Please note: this article has not been maintained and some of the links may be out of date.
I have concentrated on sources on the Internet which can be used for desk research; although there have been some attempts to use email on the web for conducting primary market research this use is still in its infancy. It will require a great deal of care and consideration before this is a viable data collection method. There is a paper on this subject available on the SGA web site http://www.sga.co.uk/ which is by Pete Comley, 'The Use of the Internet as a Data Collection Method' and it describes the results of one of the first commercial surveys to be conducted in the UK over the Internet.
Within the area of desk research the Internet has both strengths and weaknesses and it is understanding this which is key to the profitable use of this resource. The Internet is very high in the serendipity factor with the most unexpected subjects receiving good coverage and equally suprising omissions. This means that it is always worth a quick look but if you don't find a useful site fairly quickly it may well be more effective to turn to more traditional resources.
While the points included here are concentrated on the World Wide Web it is worth remembering that there are other parts of the Internet which can be useful sources of information. Mailing lists and newsgroups enable quick and easy communication between peer groups and even if your search has been fruitless using the web you may find posting your question will get results.
These are the key to using the Internet for any kind of research. Bookmarks are useful for frequently accessed sites but spending large amounts of time compiling an extensive collection of bookmarks can be counterproductive. The Internet changes so fast that keeping your bookmarks current is like painting the Forth Bridge, a never-ending task, so that it seems to me to be more sensible to use the resources somebody else has produced.
Find (Financial Information Net Directory)
http://www.find.co.uk/
A directory of
personal financial services with many appropriate links.
The Search Centre http://www.tka.co.uk/search/
Useful
information about finding material on the 'net in the business field.
http://altavista.com/
I often use
this for new subject areas before I have bookmarks set up, it coverage is
excellent so it is good for broad searching and for offbeat subjects but you
can be overwhelmed by too many hits. There is a strong US bias but you can
restrict your search to domain:uk, Altavista allows some structured searching,
search capabilities are still fairly primitive compared to online and CD ROM
systemsbut this search engine allows a more sophisticated search than most of
the other engines currently available..
http://www.metaplus.com/
Metaplus is a
listing or launchpad of sites by subject area, it is pretty good if it covers
your subject area.
http://www.excite.com/
Allows
local search in UK, France, Germany or Europe sites it gives percentage to the
relevance ranking which can also be useful.
http://www.northernlight.com/
This
search engine sets up custom folders which categorise your search results and
enable you to refine your search more easily.
http://www.webtop.com/search/topferret?PAGE=search&LOOK=euroferret
Covers
Europe and also allows search by individual country, the elimination of US
material can be useful but I find the coverage has a very academic bias with
virtually no commercial sites included. (Used to be called EuroFerret)
http://www.yahoo.com/
This is the
old staple and it is still a useful source, it is structured into subject areas
but also allows keyword searching across categories, as always there is a
strong US bias.
http://www.yahoo.co.uk/
This is
a version of Yahoo which allows searches to be restricted to sites based in UK
and Ireland only. Very useful for restricting hits to relevant areas.
http://www.hotbot.com/index.html
Not
bad, gives percentage to the relevance ranking which can be useful.
http://gallery.yahoo.com/
Image Surfer,
this is part of Yahoo and allows searching for images by keyword. Coverage is
not very comprehensive but it is worth a try, I found it most useful when I
wanted typical photographs of capital cities.
http://www.lycos.com/
Structured
subject listings or search by keyword, also allows search for image or
sounds.
http://www.easysearcher.com/index.html
Links
to over 300 search engines, is very useful for the more obscure subjects.
http://www.go.com/
US bias but quite
wide coverage, gives percentage relevance rankings. (Formerly known as
Infoseek)
http://www.ixquick.com/
Multi
search engine, it uses several other search engines at the same time using your
keywords.
http://www.dejanews.com/
Use
for searching newsgroups.
http://www.ukindex.co.uk/
List of UK
sites, is not at all comprehensive but does allow a quick way to check if UK
information is available.
http://www.britannia.com/links/links.html
A
launch pad for UK sites, this had a leisure and recreational bias.
