How to Conduct Research on eBay

How to Conduct Research on eBay

I spend a lot of time discussing the proper way to conduct research on eBay during my eBay seminars. It is one of the most import procedures you will need to master before you can become either an eBay Power Buyer or a PowerSeller. While the steps below are specifically written for sellers, know that it is the same process recommended for buyers.

eBay sellers list any and all types of items. No one can be an expert on every item or category. Therefore, the purpose for a seller to conduct research on eBay is to understand how the top sellers of the item you are about to list, sell their items. If you study how they list their items, you will have a much better idea how to list your item and will have greatly increased your chance for a successful auction.

Below are the steps to conduct research on eBay:

1. Login to your eBay account.

2. Click on the “Advanced Search” link.

3. Inside the “Enter Keyword or Item Number” box, type the keywords that you would use as a buyer to find the item you are about to list and click Search. You will now see a list of all items currently for sale on eBay that include those keywords in their title.

4. Narrow the list down to the specific item (if you can) by adding more keywords.Once you have it narrowed to the specific item, you will see all the items currently for sale on eBay that match those keywords.

5. Now go back to the Advanced Search page again. Scroll down the left side and under Search Options, and Show Only, click the checkbox “Completed Listings” and click Search.

Now you will see all the items that match the keywords for your item that have completed (ended) on eBay during the last two weeks. The prices in green mean those items sold for that price. The prices in red mean those items did not sell.

6. Toward the top of the screen, click on the drop down box and select “Price: Highest First”.

You now have a listing of all items that have received the highest bids for the item you are about to sell. Theoretically, you now have the top sellers of your item.

7. Open the top six to ten listings (only the ones with green prices, meaning they sold) and study how the top sellers listed the item. Look for the most important elements of success such as:

- What were the keywords they used?

- In what category did they list the item?

- What was their starting bid?

- Did they use a reserve price?

- Was it an Auction-Style or Fixed Price listing?

- Did they use Buy It Now?

- How detailed was their description?

- How many photos did they use?

- How many days did they run their auction?

- How many hits did their auction attract? (Look at the bottom of the listing for the hit counter. Note that sometimes the counter is hidden by the seller.)

Write all this information down on a notepad for the top six to ten (or more) sellers. Now you have some basic research for you to study and then create a successful listing to sell that particular item. Study the information then merge and purge the outliers. If most sellers list the item as Auction-Style, then list your item as Auction-Style. If most sellers have a starting price under $10, then your starting price should be under $10.

PowerSeller Tip: Note that the manual process I have described above can be very time consuming. Would you like a tool that can conduct eBay research for you in about 10 seconds? All you have to do is type the keywords of the item and you can see what they have been selling for on eBay. The tool provides statistical information in an easy to understand presentation. I also use the same tool to determine:

1. How to sell items on eBay (what format, starting price, keywords etc. to use)

2. Determine if a product I am thinking of selling will be profitable - before I purchase it for resale!

3. To ensure that I do not overbid on an item, I check what it has been selling for on eBay in the past.

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