RCS 261:
Introduction to Consumer Retailing:
Retailer Research -- Beyond the Basics
- Company research
- Industry reports
- Marketing reports
- Articles about retailers
- APA citations
CARS Librarian: Steve Cramer
smcramer@uncg.edu
336-256-0346
AIM & Google Talk: stevebizlib
Text me: send a message to 265010 & start the message with stevebizlib.
1. Company research
See the CRS 231 research guide for an intro to company research.
Recommended databases for company descriptions:
Use ReferenceUSA to identify local locations of a retailer.
Use Morningstar for critical commentary on major publicly-held retailers (the "Analyst Research" essays).
2. Industry reports
IBIS Industry Market Research
- Provides detailed reports for 62 different retailing industries, including 9 for clothing retailing (ex. "Women's Clothing Stores").
- Great for competition, trends, forecasts, industry conditions, segmentation (ex. what type of clothing brings in the most money, and who spends the most), and a lot more.
S&P NetAdvantage: Industry Surveys
- Provides 30-40 page industry surveys updated twice a year.
- Includes reports on:
- Apparel & Footwear
- Retailing: General
- Retailing: Specialty (covers clothing stores)
- Topics in each survey include current environment, industry profile, composite industry data, comparative company analysis, and more.
3. Marketing reports
Mintel
- Requires free registration
- Provides fulltext market & consumer research reports, with a focus on consumer sectors.
- How much are these reports worth? (check out these retail prices!)
- Example reports:
- Jeans
- Men's Clothing
- Women's Clothing
- Women's Underwear
- Fitness Clothing
- Budget Shopper
- Mass Merchandisers
- Luxury Goods Retailing
- and lots more...
Euromonitor Global Market Information Database
- Focuses on the clothing and retailing industries, among others.
- Provides full text market research reports as well as company overviews and analysis, market share, brands, brand share, and financial breakdowns by product categories.
- How much are these reports worth? (commercial prices)
4. Articles about retailers
Business Source Premier
- Articles from trade magazines like WWD are excellent sources for trends in apparel retailing and designers.
- This database provides the full text of 1000's of business and trade magazines.
- Examples of recent articles I found after a quick search:
- "ACQUISITION: GAP TO GEAR UP ATHLETA FOR GROWTH" (Multichannel Merchant)
- "Target outlines plans for private label push (cover story)" (Retailing Today)
- "Aeropostale Overcomes Headwinds In Teen Market, as Net Soars 43%" (Wall Street Journal)
- "Victoria's Secret Eyes International Growth" (WWD Women's Wear Daily)
General OneFile
- Covers all aspects of business and economics.
- Especially strong in international and U.S. regional publications, and articles about specific markets and industries.
- Covers over 10,000 general periodicals and scholarly journals.
- Covers 1980-present.
- More info
Wall Street Journal (via ProQuest)
- Provides the full text of the publication from 1982 to present.
- More info
Basic techniques for article searching:
Combine keywords with "AND"
ex: retail* AND trends
AND
|
|
Search for related terms with "OR"
ex: clothing OR apparel
OR
|
Using parenthesis, you can use OR and AND at the same time.
ex: (clothing OR apparel) and trends
Truncate words that have various endings (put a * after the word-root).
ex: retail* would include retail, retails and retailing
5. APA citations
Citing Business Databases in APA Style
- Most of these suggestions are my interpretations of APA standards.
- But the examples for article databases like Business Source Premier are straight-forward.
Guide to APA Reference Lists
- The library's general guide.
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th ed., 2001
APA Style Guide to Electronic References, 2007
- Available from the library's Reference Desk.
MarketLine 