ResearchSources.com
Marketing data per country: national statistics, company registers, sector organizations, export promotion institutes, publishers, international institutions, market research companies, tradefairs and many other sources.
Guidelines for effective desk research
Successful market researchers have three things in common: systematics, perseverance and a lot of creativity. We like to add another factor that will support all these elements: a dedicated desk research database with hundreds of sources.
We started this project by making an inventory of most practical sources, publicly available data as well as paid publications and databases. Based on experiences of many colleagues we constructed this site and listed all these practical links.
Combine the use of our links with the use of search engines. The best results can be found in the national searchengines and/or the language of the country you are investigating.
We always advise our younger researchers to start listing the elements around the research aim and use the tables of content of the publications that can be bought as a creative element.
Sometimes you cannot avoid buying a publication when scope and time–capacity limits you.
Large overviews can easier be bought than made by yourself. Stay realistic and calculate how much time it needs to analyse loads of annual reports, professional magazines, statistical output of national agencies etc. Not only cost of the time but also the fact that the results will probably takes many months. But on many topics you will not find the publication that meets your requirement because each product / market combination can be viewed from different angles. E.g. a report “Orange juice in Spain” can be made form many different perspectives, the growers of oranges, the processors, the packaging methods, the wholesale/retail side, the logistics, the quality standards, the consumer at home, the hotel sector and many more.
So if you buy reports take care that you receive or see example pages before you buy.
Buying reports at higher costs must of course be done in balance with the aim of the research and the risk of making costly marketing mistakes. If you want to attack a large A-brand manufacturer in whatever market, be sure that you know its market position and its weak spots. Investing 1-5 % of the investment in the first year to avoid misjudgement always pays and often helps you to focus on your right competitive advantage.
Much of the paid statistics are not at all expensive because it is often the task of institutions to make information widely available. In this respect we should especially see the sector reports of branch associations, export promotion institutions etc. We have collected lots of Internet addresses of these institutions and although their websites are sometimes chaotic, it pays to check them out carefully and you might be surprised with the results, sometimes including international comparisons etc. Most data can be found on the country pages of this website but depending on the subject of your quest international organizations sometimes spend large budgets on comparative tables of consumption or usage patterns. For some products , for instance traditional food products as rice, milk, bread, beer, wine and many others there are loads of actual data because their use is registered in all international statistics, often the reason is also the use of taxes. Alcohol, cars, gasoline, milk-products are perfectly registered because taxation or subsidizing requires clear definitions and administration. Often the sources of data are the tax departments in the countries or the customs offices that levy import duties.
An other approach to find data are suppliers of industries, raw material, packaging etc. or even the retailers or resellers that, for whatever reason decided that the sector could benefit from joint statistics.
A last and certainly not least idea for market information is the use of business schools and universities databases, libraries and even existing theses of students.
In the country overviews and in some general categories you will also find many research agencies. Most of them only do tailor made research but it never hurts to ask them for their knowledge in certain sectors. Most of them are listed on their request and they pay a small contribution to cover the costs of this website.
We are sure that many more creative leads can be found for good desk research in many branches. We have made a practical first step. Do not hesitate to give us some help and send suggestions to sources@research-sources.com . We promise to consider each lead very seriously.
The Veraart Research Team