Dan,

Keep your head up. There is so much opportunity around every corner. It's recognizing it that is the tricky part.

I'm addressing new niche markets now that I didn't even know existed when I got into this business. Thanks to valued members of this forum, their ideas about these markets have contributed greatly to my bottom line. As you can already tell, we're here to help any way we can!

The search I did was quite simple:

isle man engraving

Of course most of the results were mentioning engraved prints or other antique engravings. But it's pretty easy to scan past those and only click on the other ones.

I also tried trophies, but 99% of the hits were about the Tourist Trophy race. Even excluding that term the remaining results were almost all about various organizations giving trophies. THAT showed me that there are a fair number of trophies and awards given out on your island, and somebody somewhere is supplying them.

The places in that first search that offer trophies and awards might simply be buying them engraved-to-order from another company off the island. The industrial engraver in that first search would be no competition to you. They are very specialized.

You might talk to people at your local school, government offices, football club, gokart club, etc... and see where they buy their trophies and awards. Somebody may be offering a limited selection at high prices. As Dave says, don't try to simply undercut prices, but knowing the competition's selections might allow you to offer a much broader choice. People who buy trophies and awards year after year often want variety.

Chances are that a lot of the jewelers on the island offer engraving, and may farm it out to one place on other jeweler on the island. Rather than pay another jeweler, those places might prefer to farm it out to you, since you aren't their competition.

Some other random thoughts:

- An art gallery or frame shop might want engraved plates to mount on the frames. So might local painters or sculptors.
- A boatmaker or repairer might need various brass items engraved
- small manufacturers might need nameplates for what they manufacture
- a hospitals, restaurants, and almost any company in the service industry might need personalized nametags.
- pet shops (other than the one listed in that first search), stables, kennels, etc... might need engraved tags for the animals.

Instead of thinking about individuals needing gifts and personal items engraved, think about small to large businesses that might need things engraved on an ongoing basis.

Also, a business that has an ongoing need can bring in a more predictable and consistent income that the random engraving of gift items.

Of course the business could suddenly stop needing their specific item too, so always best not to rely on only one or two those.