Okay, I am about to let you in on one of my secrets. It is how I can quickly determine whether a product is profitable enough to sell on eBay. Using this method, you can eliminate the guesswork when making your product selections. This guarantees winning products on eBay before you even purchase them for resale. When you remove product-selection guesswork, you can quickly shift a struggling eBay business from first gear into high-octane overdrive!
Whenever I find a product I think has potential on eBay, I use this method to help make a difficult decision very easy. Either the product passes the two required tests or it fails. Using this method you will know in just a few minutes whether the product you are thinking of selling will be a winner or loser on eBay.

The reason I can accomplish this so quickly is that I use two high-quality research tools. I use HammerTap first to quickly determine the product’s sales history on eBay. If the product passes that test, I then use Worldwide Brand’s Instant Market Research (IMR) tool to check the demand, competition, and overall chance for the product’s success online.

Both tools offer a different view of the product’s potential. They are like book ends. Using just one of them alone gives only half the picture. HammerTap provides the short-term “in the moment” view of the last 90 days on eBay. You should use HammerTap to ensure the item is profitable on eBay today. IMR provides information about the overall health of the online marketplace for the item’s category. It is a good predictor of future, longer-term sales for the item. You use it as a decision-making tool about whether your business should enter a particular marketplace. Together, they provide the information required to make a product-buying decision, whether short term or long term. Both tools have been discussed previously in this book. To learn more and receive a discount on the tools, visit these sites:

www.hammertap.com/studentrate

www.worldwidebrands.com/studentrate  (IMR analysis tools is part of their Product Sourcing Membership)

Note that what I am presenting below is just a quick product decision-making test. I provide the complete process with specific methodology to find and determine profitable products in the book, eBay Rescue Profit Maker.

Test 1: Is the Product Successful on eBay?

The first test in the process is to determine if the product you are interested in selling is successful and profitable on eBay. We will use HammerTap to conduct a Quick Analysis. If your product doesn’t pass this first test, there is no need to investigate it any further. Move on to the next product.

If your product passes this test, it still does not mean you should choose that product to sell on eBay. It means it has only passed the first test. You still need to have the product pass the Online Marketplace Test, using Instant Market Research.

                       Conduct Quick Analysis

Step 1. Create a Search Preview

The first step in conducting your Quick Analysis is to create a search preview:

 1. Login to HammerTap.
 2. Click the Product Search button; this will open the Product Search dialog box.
 3. Enter the primary keywords of the product in the Include Keywords text box.
 4. Choose All of These Words from the drop-down menu.
 5. Select the Recent Auctions, and enter the date range for the last 90 days.
 6. Set Number of Auctions to 500.
 7. Select Regular, Fixed Price, and Store items.
 8. Click Search Preview.

Now check to be sure that the total number of listings is fewer than 500. If it is at 500, then you need to back up a step and increase the number of auctions to the next highest increment. Continue this process until the total listings returned are fewer than the number you selected. Then click Search Preview again.
When scanning the report, you will find that not all listings will be relevant to the specific product you want to sell. For example, if you are selling a specific model camera, you may find some listings for the camera bag. You need to narrow your search to include only the specific product so your results will not be skewed.

Step 2. Narrow Your Search

The next step in conducting your Quick Analysis is to narrow your search:

 1. Enter the keywords you want to eliminate in the Exclude Keywords field.
 2. Click Search Preview and review the list again. Continue the steps in this process until you have narrowed your search to the specific product you want to sell.
 3. Once you have your keywords and excluded keywords set, click Start Search.
Your Findings report will now appear. Check the report for accuracy by double-checking your keywords for typos. Sometimes a seller with the same keywords has included other items or several of one particular item in the listing (selling a quantity greater than one). Including these listings in your analysis would provide misleading results. You now need to remove any of these outliers.

Step 3. Remove the Outliers

The next step in conducting your Quick Analysis is to remove the outliers:

 1. Click the Listings button at the bottom of the page.
 2. Scroll the Titles column looking for more keywords that you may want to eliminate. If you find any, click the Edit Search button, add those keywords to exclusion list, and conduct a new search.
 3. Click the High Bid column and arrange the list in descending order (arrow pointing down).
 4. Scroll down the Total Sales column to find the first few products that sold. Check that their prices are not out of line with all other sales. Check also the Quantity Sold column to be sure that only one item sold for each listing.
 5. Remove any high-priced outliers from the search data by unchecking the Include checkbox for that item.

                                                  Remove the Outliers

 6. Now sort the High Bid column in ascending order (arrow pointing up).
 7. Remove any low-priced outliers from the search data by unchecking the Include checkbox for that item. (You can also eliminate any “no sales” in your original search by adding a Minimum Price to your search).
 8. Click the Filter This Report button at the top of the screen.
You have now narrowed the search using keywords to exclude, and have removed any outliers that could give misleading data. Your filtered report will now provide only the information that is relevant for your specific product.

