Secondary research sources

Three methods of secondary research are internet research, government reports and market reports. They differ hugely in cost, detail and reliability.

Internet research

Internet research is the use of free or paid-for resources on the World Wide Web. It can provide vast amounts of readily available information about the market, consumers and the economy, often within minutes. For example, if you planned to launch a board game café you could spend an evening reading local news pages and review sites to see which nearby venues already run games nights and what customers say about them.

The drawbacks are that some information is unreliable or out of date, some pages are simply trying to sell you something, and there is so much material that you suffer from information overload. Much of it is not focused on your business question at all, some useful sites charge a subscription, and pages written in another language create a barrier.

Government reports

Government reports are official reports and statistics that can be accessed at no cost and cover broad issues such as the economy, population change and the labour market. They are generally reliable and cost nothing, but they are general rather than specific. A report on national household spending on leisure will not tell you how many people in your town play board games, so use it as useful background rather than an answer.

Market reports

Market reports are detailed and specific studies produced by private research companies and then sold to businesses. They can be expensive to buy because the company has done the digging for you, but they are often considered valuable for making decisions: they focus on one industry and give figures and trends you can act on.

Not all of these methods are free, and not all are reliable, so check who produced the information and when.