There are business telephone directories available on the Internet and a smaller selection of residential directories also. These are the online equivalent to the yellow pages or the national telephone books. Some of the most obscure countries are available but there are also surprising gaps so you need to check for the specific country required.
Some have English versions of the search screen but many are only in the original language and the level of searching and ease of use varies considerably. The coverage of the lists below overlap to a large extent but not identical so it is worth searching around.
http://www.eyp.co.uk/
UK business
telephone directory (yellow pages) searchable by; location, subject category or
company name, results are listed alphabetically 10 to a page with a random
start letter.
http://www.globalyp.com/world.htm
List
of links to telephone directories mostly business (yellow pages) available on
the Internet, coverage is worldwide and some of the most surprising countries
are available. Search capabilities are variable as is english language
availability.
http://www.wayp.com/
List of links
to European telephone directories mostly business (yellow pages) available on
the Internet. Search capabilities are variable as is english language
availability.
http://www.worldpages.com/
List of
links to telephone directories mostly business (yellow pages) available on the
Internet, coverage is worldwide and some of the most surprising countries are
available. Search capabilities are variable as is english language
availability.
http://phonebooth.interocitor.net/wtng/
World
telephone numbering guide to country and area codes, this site also offers up
to date information regarding major telephone numbering system changes
worldwide.
Don't expect to find much free market research data on the Internet, it is labour intensive and expensive to product and no company whose business is selling data can afford to give it away free. However many of the market research publishers now have web pages so that the Internet can be a good place for checking availability of published research and a lot of them will offer free samples from some of their more recent reports.
http://www.profound.co.uk/
http://www.profound.com/
http://www.dialog.com/
Dialog/ MAID
Profound is a host or supplier rather than a publisher, it therefore offers
access to a very wide range of material worldwide but the subscription charges
are very high indeed.
http://www.mintel.co.uk/
Mintel is well
known for their published market research reports, they specialize in the UK
consumer and retail markets and this site lists their available reports, with
ordering and pricing information.
http://www.euromonitor.com/default.asp
Euromonitor
is a well established and respected market research publisher, this site lists
their available reports, with ordering and pricing information.
http://www.datamonitor.com/
Datamonitor
is a well established and respected market research publisher, this site lists
their available reports, with ordering and pricing information.
http://www.keynote.co.uk/
Keynote is a
well established and respected market research publisher whose reports cover a
wide variety of UK product sectors, this site lists their available reports,
with ordering and pricing information.
http://www.romtec.co.uk/
Publisher of
market research, specifically in the IT area
http://www.jup.com/
Juniper
Communications is a market research publisher which specialises in technology
and especially in research about the internet and online markets. Very strong
on e-commerce
http://killen.com/
Market research
publisher whose subject speciallities include, IT, banking and financial
services and telecomms.
http://www.mindbranch.com/
Market
research publisher covering a wide range of subject areas including; IT,
internet, telecomms, healthcare, financial services and industrial sectors.
http://www.frost.com/
Frost and
Sullivan are a very well known company who do consultancy and also publish
market research, they cover aall the major business to business sectors and
condut research in the Asia/Pasific area as well as Europe.
http://www.marketresearch.org.uk/
The UK Market Research Society
http://www.esomar.nl/
European
Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR)
http://www.pwcglobal.com/uk/eng/main/home/index.html
PriceWaterhouseCoopers
site, news reports, focus reports, survey reports and so on.
http://www.sga.co.uk/
SGA do
commissioned research rather than published reports but this site is
interesting for two reasons. Firstly SGA have an online costing option which
allows you to fill in your requirements then you are emailed with a quote for
your project, I don't know how well this works but it is an interesting
development. Secondly, on their site is posted an article by Pete Comley, 'The
Use of the Internet as a Data Collection Method' which describes the results of
one of the first commercial surveys to be conducted in the UK over the
Internet.
