I Know What´s Hot on eBay -- Part 2

I Know What´s Hot on eBay – Part 2
by Jen Cano, eBay Certified Consultant

Sort by Auction with Sales on the Keywords Tab
Why would I begin my search by looking at the keywords tab? The Keywords tab shows statistics about every word in every auction included in the research. Since most people include the brand name in the title, this is a great place to begin an initial comparison of brands.

I began by clicking on the Auctions with Sales column heading. This sorts the words in the titles according to the number of auctions that sold. As I scanned the list, two brands popped out at me: Gap and Elefanten. They each showed nearly 80 successful auctions, with an average success rate of over 80%. Average sales prices looked good, too. These statistics told me that it was worth my time to find out more about the two most promising brands.

Comparison Research
To fully compare the two brands, I requested two more reports. For the first one, I entered the keyword Gap, in addition to the category information. For the second one, I entered the keyword Elefanten, in addition to the category information. Not surprisingly, the information on the Keywords tab from my more generic report gave accurate clues to what I found when I ran the more specific reports. Here´s what I found:

Brand-----# of Auctions---ASP (average sales price)-----Success Rate
Elefanten---132-----------$25.00------------------------82.
Gap--------157------------$17.0-------------------------82.8

As you can see, other than sales price, the auctions are pretty neck-and-neck. I´d have to do some research to find out how much I can get the two types of boots for. That will help me make a decision about which brand will give me the highest profits.

Make Your Auction Even Hotter
Once you´ve identified that hot-selling item, you can take your research one step further to find out how to boost your chances of selling and your profits to an even higher level. For example, the Reports tab on my Elefanten girls boots research shows that Buy It Now (fixed price) auctions had an average success rate of 89.87% with an ASP (average sales price) of $26.23.

Use the Reports tab to find out other ways to boost your success, such as the best auction features, starting day, ending day, and ending time. For more complete information about how you can increase your auction success using DeepAnalysis, see the Getting Started section of our Sellers Guide, found at http://www.hammertap.com/support/sellersguide.pdf.

About the Author
Jennifer Cano is a certified eBay consultant and Senior Editor for Bright Builders, the makers of HammerTap. She is also an editor for eBay Radio.

© Bright Builders, 2006.