Selling Bottled Tap Water: Business Idea
Can you imagine that a company could bottle tap water in the city and sell it in supermarkets? It sounds strange, but it is a business that is working perfectly in New York with the company Tap’dNY (the NY tap). Idea that perhaps be applied in other cities. Craig Zucker, a New Yorker, realized in 2007 that New York City tap water was not only of very good quality, it came from a local source and required little energy to draw. It occurred to him that it might be a good idea to market it, and so he tried his luck.
It seems incredible to be able to sell their own tap water in bottles to New Yorkers themselves, but they did it, relying on the quality of the water, the feeling of belonging to the city, respect for the environment (local production) and the need to have water in bottles at times (travel, sport). Furthermore, because the water was so easy to produce, it was able to charge much lower sales prices than other brands.
In order to adapt the idea, at least two conditions are necessary: a highly populated city and high-quality water. Furthermore, ideally this water should be extracted in a very natural way and with little environmental impact.
For example, in Spain the two large cities that could have a sufficient market for such an original idea would be Madrid and Barcelona. Unfortunately, it seems that the quality and taste of the water in most of the Spanish Levante (Barcelona included) is not optimal. What’s more, in these areas people often buy bottled water to drink because they distrust the tap.
The water of Madrid in general has a good image, and it would be necessary to learn more about the production process to assess creating such a product. But does the Spanish capital have enough image for this idea? Do its inhabitants have the feeling of belonging that would make them buy those bottles?
