LibGuides: FCS 457: Fashion Retail Buying and Merchandising: Data

Finding Demographic and Business Data for Local Area

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
The Right Site (EASI) includes both free data and reports that must be purchased. To access the free section, select the Free Census 2000 Reports image at the top of the page. (You will need to register your email with the company and log in for the free access). This site allows you to generate free demographic ring studies of Census 2010 data.
Community Sourcebook of ZIP Code Demographics. Print source with estimates used to update Census data.
QuickFacts provides statistics for all states and counties, and for cities and towns with a population of 5,000 or more..
County Business Patterns

Library Guides

Los Angeles & the San Fernando Valley
by Laura Wimberley Last Updated Oct 30, 2025 14442 views this year

Reference Books with Demographic Data

Best Customers: Demographics of Consumer Demand by New Strategist Publication
Call Number: Electronic book

ISBN: 9781937737412

Publication Date: 2014
Who's Buying Apparel by New Strategist Publication
Call Number: Electronic book

ISBN: 1937737357

Publication Date: 2015-07-15

Citing Data from Others

Properly citing data assists in the research process by giving data creators proper credit for their work, aids replication, provides permanent and reliable information about the data source, helps track the impact of the data, and facilitates resource discovery and access.

Citing Data From Others

In many cases, a data provider will include recommended citation formats (i.e. the ICPSR). Also note that the producers of a particular dataset may request that users of the data cite a publication in which the data are described, rather than citing the dataset (i.e. the Database of Political Institutions).

When a data provider does not recommend a citation format, we recommend these general citation guidelines:

Author/Principal Investigator
Year of Publication
Title of the Data Source
Edition/Version Number
Format of the Data Source (e.g. [Computer File], [CD-ROM], [Online], etc.)
Producer of the Data Source
Distributor of the Data Source
URL for the Data Source

Statistics

Data Planet
A statistical data repository contains more than 35 billion data points from 70+ source organizations. Census results, business data, health metrics, political science data and more are included in over 4.9 billion datasets presented in charts, maps, graphs, and table form, via multiple points of entry.
Data.Census.Gov
Presents population, housing, economic, and geographic data from the United States Census Bureau. Data sets section offers tables for the Decennial Census, American Community Survey, Economic Census, and Population Estimates. (Formerly known as American Factfinder)
Data.gov
Gateway to statistics from over 100 U.S. federal agencies that provide data and trend information on topics such as economic and population trends, crime, education, health care, aviation safety, energy use, farm production and more.
PolicyMap
Web-based Geographic Information System covering the United States used to understand communities. With easy-to-use menus, PolicyMap is a GIS tool for non-GIS experts for those who need to visualize large amounts of data quickly and easily, often down to the census tract or block group level.

FCS 457: Fashion Retail Buying and Merchandising

Finding Demographic and Business Data for Local Area

Library Guides

Reference Books with Demographic Data

Citing Data from Others

Statistics

Database Tutorials