Components for Developing a Business Plan: Consumer spending habits

• The book Who’s Buying… contains consumer buying trends on specific product categories including: Alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, entertainment, groceries, household furnishings, and several others.

• The Consumer Expenditure Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics consists of two surveys collected for the Bureau of Labor Statistics by the Census Bureau — the quarterly Interview survey and the Diary survey — that provide information on the buying habits of American consumers, including data on their expenditures, income, and consumer unit (families and single consumers) characteristics.

• Choices III is a massive survey conducted by Simmons Media & Markets. It is a study of consumer buying and media viewing habits. Choices III provides a significant level of flexibility in finding patterns and cross-matching different survey elements.  Data is from their 2005 survey. Choices III is available in the Management & Economics Library.
  

• MediaMark is similar to Choices III and presents data on consumer buying and viewing habits.  It provides more prepackaged reports than Choices III.  MediaMark requires IE and you must create a free account with them.