http://www.tnsofres.com/
Taylor Nelson
Sofres worldwide market research group web site.
http://www.cmrgroup.com/
CM&R
Consultancy Group web page.
http://www.mori.com/
MORI is best
known for their election coverage but their main business is commissioned
research for industry, this home page is their Internet showcase.
http://www.pbirg.com/
Pharmaceutical
Business Intelligence Ltd, research and consultancy company.
http://www.esomar.nl/
ESOMAR is
the European professional body for market research companies this is a good
site for market research buyers to check before commissioning work from
overseas agencies.
http://zarden.com/
List of market
research companies in USA
http://www.asiresearch.com/
ASI is a
US market research company
http://www.news-review.co.uk/mw0001/mres.html
Business
News Review. Summarised corporate, economic and business news.
http://www.news-review.co.uk/
Marketing
Week's online news section
http://blueskyinc.com/
Site
contains statistics on internet users and usage
http://www.geoweb.co.uk/
Business
Geographic, this is the web site which produces geographic and other cluster
analysis based on the UK census data, postcode data, Acorn etc.
http://www.alcd.soton.ac.uk/cass/newsletter1.html
Centre
for Applied Social Surveys, this is a UK academic/government initiative which
aims to set up a question bank , it is still under development and is not
updated very frequently at present.
http://www.knauffiberglass.com/
Home
site for a construction company this gives some very up to date market
statistics on the construction industry and forecasts.
http://www.usembassy.org.uk/fcs/
US
Embassy Commercial section in the UK
http://www.worldopinion.com/home.taf
The
World's market research site
The pharmaceutical and medical areas are well represented on the Internet as with most subject areas market research reports are not freely available but there is an enormous wealth of background material. Most of the major drug manufacturers have web sites which include annual reports and information on their products, also many of the special interest groups for sufferers of various complaints have an active Internet presence.
You can use one of the search engines to find information on specific companies, drugs or diseases and there are also some very good general sites (almost all US based), these are the ones I find most useful.
http://www.pslgroup.com/
This
is the Doctors Guide to the Internet (Patient version), organised by disease
this source is aimed at the intelligent layman, it contains good general
articles, drug information, discussion groups and related site lists.
http://www.centerwatch.com/
This site
includes a listing of drug therapies which are newly approved by the US Food
and Drink Administration, there is a short article on each of the drugs listed.
It also has lists of clinical trials currently running.
http://www.phrma.org/webdb/help.htm
Produced
by PhRMA the association of America's pharmaceutical companies this lists drugs
currently under development searchable by disease, indication or drug.
http://www.nicl.com/
Home page of
NICL Laboratories, this is a US hospital services company and their page
contains clinical laboratories information and links.
http://www.medscape.com/
This
site gives access to medline which contains abstracts for 8 million medical
references. You do need to subscribe in order to use this service but
subscription is currently free and requires no time lag for setup. Once you
have subscribed you can search medline or the full text sections of the site
and you also get emailed with news of updates. The searching is obviously much
more primitive than is available with paid services but for a light or
occasional user this is a very useful service.
http://www.ccm.lsumc.edu/bugbytes
A
biweekly online journal containing articles about infectious diseases, this is
produced by the Infectious Disease Section of the Louisiana State University
Medical Center.
http://www.asge.org/
The site of
the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy
http://www.bhia.org/
The British
Healthcare Internet Association has been set up to promote the use of the
internet in the UK to assist patient's access to information sources.
http://cancernet.nci.nih.gov/
Site
which contains masses of information and links relating to cancer and its
treatment.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/
The
National Library of Medicine site which offers access to the famous Medline
database.
http://www.gretmar.com/webdoctor/home.html
Webdoctor,
this site is US based and offers a medical virtual library, it is aimed at
physicians and produced by them also.
http://www.biomednet.com/
Site
containing good data and links in the biomedical area.
http://www.omni.ac.uk/
UK
gateway to biomedical resources.
