The U.S. pet market is one of the largest in the world with dedicated pet parents wanting the best for the little loved ones. Even through the recent economic downturn, sales of dog and cat treats remained strong. With health-conscious decisions becoming more prominent in owners own lives, it makes sense that 38% of pet owners believe that natural and organic pet products are often better than standard brands. The future of pet products will be filled with healthier and natural ingredients.

On Thursday, September 18th, we unveiled Marketresearch.com’s newly redesigned home page. These changes were made as part of our continued effort to make your Marketresearch.com experience smoother, quicker and more productive. Every organization's market research needs are different. With this new design, we hope to be able to meet those diverse needs in an effective manner.

To help familiarize our visitors with the new look, here's a quick tour of the changes.

Knowing whether or not your product is something that will sell is one of the biggest questions in marketing. You might think your new product or service is going to sweep the market away, but without having a foundation of information about your customer’s wants and needs, you can’t know if your product is going to do well.

It is difficult to go more than a few days at the moment without reading something about 3D printing. Everything from body parts to food can now be printed. I even read just this week that it is now possible to print an entire house. 3D printing seems to be the next "big thing" and will revolutionise manufacturing, and, whilst it may not replace mass manufacturing any time soon, for small runs or niche products it will be mainstream before we know it. So, this got me thinking: haven't we been here before?

Fall is rapidly approaching, one of my favorite times of the year, with the leaves changing to beautiful colors and the weather a perfect mix of hot and cold.  Every year brings about new trends in every industry, in fashion, technology and, of course, the cosmetics industry. Market research played an important role in this year’s trends at New York Fashion Week (NYFW) where the public got a better look at what the upcoming trends will be. 

Schools have clearly changed in the last decade. Classrooms, the way students are learning and interacting, and learning devices are not what they used to be. With technology becoming a prominent force for our education systems, spending for education has increased. With the market size increasing 8% from the 2012-13 to 2013-14 school year to $20.9 million, many tax payers are wondering where funds are being directed.

To complete the market research process successfully, we are taught to stick to 6 systematic steps. Each step serves its own importance to ensure organizations are getting the most out of their research and staying on task. But, even with these steps, there are additional details that are considered to be critical aspects of market research.

Nowadays, technology makes life easier for us. We are surrounded by so many “smart” devices that do many of our daily tasks for us. There’s an abundance of this newer technology from smart wearables, to smart homes and smart grids. As technology advances it will only become more ingrained into all aspects of our lives. A study last year by IBM predicted the upcoming five smart technology trends for the next five years will include smarter classrooms, stores, medicine, privacy and protection, and cities. The evolution of technology isn’t stopping anytime soon.

It is estimated by the year 2016 that 191,800 multipurpose industrial robots will be shipped out worldwide. With the addition of computerized automation and other technology to the mix, it should come as no surprise that millions of people have lost their jobs in the past 30 years. Oxford researchers say that 45% of America’s occupations will be automated within the next 20 years. You also might not even need match.com in the future because bold predictions say that by 2050 humans can fall in love with and marry robots.

As a provider of stem cell products and technologies, you need to make effective product development decisions, generate improved revenues, and take market share from your competition. To do this, you need to be educated about prevailing market conditions. This involves knowing which stem cell types are showing the most promise and understanding methods through which they could be commercialized.

Stem cells are still a relatively new discovery, as the first stem cells were discovered in human cord blood in 1978, the first mouse embryonic stem cells were derived in 1981, and it was not until 2006 that induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) were produced for the first time.