How to Do Market Research on eBay

How to Do Market Research on eBay
By Maria Teves
EBay is a great place to do business. Many people think that it's too late to get in on the eBay game. They think that there are too many sellers already making a full-time living on eBay. They think that only the people who got in early, at the beginning stages of eBay have a chance to succeed. But that's just not true. eBay is not a pyramid scheme. eBay is an online auction platform. That's a big difference.
What does this difference mean to you? It means if you haven't started profiting from eBay you can still get started. All it takes is some work combined with the right methods and strategies to build a successful business. One of the most important things to do is to find out what you can sell profitably before you make a big investment in merchandise.
I am talking about market research. Market research is the single most important factor that differentiates successful eBay sellers from the ones who will go broke. That's why I want to share one method of doing market research for your eBay business here.
And it's a very simple to do eBay market research. It's nothing fancy. You don't need to buy any fancy kind of service, you do not need to spend a lot of money, in fact you do not need to spend any money - that's right, it's completely free.
And it is deceptively simple. So simple that you might think: oh, this won't work.
But if you're willing to just actually do it, instead of just doing it in your mind, your fantasy, and hallucinating the results that will come out, you can find it incredibly valuable data about your market.
That is one of the things that always separates successful entrepreneurs from the people who will always work for "the man". Entrepreneurs try things out in the real world. Employees imagine and fantasize scenarios, find ways why they won't work and never undertake anything.

So, here is the eBay market research methods I want to share with you today: it's eBay want it now. You can find it here: pages.eBay.com/wantitnow
This is the place where people go to Post wanted ads for stuff that they want to buy on eBay but they could not find.
Do you understand what this means? This means that the eBay want it now place is where you find market demand. This is where prospects go, raise their hand and say: 'I want to give money to anyone who can give me X.'
Now there's two things you can do with this data. You can look at all the postings and find all the stuff that people are looking for, obscure stuff that is hard to find. If that is the way you want to go, all I can say is: good luck to you.
The smarter way is to look for repeating patterns. What items do people look for? And when I say people I am talking plural, not singular. You will find that there are certain items that are searched for by many people. If 20 different people post wanted ads for the same item that is a pretty good indicator that there are a lot more people who are interested in buying the same item.
You see, actually posting a wanted ad is something that takes little bit of effort. And if there are 20 people who are willing to exert that effort, then that's a pretty good indicator that there are a lot more people who want the same thing.
Now if you can find this item, put it up on eBay and sell it. This could be a gold mine.
However, it's only a gold mine if you put the auction up the right way. You see, eBay has gotten very complex. There are many mistakes that you can make when listing an auction. And there aren't many small, little tricks that you can incorporate in your auction to get more attention, more bids, and more dollars.
But this article is already pretty long. There's a lot more when it comes to successfully selling on eBay, and tips on finding items to buy. And you find all the information you need in a very easy to understand way in the Auction Informer website.
http://www.auctioninformer.com/blog
If you click on the link right now you can even get your free eBay selling reports, that take you from eBay zero to hero faster than you think.
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