What are the best eBay research tools and how can an eBay seller use them to increase their profits.
eBay research tools are used primarily to find new items to sell and to help improve sales for existing listings however there are many other applications eBay sellers can use them for. Here are some.
- To find hot selling items
- To find eBay arbitrages (opportunities where items are not just “hot selling” but they can be purchased for substantially less than they are being sold for on eBay)
- Research other successful eBay listings to find the most successful strategy
- Research other successful eBay sellers to find their best selling items
- Improve your existing eBay listings by comparing with other sellers most successful listings
- Find the top performing categories
- Find top performing niches
Here are a few of the most popular eBay research tools and a brief explanation of what they do.
- eBay’s “Sold” button. This free to use button shows which items actually sold on eBay and for how much. To use it, search for any item on eBay then half way down on the left you will see a checkbox saying “Sold Items”. Click this checkbox and then search for an item. The results will be which items sold and how much they sold for.
- Waterhouse Research is a full service eBay research tool which finds which eBay listings are not just hot selling, but which ones are making from 50% profit to over 200% profit.
The information for each of these listings (arbitrages) they find is supplied to one client only. Also provided are the contact details of the supplier etc
For more details on Waterhouse Research see http://www.waterhouseresearch.com
- Tera-peak is an eBay research tool which has many functions including allowing sellers to find the eBay hot sellers for a keyword, category, or to research a seller to find their best selling items.It is a great tool to find who the top sellers are for a particular item i.e. which keywords are they using, which photos, their ad copy etc so you can compare it to your own listing.
Note: Sellers should be careful when researching hot sellers as just because an item is selling fast, does not mean it is making high profits. Fast selling is only part of the equation and cost price and average sell price must be taken into account when conducting eBay research.
For more information see http://www.tera-peak.com
- http://popular.eBay.com/ This free eBay research tool shows what is popular on eBay
- Marksight is an eBay keyword research tool. http://www.marksight.com
- HammerTap is an eBay research tool which provides insight into the keywords and phrases buyers search with. HammerTap has other features including a recommendation of which image features a seller should use to get more traffic in eBay search results. http://www.hammertap.com
- Vendio has an eBay market research tool which sorts through millions of closed eBay items every day to provide selling recommendations. This eBay research tool provides sellers with details on the hottest selling products on eBay. In addition Vendio has reports which can help sellers choose keywords and categories as well as showing the best days of the week, and times of day to list items. The Research’s Top Sellers feature also lets you know who else is selling similar items and the listing strategy used. http://www.vendio.com
If you are using another eBay research tool and it is helping you sell more on eBay, please let us know and we will add it to this list.
To your success
Neil Waterhouse