Research Guides: MBA Resources: Find Marketing Data

Consumer Trends

Mintel Academic publishes annual reports about consumer trends, including ones that are specific to industries like Trending Flavors and Ingredients in Desserts or Ingredient Trends in Beauty. These reports often have data that can be filtered by gender, age, race, or household income.

Mintel Academic
A comprehensive resource full of reports on current issues in a wide array of domestic and international markets.

Other databases with consumer data

Other JMU market databases can be helpful for determining market share and shopping behaviors for individuals.

Statista
A data aggregation and research platform covering worldwide markets, industries, and societal topics. Data is compiled from private and public sources aggregated from North American, Europe, and Asia.
Insider Intelligence
Provides market data, trends, statistics, and analysis on the Internet, e-business, online marketing, media, and emerging technologies.
MRI Simmons
Provides consumer intelligence, offering insights into the American consumer based on data from their National Consumer Study (NCS). Includes information on consumer buying habits, media preferences, and demographics through surveys.
Sports Market Analytics
Market research and industry news covering all facets of the sporting goods and sport marketing industry.

Restrictions on AI usage

Market research reports are among the most expensive types of business information. The companies that provide our market research reports can be very strict about how their information can be used in AI tools.

Mintel prohibits uploading reports, infographics, or data into any AI tool, even to the Copilot instance created for this course.

Consumer attitudes: Public opinion polls & social surveys

Data on U.S. consumer attitudes & preferences. All sites can be searched free but full reports are not always freely available.

The Harris Poll
Site contains press releases of major polls. Search to get results; browsing doesn't get you much.
Pew Research Center
A nonpartisan fact tank that is especially useful for its Internet & Tech reports. Try searching by keyword.
Gallup
Provides limited free information about polls. Try looking under Topics under Retail or Marketplace.
General Social Survey
NORC at the University of Chicago is an independent research institution. Not all reports are available free. Try "Browse all research topics".

Consumer data: Free resources

These resources give you insight into demographics, market areas and consumers' tastes and preferences.

Census Reporter
Provides useful facts about every place in America. Compare places using tables and maps, download data, and embed charts on your site.
DataUSA
The most comprehensive website and visualization engine of public U.S. Government data.
Consumer Expenditure Survey (BLS.GOV)
High-level data on current buying habits of Americans, by demographics & type of purchase/service.
American Time Use Survey (BLS.GOV)
Recent data on how American spend their time, tracking activities such as paid work, childcare, and socializing.
Think with Google: Consumer Behavior and Trends
By mining Google search trends and YouTube watch behavior, you can uncover a wealth of insights on consumer behavior.
Google Search Trends
Gauge customer interest: track Google search trends over time by search term and geography.
Narrow by query location and time range.