For consumers all across the U.S., the day after Thanksgiving marks the official start to the holiday season — and what better way to celebrate than buying presents? The term “Black Friday” was coined in the 1960s, and today it has become one of the busiest shopping days of the year. In the past few years, Friday is no longer the only shopping day promoted during Thanksgiving weekend. Now, consumers can get deals all weekend long on Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday.

Thanksgiving Day includes many different traditions for families all over America. From cooking extravagant dinners to traveling to visit friends and famly, the options for celebrating the holiday are truly endless. But there is one common factor that affects families during Thanksgiving weekend each year: high spending.

Thanksgiving weekend is one of the most expensive of the year, and that’s not just because of the amount of turkey being purchased. Food, travel costs, and shopping on Black Friday are all contributors to high spending during the five-day span. In this blog post, we will look at some of the main factors that influence consumer spending patterns during Thanksgiving.

In yesterday’s post, we interviewed Founder and CEO Rob Granader to find out what distinguishes MarketResearch.com from other business intelligence providers. We delved into MarketResearch.com’s new business strategy and explored its unique mix of innovative market research solutions.

Today, we continue our discussion with Rob and highlight several other attributes that help shape MarketResearch.com’s company culture and the overall customer experience.

The ups and downs of the world economy clashed and converged with the growth of MarketResearch.com — since its start at the end of the dot com bubble in 2001. MarketResearch.com has weathered a series of economic storms including the tech bubble, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the Great Recession of 2009. Many of these downturns occurred at pivotal moments in the company’s history. Most pronounced, soon after MarketResearch.com finalized a large acquisition focused on the financial services market, the world’s banks went into a nosedive.

Despite these challenges, MarketResearch.com has become the leading provider of global market intelligence products and services, which are used by more than 5,000 companies a year and 89 percent of the Fortune 1000.

Promoting your business to anyone and everyone is not an effective marketing strategy. To efficiently drive sales and increase brand awareness, you must focus on your target audience. But who is your target audience, exactly? How do you know if your marketing will appeal to them?

Consumer research is a vital step that can help you find the answers you need. Below, three experts share questions you can ask to help identify your target audience, assess buyer behavior, and optimize your marketing strategy. Their suggestions go beyond the basics — and some of their ideas may surprise you. Read on to find out more.

Most B2B companies that regularly conduct market research typically focus on developing a deep understanding of three primary areas:

• Market metrics (size, growth, and share)
• Competitive landscape (competitors, strengths, and weaknesses)
• Product and service performance with the current customer base (customer satisfaction, Net Promoter Score, etc)   

Like all digital technology and consumer-driven markets, e-commerce has evolved over the years. With the global growth of B2C e-commerce, retailers face new challenges and opportunities. In order to meet customer demands, companies have adapted their strategies to fit current trends. This blog covers the top five trends that have carried e-commerce through 2015 and will continue into the new year.

Once a darling of Wall Street, the Whole Foods brand is facing increasing competition in a rapidly changing marketplace. Some investors have sarcastically nicknamed the company “Half Foods,” because its shares have dropped 31 percent this year. To remain competitive, Whole Foods recently announced plans to reduce its workforce by 1.6 percent, or 1,500 jobs.

Although Whole Foods has struggled recently, the natural and organic foods market has experienced strong, steady growth overall. Last year, retail sales of natural and organic foods and beverages rose 5.5 percent to nearly $53.5 billion. That figure is 53 percent higher than sales in 2009, according to Packaged Facts.

Market researchers respond to rapid-fire deadlines and competing client demands. When one set of projects end, there’s often little forewarning before the next ones begin. To be successful, market researchers have to prioritize effectively and move quickly through their to-do lists.

Although there’s no substitute for hard work, certain time-management strategies can eliminate needless tasks and help you complete projects faster. Curious to learn more? Here are three research strategies to help you save time and improve your overall results.

Companies turn to custom market research because they need specific answers in order to make critical business decisions. The problem is the way we’ve been forced to think about market research from the lens of a project, in large part, due to the way this research is and has been executed.  

By definition, market research projects are episodic in nature, rigid in question format, and take weeks and months to execute so as to deliver the insights they’re framed to address. Internal and external complexities exist to commission, source, and complete market research. Buyers often refer to the process as exhausting and expensive, and respondents find the survey length tedious and difficult to schedule during a busy day.