This is an area where Internet coverage is patchy and it is often easier to search for a specific subset within the retail area rather than use the broad category itself.
Individual companies also vary in their level of Internet visibility, some are very net aware, Tesco for example are offering some sales services via the Internet, while others have no net presence at all. One thing to watch out for is that some of the retail company sites can be very slow to download due to containing many pictures of their products.
As always market research statistics on the retail industry are not available free on the Internet but listed below are some of the sites I find most useful.
http://www.businesspark.demon.co.uk/
UK
Business Park, Retail Section, This has one or two line abstracts of current
news stories in this sector, stories go back for one year and you can search by
company name.
http://www.mintel.co.uk/
Alphabetical
list of Mintel reports available in the retail sector, you can see section
headings of report and ordering details.
http://www.rbrldn.demon.co.uk/
Retail
Banking Research Ltd, this is a research and consultancy company who specialise
in banking technology and payment systems across western and eastern
Europe.
http://www.sjb.co.uk/index.html
Publishers
of the Customer Loyalty Report and reports on smart cards and biometrics, their
reports can be ordered via the net. This company is no longer
operating.
http://www.eagle.co.uk/retail/
This
launchpad links to various home shopping services available over the
Internet.
http://www.mheurope.co.uk/
Management
Horizons Europe, a consultancy specialising in corporate strategy for the
retail industry.
http://www.ac.com/aboutus/products/retail/au_frretail_1.html
Accenture
(formerly Andersen Consulting) retail division.
http://www.ey.com/global/gcr.nsf/International/Welcome_2_new
Ernst
and Young retail and consumer division.
http://www.listbroker.com/
This is a
site of a listbroker who supplies lists of all types; consumer, business to
business, mostly in the UK but there are some overseas. All list details
including prices available on this site.
http://www.ssisamples.com/ssi.x2o$ssi_gen.home
Survey
Sampling, a US company who provide sample lists with and without telephone
numbers specifically targetted at MR companies.
http://europa.eu.int/en/comm/eurostat/serven/part6/6theme.htm
Site
of Eurostat which is the EEC statistical organisation
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/
UK
Office for National Statistics
http://www.oanda.com/cgi-bin/ncc
164
currencies converter
http://www.devon.gov.uk/dris/economic/retprice.html
Retail
Price Index information, this Devon public library service has some Suprisingly
useful links.
http://stats.bls.gov/
US site of
the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this contains lots of statistical material on
the american economy and labor force.
http://www.insee.fr/fr/home/home_page.asp
French
National Statistics Organisation.
http://www.statistik-bund.de/e_home.htm
German
National Statistics Organisation.
http://petra.istat.it/
Italian
National Statistics Organisation.
http://www.polishbusiness.com/
Statistics
on various Polish sectors
http://www.stat.fi/index_en.html
Statistics
on Finland
http://www.businesspark.demon.co.uk/
UK
business park, one years worth of business news items condensed to one or two
line abstracts, news is arranged by industry sector but is also searchable by
company name.
http://www.the-times.co.uk/
Web site
of the Times Newspaper including some archived material, you need to subscribe
to gain access to this site but currently subscription is free.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Web site
of the Telegraph Newspaper including some archived material, you need to
subscribe to gain access to this site but currently subscription is free.
http://www.pr-wire.com/
PRN
News Wire is a company which specialises in electronic distribution of full
text news to the media and finance industries. Available free on this website
is one years worth of brief news abstracts searchable by industry or company
name, press releases from participating companies are also available.
http://www.briefing.reuters.com/
Commercial
database of news items worldwide taken from newspapers and periodicals. Paid
subscription required, and quite expensive.
http://www.dnb.com/
Dun and
Bradstreet Company information.
http://www.britishexports.com/
Kompass
UK company directory.
http://www.thomasregister.com/index.html
155000
US and Canadian manufacturing companies, searching is primitive, access is free
but you do need to register.
