This is the fifth article in a series of articles about Starting and Operating a Successful Internet Business.

Hopefully by now you have thought about and reached some conclusions about your areas of interest and passion. You are now ready to do some real market research. The way to do market research for online businesses is to look at certain websites that are loaded with data about what people are currently buying online. You don't have to guess or speculate.

There are dozens of places to go online to get ideas and information about online businesses, but a handful of them are the best because they are the "big boys" and can give you the best information. Examples of what I call "big boy" sites are:

1. Amazon.com
2. eBay
3. Yahoo (Yahoo Answers and Yahoo Groups)
4. YouTube
5. Google (Google Groups, Google Trends)

For the most part, these brand names are now household names. And they have grown phenomenally over the past few years. Because of this they are a rich source of data concerning online consumer behavior. In other words, they can tell you what people BUY and what people are Interested In. You don't want to ignore this data.

• For example, the two biggest online sellers are Amazon and eBay.
• With both of them, you can look at categories of products, and see which ones are most popular.
• Within those general categories, keep slicing and dicing your way down to smaller and smaller markets we call "niches." Often these smaller markets can be most profitable, if the competition is not as great.
• Going through the category listings on the left side of their website home pages will give you a lot of ideas.
• Then click on some categories you are interested in, and keep clicking till the category is very narrow and very specific. This is the best way to get ideas for businesses that are tailored to specific markets of buyers.

The reason for this is that both Amazon and Ebay will give you data on the number of purchases of their items.

• eBay Pulse tells you what the hot items are.
• Amazon has tabs for "best sellers" within each category and sub-category.
• You can see how many books are sold on dog training compared to raising chickens. Or how many books are sold on finding love compared to how to pick up women.
• It's a great place to get preliminary data on volume of sales in addition to giving you ideas for market niches within your general areas of interest.