Research, Citation, & Class Guides: Entrepreneurship: Consumer & Market Research

What Information Should I Look For?

When researching Consumers & Markets, you will consider the following:

Use the databases and websites below to help you identify your consumers.

Reference Solutions
Use the US Consumers / Lifestyles module within Reference Solutions to perform your search.
Alternately, use the US Businesses module to create a company list. These can be lists of business customers if your business is B2B, or suppliers or partners for any type of business.

Learn how to create a company list by watching the following video:

Census data is a fantastic resource for local demographic information.

Census Quick Facts
Census Quick Facts provides data for a variety of topics such as age, race, health, education, etc. You can also get a profile of any particular community, for e.g. Whitewater

Census Business Builder
If your business idea is highly dependent on a specific geographic area, Census Business Builder will provide an interactive, map-based portrayal of much of the same Census data.
Use Regional Analyst Edition to view data for all sectors of the economy and for a user-defined region. This version supports chambers of commerce and regional planning staff who need a broad portrait of the people and businesses in their service area.

Census Reporter
Census Reporter also provides useful visualizations of Census data for any particular geography.

Simmons Insights
Simmons Insights is a database which provides detailed information on consumer buying habits, brand preferences, shopping preferences, daily activity, demographic information, and much more. This resource is limited to 25 users at a time.
Note that data in this subscription is 2-3 years old. Please click Log Out (under the University of WI-Whitewater in the top right corner) when you are done. See http://libguides.uww.edu/simmons for assistance with searching.

Simmons Insights Library Guide
This library guide has several tutorials on the different features of Simmons such as viewing quick reports, creating crosstabs, understanding your results and much more

Polling the Nations (Opinion Research Service Publishing)
Restricted to 4 users at a time
Polling the Nations is a compilation of more than 14,000 surveys conducted by more than 700 polling organizations in the United States and more than 80 other countries from 1986 to the present. Search by topic, question, date, geography, organization conducting survey and category of respondents (gender, ethnic groups, etc.).
Pew Internet & American Life Project
"The Project produces reports exploring the impact of the internet on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life."
American Customer Satisfaction Index
The only national cross-industry measure of customer satisfaction in the United States. The Index measures the satisfaction of U.S. household consumers with the quality of products and services offered by both foreign and domestic firms with significant share in U.S. markets.

Roper iPoll
Public opinion poll questions and answers on social issues, politics, pop culture, international affairs, science, the environment, and much more. Results from 1935 to the present from academic, commercial and media survey organizations.

Edison Research's Infinite Dial
Provides access to all of Edison's publicly available research including Edison Research's the Infinite Dial® research series which is a survey of digital media consumer behavior since 1998. The formats include digital audio, social media, podcasting, smart speakers, and other media-related technologies.