Research Before Listing

One of the most important things you need to know is how to research an item you are planning to list on eBay.

There are three different tools I recommend that you can use to do your research.

Terapeak
HammerTap
eBay

I will touch on using eBay as a research tool first since this is the way I do my research most of the time.

The reason I use eBay for research is because, for me, it is simple, quick, free and easy to use.

When researching an item I'm not familiar with I will type the item name or the most popular keywords I think will be used for that item into the eBay search box.

When eBay returns the results for that search term, take note on how many listing are active for that search term, then scroll down the page while watching the left side of the page until you see a link that reads "completed listings", click on that link and you will receive all the completed listing for the last two weeks for that search term.

Look at the price column on that page, all the prices in green are items that sold and all in red are ones that did not sale.

If there is more reds than greens then the item may not be worth your time listing.

If there is a lot of green prices then that will tell you the item sells well.

Study all the listings that sold and that match your item description the most, also pay attention to which format the item was listed under, auction, fixed price or Buy It Now.

This research method tells me if the item sells well or not, gives me an ideal of what price the item will bring and which listing format is used the most.

After using this method a few times you will get a feel for it and will be able to get some great information and a quick ideal about listing your item.

Now if you really want to dig deep into researching an item you can use one or both of the following tools.

Terapeak.com

This is an awesome research tool.

With Terapeak.com you can analyze up to 90 days of eBay history and find out when and what to sell on eBay based on over 500 million closed listings. You can also find great keywords that will maximize your sales price and much more.

Terapeak.com will also let you see the products your competitors are making the most money with, you can track their total sales, average price and when they are selling.

Terapeak.com is a subscription base service but is well worth the price if you list a lot of items and you would like to have some deep down stats on them.

At the time of this post you can also use a "short free version" of Terapeak that is available on eBay. To find the "short free version" on eBay sign in to your eBay account and click on the "SELL" tab at the right top of the page.

Now look at about top center above the fold of that page and you will see "What's It Worth", where you will find a Terapeak search box. Type your keywords into the box and click on "Look It Up", Terapeak will return results for the Average Sold Price, the Price Range and the Number of Listing Sold for your search term.

Find out more about Terapeak.com Here.

HammerTap.com

Hammer Tap.com is another top notch, subscription base, research tool.

In my opinion they offer basically the same research tools as Terapeak.com but may have more bells and whistles.

At the time of this post HammerTap.com is offering a Free 10 Day Trial.

Find out more about HammerTap.com Here.

Check out all three of the above research tools and decide which will work the best for you.

Regardless if you use any of the above or not, sooner or later you will need some method of research.

Have a Great Week,
Jeffrey