How to estimate market size in 10 minutes: data sources

What data sources should you use when you need to analyze the market size in the Russian Federation? This is one of the first and most important questions that arise when conducting marketing research. High-quality initial information is a prerequisite for a full analysis and assessment of the market opportunities of a particular company. When it comes to huge investments, misjudging can result in big losses.

The following sources can be considered reliable and effective:

• information that is officially disclosed (for example, annual reports);
• internal media of large companies (for example, corporate newspapers);
• publications in the media (analytical, news);
• interviews with employees of competing firms, taken using the legend;
• interviews with experts in a particular industry, representatives of research institutes, clients;
• benchmarking interviews, benchmarking databases;
• Exhibitions;
• databases (for example, FIRA, government statistics portals);
• portals of industry associations;
• purchased analytics.

From what sources can you get export and import statistics? Each foreign trade supply is accompanied by filling out a customs declaration. Such a document contains information about goods purchased by a foreign counterparty from a Russian company or vice versa. The customs declaration is filled out by the Federal Customs Service of the Russian Federation. Before public publication foreign trade statistics of such declarations are enlarged from the level of individual enterprises to the level of constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

It is impossible to say unambiguously how long it will take to analyze the market, since this is determined by many different factors:

• the person who performs the research;
• business complexity;
• financial resources available to a particular business;
• the number of varieties of goods that are planned to be produced.

This is not a complete list of circumstances that can influence the analysis time. There are many other objective and subjective factors on which the timing depends.

The StatImEx portal contains official customs statistics on foreign trade of the Russian Federation. At the same time, it is possible to analyze this data online. On the website you can form queries to the database, instantly receiving ready-made reports. Such reports contain the structure of Russian imports and exports, their natural and value volumes. The main advantages of Statimex.ru are quickly generated visual reports on foreign economic activity, easy to read and process.

Thus, according to the Statimex portal, the volume of foreign trade turnover of such categories of goods as natural and cultured pearls, precious and semi-precious stones, precious metals and clad with precious metals, products made from these materials, costume jewelry and coins (HS group - 71) between the Russian Federation and other countries during 2020 totaled $30, and the total weight of cargo was 920 kg.

The main share in this category of goods falls on gold. According to the same portal, foreign trade in gold for Russia in 2020 amounted to more than $18 billion. The second place in the foreign trade turnover of jewelry was taken by the Kostroma region, although it is not among the top twenty foreign trade regions. Russia sells precious stones, precious metals and products made from them, jewelry and coins to other countries with a pronounced seasonality. The maximum trade turnover took place in September, the minimum in January.