Library Guides: ME 340: Mechnical Engineering Design Methodology: Market Research for ME 340

What Does Market Research Mean?

Market Research Defined: Gathering information about your customers, competition, and industry beforehand will better help you understand the opportunities and limitations of your business idea and help reduce risk.

Market Research in 2 parts:

Primary market research: interviews and other research involving YOUR (potential) customers, competitors, etc. done in the field.
Secondary market research: third-party market research on customer or user groups, relevant industries and competitors or partner companies.

Venn Diagram of 3 circles that show the intersection of consumer/user data, company/competitor information, and industry/sector data in relation to secondary market research.

For this course, we are interested in Secondary Market Research.

Common keywords in market research

This is a list of keywords associated with market research. While not comprehensive, it can be used to help you develop a search strategy.

Competitor(s)
Major players, key players, big players
Forecast(s)/forecast(s), outlook, projected/projection(s), prediction(s)/predicted, trends, etc.
Market share(s), share of market, market penetration, market potential, market size, market growth, CAGR, etc.
Sales, revenue(s)
Volume, units
Sold, shipped/shipments, trade/traded, export(s)/exported, import(s)/imported
Customer or user attitude(s), behavior(s), sentiment(s), preference(s)/preferred/prefer(s), adoption/adopt(s)/adopted, retention/retain(s)/retained, churn, acquisition/acquires/acquired
Price/pricing, expenditure(s), cost(s), spending, premium(s), freemium
Time, rental(s), subscriptions, visits, use, business model(s)
Value(s)/valued, valuation(s)
Market segment(s), customer segment(s), segmentation

Where to Start

Getting started on Mechanical Engineering market research means using Business Databases. Below are a few Penn State University Libraries Databases that are good starting points. Along with some tips and tricks.

IBISWorld This link opens in a new window
PSU01414
IBISWorld provides over 700 full-text industry reports, 700 US industry risk rating reports, and information on over 8000 Publicly Traded US Companies as well as hundreds of economic and demographic profiles. Subscription includes access to the US Industry State Reports module.

Note: In the main search bar, type your keyword, company, or NAICS code. Search in the 2022 Code Search Bar for the most recent NAICS codes.

Note: Depending on the size and diversity of product/activity of some companies, more than one NAICS code may be attributed to the company.

BCC Research This link opens in a new window
PSU02035
BCC Research provides in-depth market research reports covering technology, science, and healthcare sectors. Reports provide market size forecasts and projections as well as information on major players in the industry. The analyses of these markets will be especially useful to student and faculty entrepreneurs and researchers in Penn State's tech transfer units. Once the database loads, users should click the "Member Login" button on the main screen and then click "IP Authenticate" in order to access reports.

Note: Quotation marks around a phrase do NOT work in this database.
Note: Once the database loads, users should click the "Member Login" button on the main screen and then click "IP Authenticate" in order to access reports.