examples of solved cases:
B2C:
-Demographics (Age, education, income, family size, race, gender, occupation, nationality)
-Behavioral (Purchasing behavior, customer journey stage, occasion & timing,
customer loyalty & interest, risk tolerance, user status)
-Psychographic (Lifestyle, personality traits, values, opinions, interests of consumers)
-Geographic (Geographical boundaries)
B2B:
-Company characteristics (Industry, company size, number of employees)
-Geography (Geographical boundaries)
-Purchasing Approach (Occasion & timing, customer capabilities, nature of existing relationship)
-Personal Characteristics (Loyalty, risk attitude, user status)
B2G:
-Demographics (Type of agency, size of budget, the amount of autonomy)
-Geographic (Geographical boundaries)
-Government Tier (Federal , State, Local, Quasi-governmental, International)
-Bid type (Closed, Open)
But sometimes you don’t need to segmentation. Here is an example of case that could be solved with high level top down approach - estimate the size of credit card market in the US:
https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/how-should-i-approach-the-following-question-estimate-the-market-size-of-credit-cards-in-the-us-6695
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