Know-How Exchange : Research/Metrics

First, you need to define the market. For example, if you are a soda manufacturer, the market can be defined as:
- colas
- all carbonated, sugary drinks
- all drinks
or any other break up of the possible markets that sodas are sold in. Depending on which you choose, the market will be very different sizes...

Beyond that, you look for clues about market size. For larger markets, you often can find clues in trade magazines, business magazines, or the news. For example, an article on how a particular car company is doing will usually also talk about total sales of cars.

If it is a local business (say a bike shop), you can go through and determine a region that you will classify as a market, and then get a list of all the bike shops out there. Estimate the sales of a bike shop, multiply by number of shops, and you have come up with a market size. Of course it is guesstimating, but the numbers can often be good enough for most business needs.

For the various players, you can also do some estimating based on clues. How many employees, how many sites doe they have, how many retailers carry their products, etc. If public, you can get lots of information. Ofter there are also research reports on various industries, which include market sizes of companies.

Depends what it is.

You may get great data from government statistical bureaux, e.g. www.statistics.gov.uk, www.abs.gov.au, www.census.gov

Import export information might be obtainable from your country's Department of Trade.

You can define a target market, and research them about buying habits.

You could research retailers about spending patterns by category or product.

Give us a few clues about the specifics of your case and we'll come up with some specific suggestion.