Http://www.tdc.org.hk/main/
Hong Kong
Trade Development Council home page, information on Hong Kong, China and the
rest of Asia.
http://www.annualreports.ft.com/cgi-bin/start.pl
Financial
Times Annual Report Service Reports can be ordered free of charge.
http://www.carol.co.uk/
Company
Annual Reports Online (CAROL) Small, but growing.
http://www.dis.strath.ac.uk/business/index.html
Business
Sources on the Internet.
http://bd.dowjones.com/
http://www.za.uni-koeln.de/data/en/eurobarometer
Eurobarometer
http://europa.eu.int/en/comm/eurostat/press/index.htm
Stats
office of the EU
http://europa.eu.int/
Europa is the EU
information server
http://lucas.dfl.doc.ca/shantnu/links/gov/eugov.html
European
Govt. sites
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/
HM
Treasury Office site
http://www.thebiz.co.uk/
Business to
Business information portal
http://www.tsonline.co.uk/
The
Stationary Office
http://www.businesspark.demon.co.uk/
UK
Business Park, Automotive Section, This has one or two line abstracts of
current news stories in this sector, stories go back for one year and you can
search by company name
http://www.rmif.co.uk/
Retail Motor
Industry Federation
http://www.automotive.co.uk/fleetnews/START.HTM
Fleet
News Net
http://www.bbi.co.uk/vehicle/info
Fleet
forecasts and statistics
http://www.ita.doc.gov/auto
Office of
Automotive Affairs
http://anulib.anu.edu.au/
Australian
National University Website
http://www.chinabig.com/en/srch/
China's
Yellow Pages
http://www.voicendata.com/
Indian
telecomms
http://www.odci.gov/
US
Central Intelligence Agency site
http://www.mbendi.co.za/index.htm
Lots of useful and interesting information on Africa, including some
company directory type information
http://www.blueskyinc.com/webpop.htm
Internet
statistics
http://www.idcresearch.com/
MR
publisher specialising in IT and computer technology sometimes gives top line
results on new studies.
http://www.thedirectory.org/areacode.htm
Worldwide
list of all Internet Providers, including telephone numbers
http://www.romtec.co.uk/
MR publisher
specialising in IT and computer technology.
http://www.redsquare.co.uk/survey/links.htm
Internet
UK survey
Bureau van Dijk (http://www.bvdep.com/) is renowned for its
collection of corporate information resources which include AMADEUS (4 million
European companies), FAME (1.8 million UK companies, 500,000 of which are in
very detailed format), BANKSCOPE (11,000 banks worldwide).
They also produce
ICARUS (profiles on 250,000 public and private US companies) and NOMINUS , a
detailed analysis of the UK Share Register
Datamonitor (http://www.datamonitor.com/) is a market analysist, with interpretative data.
Dun and Bradstreet (http://www.do-business.com/) with a worldwide database of 58 million businesses across 230 countries.
Euromonitor (http://www.euromonitor.com/) compiles Global Market Information Database, providing key intelligence on countries, markets and companies. Particularly strong on consumer information and statistical data.
GLOBEtrotter Europe (http://www.globetrotter.com/) provides product marketing data and specialises in Electronic Software Distribution, Electronic licensing management and so on.
Kompass (http://www.kompass.com/) Their business to business search engine allows global searching across 70 countries.
Marketresearch.com (http://www.marketresearch.com/) allows users to locate, evaluate and purchase market intelligence publications from over 11,000 publications.
Mintel (http://www.mintel.com/) provides expert analysis of all aspects of the UK consumers economic activity, covering over 90% of all consumer markets.
Snapshots International (http://www.snapdata.com/) produce comprehensive reports on regionally based CD-ROM's.
Verdict Research Limited (http://www.verdict.co.uk/) allow users to create their own customised retail database. 3 year archive by company, sector, report title or free text searching, available online.
This document is available online at: http://www.philb.com/mresearch.htm
Last updated 29/1/2001