Mind Commerce Market Research Resellers

What are Market Research Resellers? Some people use the term distributor as a market research reseller acts as a distribution channel for market research publishers. Some people use the term aggregator as a market research reseller also aggregates the research of many publishers into one convenient place for buyers.

Regardless of the terminology used, a reseller sells on behalf of the producer. In the case of market research, a reseller sells various services on behalf of a research publisher such as reports, data and forecasts, subscriptions, and consulting.

Note: This post is part of our series About Mind Commerce to help readers learn who we are, what we do, our values, and more.

Publishers would prefer to make most, if not all, sales direct. This is largely because market research resellers often take a large commission for sales, upwards to 50% of the sales price. However, there is indeed value in every transaction, and certainly in terms of ongoing support.

• Firstly, it is important to understand that quality resellers do more than simply list content provided by the publisher on a website. Leading market research distributors actively promote offerings from top publishers to their clients through press releases and direct marketing, which may entail email and calling upon existing clients. In addition, valued market research resellers will answer questions about reports for potential buyers as well as vet the buyer in terms of their needs (topic, contents, urgency, etc.) and means (budget, payment method, etc.).
• Secondly, leading market research resellers have long-standing relationships with certain clients, some of which make large advance payments in return for discounts and/or assistance in procuring research. This creates sales opportunities for publishers that they otherwise may not receive. This may also facilitate an entree into discussions about broader client needs that may lead to additional projects with the customer such as custom research. A good publisher will honor the fact that projects sourced in this manner should go through the market research reseller partner.
• Thirdly, some market research resellers have a regional focus that allows them to market and sell to certain countries that are otherwise hard to reach for a US based company like Mind Commerce. These distributors often have regional sales offices and deep relationships with clients. Some buyers may only purchase from companies that are registered to do business and/or reside in their own country. Language and cultural issues are not an issue as the market research distributor has qualified personnel within the region that are conversant and in constant communication with local clients.

If a market research reseller is worth having, they are adding substantial incremental value to the publisher’s sales and marketing efforts.

Simply stated, there are too many market research distributors! The industry has witnessed a significant increase in resellers in recent years, due largely to the low threshold of starting this type of business and the substantial number of personnel in certain parts of the world (such as Pune, India) where employees of market research firms leave to start their own business endeavor.

Research distributors are NOT created equal, so choose wisely!

A market research reseller should be a value-added marketing and sales channel to the publisher. However, most only create “noise”.

It is our opinion that most market research distributors are a concern to the industry as they do not add any incremental value to the ecosystem. Even worse, they muddy the water when it comes to issues such as research source and/or legitimacy. This makes the research purchase decision more difficult for buyers and dilutes the overall value equation for publishers as well as research distributors that have consistently proven their merit.

At a time when Mind Commerce had more market research resellers than we have today, clients would occassionally say things like:

“I did not know it was your report as I saw it listed in dozens of websites”.  Today, we have very few resellers and intend to keep it that way.

In a presumed effort to establish market research offering breadth and/or depth, some of nefarious market research aggregators will go so far as to violate intellectual property laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). For example, some have copied Mind Commerce research content (mostly promotional material that they can scrape from our website and/or our legitimate resellers) and placed on their own site without permission. We aggressively issue DMCA Takedown Notices to their registrar and/or web host provider when this happens.

We recommend that you stick to well-known names and/or carefully vetted and trusted companies.

Market research resellers are an important part of the value chain. Mind Commerce only collaborates with companies that add significant value to our business. We work with market-leading companies that improve our offering awareness as well as marketing and sales reach.

Three of the most important research distributors are Global Information, MarketResearch.com, and Research and Markets.