Hypothesis : If the Gardening Industry is growing with rising number of cutomers interested in adopting gardening , and these customers are changing their habits to buy stuff online than in physical channels , and the barriers to entry with intital costs, regulations required are low , the market would grow otherwise fail .
I would start with the Gardening industry , move to customer preferences and then gauge the physical store competitive landscape .
1. Gardening Tool Industry :
a. what is its size ?
b. how has it grown in the last couple of years ?
2. Customers :
a. what are the segments in this market : segments by age , demographics.
b. what has been the growth rate in each segment ? (are there any particular segments which have become more interested in gardening in the past ? what are the consumer trends and habits?)
3. Competitors :
a.) Physical stores : how have their revenues and market shares changed over the last couple of years ?
b.)what is their value proposition/ best practices ?
Online marketplace :
a) Are the barriers to entry high ?
b.) Ease of carrying out operations on the online marketplace : would the suppliers be interested ? what are the set up costs ? ROI ?