It is refreshing to report about a market intelligence service provider that understands that not all organizations and functions, such as procurement, have enormous budgets for purchasing research reports. Many actually have lean budgets, or no budget at all, to spend on market intelligence. And for those professionals who do have large budgets to work with, they most likely cringe at purchasing market or product specific reports that eat up a chunk of their budget. Profound, a service of MarketResearch.com, allows you to purchase individual sections of reports, including chapters, tables or charts, without buying the entire report, thus enabling you access to the exact information needed. They also have developed functionality that makes it easy to search and navigate through research reports from over 200 global publishers from more than 700 industry segments.
Using the Advanced Search option is the best way to retrieve the most relevant and current reports. After entering a key phrase/search term in the search field, you can then choose how you would like your results filtered: Publication Date, Title Search, Sort Results By, and Section Title. The search results page contains a listing of reports based on, and sorted by, relevancy (default setting), date or price. On the left-hand side, you will see “Report Navigators,” which filter your results by publication date, industry sector, location and publisher, with number of reports available listed for each. Once you have identified a report that is of interest, you can drill deeper into the report to determine what sections you would like to buy versus buying the entire report. To help with this decision, use the two views: Table of Contents (TOC), which is highly detailed, and Keywords in Context (KWIC), which allows you to view the few words in front of and directly behind your search terms. The Price Preview feature tells you what your section would cost depending on the type of subscription you have. You can set up alerts so announcements of new reports on your specific topic/market will be sent to your e-mail.
As an example, I did a search for corrugated boxes and found a report by Freedonia Group, dated Dec. 1, 2014, which encompasses the entire market (all segments) for $5,300. Using the Table of Contents view, I was able to see all the sections, with separate pricing for each. If I am only interested in box demand for the frozen food box market, I can purchase that table for $149.50.
Pricing for the subscription (which does not include the price of the reports/sections) is flexible, with one option allowing for a day pass of $50.
MarketResearch.com, which is different than Profound, offers reports (full reports only) from over 720 publishers of market information. No subscription is required to search or purchase the reports. A free trial is available for Profound.
