Secondary Market Research

Secondary research is something every student has completed at one time or another, usually by doing library research with books and periodicals for a school report. This is usually the cheapest and easiest type of research for small businesses to conduct. However, it may be less reliable than primary research because the information you obtain was not developed with your particular problem or situation in mind.

Nevertheless, for some types of information (for example, questions about your competitor's market share, or the absolute numbers of potential customers for a new product), secondary market research is the only kind available.

Secondary research can be divided into two categories: