Learning about your customers and their buying habits means doing market research.
You can gather information yourself, or primary research. It can be gathered from customers, competitors, employees, and suppliers. You can use tools such as surveys, interviews, observation, and test-marketing sample products or services.
The other source, secondary research, is information gathered by someone else and available through a variety of resources. It is information from industry studies, books, journals, and other published resources. Look for it at your chamber of commerce office, in trade magazines and journals, in your competitors' annual reports, from networks in related industries, and through the Internet.
