Sooner or later, every e-business reaches the point at which some market research would prove really useful in helping to make those tough decisions. For instance, whether you should dig deep to purchase extra inventory for anticipated growth in market share, or spend the money on moving into less crowded facilities.

Oftentimes, that research doesn't even have to be customized. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of research outfits around the globe, cranking out surveys, reports and white papers by the ream.

I know, I know, I can hear you saying that you don't have days and days to cruise the Web's IT and information sites looking for the report that best suits your needs.

But hey, you don't have to do that. Companies like MindBranch and Bitpipe have sorted through a lot of this stuff already, and made it easy for you to find.

MindBranch is a Massachusetts-based market-intelligence reseller that aggregates reports, newsletters, directories and databases from 300 partners.

They offer instantly downloadable strategic insight and they just delivered a Web-based tool called QuickLink, designed for business and corporate intranet desktops that helps companies centralize purchasing of market research, track research expenditures, and allows users to share information about reports that they have purchased across their entire organizations.

QuickLink is a free, co-branded Web interface customized for client companies, available through their corporate intranet, and includes information on more than 16,000 market-research products; information exclusive to the client such as targeted daily news feeds, analyst insights, customized newsletters; and online account histories.

"There is tremendous efficiency in being able to find the right research report in real time," said Alton Adams, chief executive officer of MindBranch.

And if you can't find it, you can always issue an RFP (request for proposal) for it.

MindBranch recently acquired Intelligex, a New York-based company that matches buyers and suppliers of custom research in an online marketplace. Launched in December 2000, Intelligex has attracted more than 225 top companies as participants. Maritz Marketing Research, Yankelovich Partners, Opinion Research Corp. and Guideline Research are among more than 125 research firms that will bid on requests for proposals from research buyers.

Boston, Mass.-based competitor Bitpipe Inc. syndicates content from more than 2,000 IT vendors and over 50 top analyst firms including IDC, Meta Group, and Yankee Group via the Bitpipe Network. It has agreements with agreements with Yahoo!, CNET, ZDNet, IT World, Computerworld, TechRepublic and COMDEX, among others.

Internet.com's CyberAtlas also has some good research report stuff, as well as a cool newsletter. No doubt there are others in this game as well.

My take: If your company is small and dollars are precious, be cautious about spending too much with these services. Still, they are worth a look if you're growing. After all, when it comes to research, why reinvent the wheel?

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I don't know if the research aggregators have this one or not, but I came across a new survey of shopper intentions for 1,300 Internet users. It shows that nearly half of the users expect the current economic climate to have a negative impact on them in the next 12 months, prompting two-thirds to report a planned reduction in spending levels.

In fact, fifty-seven percent of shoppers purchasing high-end retail merchandise have cut spending in the past six months, according to the study, conducted by Knowledge Systems and Research Inc. for Chicago-based Andersen.

Other findings from the survey include:

• Nearly 60 percent of users indicated that price is more important now than it was six months ago.
• Nearly 60 percent of users were more likely to shop directly through a specific retailer's Web site rather than using online malls, portals or search engines.
• Only one of three users indicated negative press about dot-com failures had some impact on their online shopping habits.
• More than half of those surveyed have purchased from the same retailer both online and in-person, with 70 percent of respondents reporting consistent experiences across multiple channels (i.e. level of customer service, merchandise selection, convenience).

Jay Scansaroli, partner and leader of Andersen's Retail Services Industry, suggested that some of the actions retailers can take to improve performance during such tenuous times include:

• Attracting key customer groups and improving customer retention strategies.
• Focus on customer experience and increasing productivity and profitability of in-store visits.
• Price optimization strategies such as gauging differing price sensitivity levels.
• Expense optimization and removal of inefficiencies in operations and supply chain management.

My take: If there are going to be fewer dollars spent by wary consumers, you need to work smarter, not harder. And focus, focus, focus.