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Market research @ the Carnegie Mellon University Libraries

This guide will help you accomplish your secondary market research: investigate your market, your competition, and your business environment through reports, periodicals, data collections, and on the web.

Preliminaries - Library Services

Industry overviews and surveys
Find industry leaders, statistics, current status, future trends, histories and profiles of the industries here. (If you look up the NAICS/SIC numerical codes for your industry first, this will be a bit easier.)

Demographics and characteristics of consumer markets

Consumer spending and attitudes:

New Strategist publications - in the Hunt Library reference room or online:
Best customers : demographics of consumer demand, HC79 .C6 R87 2008
American attitudes: what Americans think about the issues that shape their lives [ebook]
Generation X - Americans Born 1965-1976 [ebook]
American Marketplace [ebook]
Generation X : Americans born 1965 to 1976, HC110 .C6 G46 2006
The Millennials : Americans born 1977 to 1994, HQ796 .M4797 2004
Ten things you need to know about the college market , HF5415.332 .C64 T45 2008  
Who we are : Blacks, E185.615 .W46X 2007
Who we are. Hispanics, E184 .S75 W46X 2007
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
Consumer Surveys from the Univ. of Michigan/Reuters
Consumer Expenditure Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Pew Research Center
Link to various survey sites
Mendelsohn Affluent Survey

Competition

Market share

News sources about markets and industries
Often the best reports on industries, such as an annual review, appear in their trade journals - found in these databases. Use search terms such as “market,” “forecast,” “trends,” “industry overview,” etc. along with your own market identifier, i.e. “organic food."

Books on consumers, doing market research, etc.: Use the library catalog and use keywords such as "marketing research", "consumer behavior", etc.

Questions?
Contact the librarians: