There are several eBay research tools available that provide detailed auction information aimed that helping sellers increase the profitability of their auctions. Some of the more popular are eBay Market Research, Terapeak, HammerTap, and MPire to name a few.

Basically, each of these eBay research tools are the same. They collect information from closed sales on eBay and break it down into segments of information that usually include things such as:

• Total dollars in sales
• Highest selling price
• Lowest selling price
• Average sales price
• Starting prices
• Total number of items listed
• Number of items that sold
• Sell-through rates
• Best day to end auctions in a category
• Best time to end auctions in a category
• Most productive keywords
• Whether using additional features such as Bold or Gallery Photos increase sales
• Sales trends within a category
• And more

All of this information can be useful to sellers. When used intelligently, it can help to increase number of views, number of bids, and final selling price.

However, the information provided by these eBay research tools can be skewed, either intentionally or unintentionally, by as few as one or two sellers. Therefore, when using the data provided by any eBay research tool it’s important that you add a grain of salt, otherwise known as common sense, making changes to how you do business or what you are selling.

Here’s an example of what I mean.

I’ve been contemplating selling my collection of aspirin tins. The has been put together over a period of 15+ years and, along with examples of most common examples, contains many tins that are seldom, if ever, offered for sale. Many should sell for between $100 and $300 each.

With the proper pre-sale promotion to my tin collector list, by listing the hard to find tins individually and combining the common tins into 10 to 15 tin lots that also included one or two mid-range difficulty tins, I’m confident I could attain a 100% sell through rate if I spread the auctions out over a two to three week period.

Using one of the popular eBay research tools, here’s a picture of the returns I get when I enter ‘aspirin tin’ into their search field.

Looking at the results everything appears to be pretty valid. It shows Sunday evening as the best day and time to end aspirin tin auctions. Collectibles appears to be the best category to list in. Using the auction format with a gallery photo and a 7 day duration would appear to offer the best results. Based on previous experience selling aspirin tins, these appear to be solid recommendations.

But, what happens if I decide to sell my collection and list everything as five day auctions, with no gallery pictures, ending between 10 AM and 2 PM on a Wednesday under the ‘antique’ category?

Because of the pre-auction promotion I did, none of those things would have any real impact on my sell-through rate or the selling prices I received. What would happen though, is I would completely skewer the results any eBay research tool provided. Because of the large number of auctions, those results wouldn’t be completely messed up for just the short-term, but for months to come. Anyone doing research on the keywords ‘aspirin tin’ and using the results to determine how they listed one, or more, aspirin tins would have their results adversely affected.

eBay research tools can be extremely valuable when you are trying to improve your sales results, but it’s important that you don’t make decision based solely on the raw data provided. Dig deeper into each piece of information provided, look at the results, and ask yourself, “Is there anything here that would indicate the raw information might be in error?”

Only after doing that should you make selling decision based on the information these tools provide.

Photo by David Blaikie.

Popularity: 32% [?]

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!