Step 4. Interpret the Report

In the Results section of the report, observe the Listing Success Rate (LSR) percentage. The Listing Success Rate (LSR) is your product’s first hurdle. It is the sell-through rate. For example, if 100 of a particular item were listed on eBay and 65 sold, this means the product has a 65 percent chance of selling. (I consider an excellent LSR to be 75 percent and above.) For our methodology, the score must be about 60 percent or greater. If the Percent Sold score is less than 60, the product has failed the test. Move on to the next product.

                                 Check the Listing Success Rate

If the Percent Sold score is 60 or above, then the product has passed the first hurdle and is worthy of further analysis. Therefore, you now need to determine what you expect the product to sell for on eBay.

Scroll down toward the bottom to the column that is labeled ASP (Average Sales Price). The price where the ASP column meets the End Day row is what you can expect your product to sell for on eBay. You will compare this price with the cost you will pay for the product. If you are not sure what you would pay, but you will be purchasing the item from a wholesaler, then assume your cost will be about 50 percent off the retail price.

                                               Check the End Day ASP

Did your product pass the LSR 60 percent mark, and the profitability hurdles? If yes, congratulations! It has passed Test 1. It now qualifies for further analysis using OneSource to perform the Online Marketplace analysis in Test 2.

Test 2: Does the Product Pass the Online Marketplace Test?

The second test is to determine its chance for success in the overall online marketplace. Note that this test includes the entire online marketplace and not just eBay. You can conduct this analysis quickly and get valuable, in-depth marketplace information using Worldwide Brands' Instant Market Research (IMR)  analysis tool.

Step 1. Conduct a Product Search

The first step in conducting your Online Marketplace Test is to conduct a product search:

 1. Login to your Worldwide Brands account.
 2. In the Search field drop-down menu, select the Category link for the product that you are interested in selling. If you are unsure, just leave it as No Category Selected.
 3. Type the primary keywords of the product in the “for” field.
 4. Click the Search button.
 5. When the results are returned, click the Analysis tab.

Step 2. Interpreting the Analysis Tab

The Marketplace Research Results score in the Analysis tab is determined by a mathematical algorithm that compares online demand, competition, and advertising for your product. It provides a combined overall score that enables you to make a well-informed decision whether you will be able to sell your product successfully online.

                                   Check the Market Research Results Perentage Bar

I have found that IMR is best used to determine the overall health of product categories than it is to analyze specific products. For example, if you are interested in selling printer ink, a search using the keywords “Hewlett-Packard 98 Twinpack” is much too detailed and will probably produce poor results. A better search is “HP printer ink” or just “printer ink” to determine the prospect of selling printer ink online.

If you have adjusted your keywords as described and your results bar score remains below 60 percent, the product has failed the test. Move on to the next product. If, however, the product scored at 60 percent or above, then it is worthy of further analysis.

Step 3. Interpreting the Demand, Competition, and Advertising

The next step in conducting your Online Marketplace Test is to interpreting the information on the Demand, Competition, and Advertising tabs:

 1. Click the Demand tab.
 2. Set the Results per page menu to 100. This report analyzes data from the major search engines to reveal how many searches are being made for the product. You will then see just how popular the product is online. I have no set criteria for demand, but if the product is getting more than 1,000 searches, it is a popular product with good online demand.

                                                            Check Demand

 3. Click the Competition tab. This report reveals how many other online sellers on Yahoo!, Google, and eBay have products that use the same keywords. You want to find relatively low competition to avoid trying to sell in a marketplace that is saturated. The results in this report can vary widely depending on how much you have narrowed your search when selecting your keywords. With this test, if the competition looks very large, you should go back and narrow your search using the particular product name and model.

                                      Check Competition

There is no set number to look for, but the lower the competition online and on eBay, the better. Ideally, I would prefer to have fewer than 100 eBay competitors. Fewer than 50 is even better, and fewer than 25 is close to perfect.

 4. Click the Advertising tab. This tab does not give you a pass/fail decision. Instead, it enables you to easily find and spy on your Internet competitors.
This report will reveal Google ads for the product you want to sell. Click the website links and study your Internet competitor’s products, selling prices, and product descriptions. You may even discover other items they sell that you may be interested in as well.

Final Product Decision

If your product has passed both Test 1 and Test 2, then you should feel confident that your item can be sold successfully on eBay. After you have gone through this process a few times, it becomes second nature and you can complete it in just a few minutes.

Now whenever you have an idea for a product, conduct the analysis using these methods and tools to determine if the product is worth selling on eBay. There is no more guesswork. You will know if your product will be successful before you even purchase the item for resale.

Check these tools out for yourself at:

www.hammertap.com/studentrate

www.worldwidebrands.com/studentrate  (Instant Market Research - included in their Product Sourcing Membership)