Preliminaries - library services
CUSTOMERS:
Demographics
Consumer markets
- Factfinder.census.gov – voluminous demographic data on the U.S. from national to zip code level
- SimplyMap - retail sales and sales potential, consumer expenditures and preferences, market segments, projections, etc. - at all geographic units. Not so easy to use, but it has voluminous data - to get started, try the tutorials. Open segments within the "Variables" tab to see the range of data available.
- Consumer USA - market size, market share, brand/manufacturer sales, forecasts for hundreds of consumer products. Also general economic data, demographics, and other consumer indicators.
- Statistical Abstract of the United States – easy-to-find statistics on everything
- Consumer Expenditure Survey – US govt. survey that is the basis for many studies
- Lifestyle market segmentation patterns - customer types, from Claritas
Consumer spending and attitudes
New Strategist publications - in the Hunt Library reference room:
Best customers : demographics of consumer demand, HC79 .C6 R87 2008
American attitudes: what Americans think about the issues that shape their lives, 2008 [ebook]
Generation X : Americans born 1965 to 1976, HC110 .C6 G46 2006
Household spending: who spends how much on what, HC110 .C6 O34 2008
The Millennials : Americans born 1977 to 1994, HQ796 .M4797 2004
Ten things you need to know about the college market, HF5415.332 C64 2008
Who's buying alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages, HD9348 .U52 W46 2005
Who's buying executive summary of household spending, 2006 [ebook]
Who's buying for pets, SF414.7 .W46 2005
Surveys:
Roper Center for Public Opinion Research
Pew Research Center
Link to various survey sites
Mendelsohn Affluent Survey
ACSI (customer satisfaction by company and industry)
any of the “News” databases below using “poll” as a search term, i.e. smartphones and poll.
COMPETITION:
Identifying competitors and/or potential corporate customers
Find out more about those companies
- Company Search in Business & Company Resource Center - quick company profiles, and then use the tabs at the top of the main page for each company to find news articles, investment reports, rankings (for competitors, and also click on that tab for market share,) product listings, and company histories.
- Hoover's database has quick summaries, key financial figures and lists of products and competitors in one easy-to-use source.
- LexisNexis Academic's Company Dossier will get you many kinds of company data from various sources: quick snapshots, corporate hierarchy, financials, legal cases, executives, company structure, etc. Each section can be expanded for more information.
- MarketLine - extensive profiles, forecasts, and SWOT analyses, from the international research firm Datamonitor.
- Investext/Thomson Research - reports from investment analysts on public companies and their prospects
News sources: There is overlap among these, but also unique items in each. Use combinations of keywords to start, and use the articles themselves to start identifying company names and other key terms to use later.
- Proquest – wide-ranging news database containing many smaller databases within it - thousands of publications, including complete Wall Street Journal and New York Times.
- Business & Company Resource Center – click on "Articles" - thorough and international coverage, large range of industry publications
- Lexis-Nexis Academic – most wide-ranging industry news database available, especially for international coverage
- Engineering Village - scientific and technical literature on electrical and electronic engineering, information technology, etc – for competitive product developments.
- Bizjournals.com - sometimes the best information is local: free database of business articles for major US cities, including Pittsburgh
ENVIRONMENT:
Researching industries
- Standard & Poor's Netadvantage - covers major industries - use "Industries" tab
- MarketLine - international industry reports, with Porter's 5 Forces analysis
- Hoover's First Research - hundreds of brief and timely overviews
- Business & Company Resource Center - get an industry report: use "Advanced Search" - then change dropdown box to "Industry Overviews" and use a keyword to find a list of options.
- Gartner – specializes in technology products and services. (Note: Dataquest reports are not in our subscription.)
- Industry statistics from U.S. Census Bureau’s Economic Programs. For more topics, use Fedstats.gov, or the Statistical Abstract of the U.S.
- News sources, below, adding search terms like “market,” “forecast,” “trends,” “industry overview,” etc.
- Commercial market research reports – too expensive to purchase, but look at their abstracts and tables of contents for industry structure, top companies, outstanding issues.
- Find the trade association website for your industry: when you've found it, look for links to research, data, publications, statistics, conference proceedings, other resource sites, etc. Here are some ways to find your trade association:
- Books on a product or industry: use the library catalog. Example:
Beyond 3G : bringing networks, terminals and the Web together : LTE, WiMAX, IMS, 4G devices and the mobile Web 2.0
Economic indicators
MORE:
Venture Capital
Trendspotting and idea generation
Other entrepreneurship resources
- Great books in our collection - find them using CAMEO - enter "new business enterprises" - examples:
- Journals in our databases, such as Healthcare Mergers, Acquisitions & Ventures Week, Minority Business Entrepreneur, Java Entrepreneur - look for them in our EJournal A-Z list. Also, free ones, such as Entrepreneur, Inc., Wired.
- Business plans - links to sample plans and guides
- Stanford's Entrepreneurship Corner - videos and podcasts of thousands of experts on all startup topics, developed by the Stanford Technology Ventures Program
- US government and PA government business startup sites outlining legal requirements, government services, financing and contract opportunities, etc.
- Many more
