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BUS 227, New Business Development: Researching Your Market

Overview

Understand your potential customers and trade area.

Population & Demographics

Find out the population and characteristics of a specific community. For example, are there enough young adults in the community to support a nightclub? If you are opening a special language service, are there enough of those language speakers living in the community? What is the median income? Do community members have enough money to spend on your product or service? How mobile are residents within the community? Do they stay in one area for a long time? Will your client base be resident or transient? If you're setting up a health or fitness service, what are the health indicators and attitudes within the community? Will they support such as service?

If you're planning a business in retail or services that rely on daytime traffic, you'll want data on daytime populations. Follow these steps:

To find the daytime population and other data within a neighbourhood (census dissemination area):

  1. Click on the link (above) to seach commercial real estate listings.
  2. Enter a neighbourhood or postal code and search.
  3. Select a listing, then click on the Statistics tab.

    Includes data on daytime population, population size, average household size, % households with/without children, number of households, number of businesses, age of population, household income, retail sales, population growth/projection, education, and occupations.

 

How much disposable income do members in your community have? For any product or service, you need to be aware of income levels and how much of those incomes households need for the basics.

Consumers

What recreational activities are most popular? Who is watching that TV show? What are the attitudes toward the environment? These are the kinds of questions that help you understand your target demographic.

Visit the Using Vividata guide for information on how to use Vividata effectively, including:

Need help? Ask us!

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