Industry/ Market research

**Doodyps** · 09-09-2008 11:57 AM

I've been writing several business plans over the past few weeks, but so far It just executive summaries, marketing plans, and my ideas. I have not been able to find reliable sources of industry trends and analysis. I know there are reports that cost $45-250 I can buy, but what do you guys use, if anything? There is government data on this right? Where can I find it?

I want to find out what the retail industry is expecting in the coming year or so.

**aalmirall** · 09-09-2008 12:15 PM

Check the GDP and CPI reports to correlate with your studies... My suggestion would to start by going online to your normal business websites like CNBC or Kiplinger to research what the economist are thinking for that sector...

Also look at Morningstar which is a website geared more for mutual fund investors but if you research the funds that are focused on the retail sector. You will find Harvard and Yale graduates giving their advice and opinions on the retail industry..

**Doodyps** · 09-09-2008 12:25 PM

Thanks. I own several stocks through Scottrade so I do research business quite a bit, but I just never see detailed stuff on industry wide trends. I'll go through and read articles, but I want the kind of stuff that Cramer gets to read haha. I can get trends, like retail will be slow and continue to slow until the housing market makes a recovery and gas prices go down, unless you're a discounter. BI'll check out the CPI reports though.

**jasaunders** · 09-09-2008 03:48 PM

Industry reports are available through industry trade associations. Unless you are a member, you won't have access to these. After searching the internet for news articles from reputable sources, the best place is going to be searching through proprietary databases such as Lexis Nexis, Table Base, OneSource, Business Source Complete, among many many others. Unfortunately all of these databases require you to pay for a subscription. That leaves you with two options... you can either hire someone with market research experience who has access to these resources, or you can try the public library which often has subscriptions to many of these resources.

**Doodyps** · 09-09-2008 09:45 PM

I had been wondering about that. I knew there should be subscription databases with this information. Nexis Lexis would work for this? I can still access this through my previous university's library website. They subscribe to virtually everything.