What are trend reports and why are they important in marketing and sales? Do you want to know what your customers will be buying in the future and if they will still even be interested in your products or services? Trend reports attempt to predict consumer interests and purchasing patterns in the future. They provide a glimpse into future buying patterns and provide you and your company data in which to make decisions about product and service adjustments to meet the needs of your customers in the future.

A trend report could be a broad macroeconimic analysis provided by governmental statistics agencies, it could be a report prepared by a private marketplace consulting agency, or it could be prepared in-house by a firm doing customer research on its own products. Whoever it is prepared by, the goal is always the same - To predict future consumer behaviour.

The following decsions could be made based on data provided by a trend report:

• Product enhancements
• Products changes
• Product discontinuations
• Entering New markets
• Leaving existing markets
• Product pricing
• Product placements
• Target markets
• And more

Trend reports are used in many businesses in almost all industries to try to provide improvements to future competitive advantages.