Guides: Business: Market Research

Market Research

Market research focuses on industry markets and customers. Reports may include information about the industry's competitive landscape, industry trends, key competitors, industry size and outlook, etc. A market research report, which is prepared for a company, may be tailored to a company's information needs.

Market research companies expect to be paid for their research so these reports are quite expensive. Some market research companies have expertise in certain industries; others produce reports on a wide range of industries. A company may post information about a report on a website or in a news release.

Useful databases

Business Source Ultimate
Thousands of business journals, industry magazines, and industry & market reports.
Business Source Ultimate provides full-text access to a wide range of peer-reviewed journals, trade publications and general business magazines in addition to indexing and abstracts for scholarly business journals. Additional content includes case studies, company profiles, industry reports, SWOT analyses, and market research reports.
IBISWorld Industry Reports
Access to Canada, US, and US specialized industry reports.These reports are updated annually and provide key statistics and analysis on market characteristics, operating conditions, current and historical performance, five-year forecasts on revenue, imports, exports, employment and other key statistics, major industry participants with market share and more.
Statista
Statista provides statistical data on many topics including media, business, politics, society, technology and education. Sources include market reports, trade publications, scientific journals, and government databases. Charts can be downloaded in PNG, PowerPoint, Excel or PDF formats or embedded in web pages and can be great in papers or presentations.
Help videos and more details are available at: https://www.statista.com/statistic-portal/.
Vividata (Dapresy)
Vividata allows users to customize their reports by demographics, attitudes, media consumption and profiling, retail outlets and product usage. The username and password are posted on your library account page (at the bottom).

By accessing and using Vividata you acknowledge and agree that you must:
- Not share any of its data or other contents publicly or with any other organizations or any individuals not affiliated with CapU.
- Must cite Vividata data and other contents appropriately, clearly acknowledging Vividata as the source, and
- Only use Vividata data for educational purposes.
- Not use CapU’s Vividata access for a paid or unpaid internship.
- Request explicit permission to use Vividata data for any research that is intended for publication. To acquire permission, please contact Vividata directly here (info@vividata.ca).