The intelligence sources listed on this page can assist you in understanding your external marketing environment in order to conduct a market, competitive, or situation analysis.
A product category is defined as "the classification to which the product is assigned" (Jeong, Wiley International Encyclopedia of Marketing, 2010). An example of a product category is breakfast cereal. Product categories also exist for services. The following sources are recommended as your starting point for researching product categories.
Other secondary sources of intelligence on product categories include industry reports (e.g., MarketLine), articles in newspapers (e.g., Wall Street Journal), magazines (e.g., Canadian Business), and trade journals.