Ebay Research

I receive a number of emails from people asking for advice on how to get more sales and greater visibility on eBay. A number of them express disappointment that the business they have launched has not been as successful as they hoped.

This is also a common theme running through many home business and eBay related forums. I was reading a post on one forum where someone had purchased a large amount of stock but had had little success in selling any of it on eBay and wondered why.

The problems these people are experiencing are all down to one thing. Lack of research. They have purchased products and believe that all they have to do is place them on eBay and they will sell, unfortunately, it’s not quite as simple as that.

EBay is just a market. A huge market, but just a market. People browse eBay looking for products they want. If they don’t want to buy a pair of rollerblades then they aren’t going to buy them, regardless of how cheap they are. So, if you’ve bought a thousand pairs you may have problems shifting them unless there’s a sudden surge in interest.

While it’s still possible to go to an auction and buy a load of items, and put them on eBay for a profit, it’s not as easy as it once was.  Auctions used to be an excellent place to buy stock.

I know because I used to buy computers from auctions about seven years ago for a computer business I used to have. Today auctions are not always so cheap. The problem is that they are full of people who’ve been watching programs about how to make money by buying things from an auction and reselling them. This has led to the sales price of items being forced up.

To avoid wasting your money on products that are difficult to sell you need to engage in a little research. The best way to sell on eBay is not to go out and buy some stock then try to sell it, but to first find out what buyers are looking for then go and locate the stock.  A little time spent researching can save you a lot of heartache and money.

Researching what’s selling on eBay is easy and you don’t need to waste any money on third party software because eBay provides you with all the tools for free. One of the most powerful research tools is eBay pulse, named appropriately because it’s the pulse of eBay.

This will tell you instantly what people are looking for on eBay. What the most popular searches are for, what items are been sought. This is a great research tool that eBay provides and you should use it. It is, I have to say, just one of many tools eBay provides for sellers to use.

I wrote a post in February about how to do some basic eBay research. It can be found here: http://www.middleagedinbiz.co.uk/how-to-research-whether-a-product-will-sell-on-ebay/ It’s never being easier to conduct research on anything by using the internet.

Researching product trends on eBay, average sales prices reached, successful auctions will take a couple of hours at the most.  By the end of your research, you’ll have a list of hot selling products and how much you can expect to get for them from eBay.

This puts you in a strong buying position. Armed with the average selling price of the products you’re looking for you can now make an informed decision about whether it’s worth your while purchasing stock at a certain price.

I think most traders, me included, have at some time, bought stock that we believed would sell instantly, only to find that it goes out of the door slower than an old dog you’re trying to take for a walk. To prevent this make sure there’s a market for the product before you buy it.