The 4 Step Method for Selecting the hottest selling items on eBay.
If you want to know what is the best selling items on eBay right now there are some great tools to help you with this. My favorite is Auction inspector, but it cost money. Some good ones are free, such as eBay Pulse, and eBay Trends. The best selling are not the most profitable, in my humble opinion.
There are plenty of people on eBay who simply sell whatever it is they can buy cheap – one week it might be dog leads, the next it could be computer mice. What ever they find that sells well.
They don’t specialize in any one market, and whilst they may still make some money, they are not building a business that will benefit from being a specialist for a certain group of customers. Jumping on the latest hottest selling items on eBay may not be the best course of action for building a long term business.
If you were to specialize in one niche and truly get to know your products and your customer, you would write better listings and be seen an expert. Be the go to guy for a loyal group of buyers. Know your customer and provide them with what they are seeking at the right price.
When you are seen as an expert in a niche market, and gain what come with that distinction, trust and loyalty, you will enjoy the benefits of repeat business.
So if I have convinced you to specialize in a niche market; let’s discuss the 4 steps you should take to make certain that it’s going to be a profitable market to tap into for the long run. The key is to find the right combination of whats hot right now and what will bring repeat buyers.
1) Less competition- Many self proclaimed eBay experts will teach you to find the trends of whats moving right now and jump on the band wagon, and sell only those items.
Truthfully this is the worst thing that you could do. Sure there are some products so in demand that they fly of the “rack” but the competition is just too great for you to get in there and profit. The big eBay power seller will beat you on price because they buy in much larger quantity. They have the leverage that you won’t at first.
If you are in a market where you struggle with a competitive price, it will be nearly imposable to establish yourself as a specialist or the go to guy. You won’t find a profitable market that has no competitors, look for one with less competition when you are starting out.
Look through eBay’s categories and make a note of those that with fewer listings. It doesn’t mean they will all be profitable (we’ll look at that next) but it does mean it will be easier to establish yourself.
As you do this, try to focus on areas of interest for you, or that you have first hand knowledge of. This will be a big help getting you started, and make selling more enjoyable.
2) Passionate buyers ready to buy- A small or medium size market with less seller will help you get in the game but make we need to make sure you will have customer’s that will part with their cash.
The best costumers are those with a passion for a product or line of products, or people who have a problem they need to solve.
Collectors and hobbyist are passionate buyers. Needy buyers are those that have problems that need to be corrected, like mold on the roof of their house.
What you want to see is items selling well for both the auction and Buy It Now formats – then you know you have customers that spend money.
3) Multiple, linked products – Next, you want to understand the potential of the niche you are looking at.
If you are in a market that consists of only one product that sells well, and a lot of people are selling it, you are not going to be any better off than the eBayers that jumps from one product to another, what ever they find that they can source cheaply.
What we are looking for is a profitable market, not just a hot selling product. We want a market that has a lot of different items in it all linked together some how.
It’s better to sell multiple products in a market, and when you sell one product, there is a chance that you sell others, that are complementary to the first. (Someone looking for oil paint may buy artist brushes too)
Sell a lot of different but related products, know you wares well, ship fast an earn the reputation as the go to person in that market.
This little bit of lateral thinking will pay off when you are considering what niche to go into.
4) Reliable suppliers – O.K. you have found your niche market, and know what to sell and know it will sell; now you have to buy your product. Now we need to source the product for a price that will make us a healthy profit.
You might have to do a little work on this part. If it were easy to find suppliers for the market you have chosen you would probably find that many people were already exploiting it.
You will have to sort past the first few pages on your search engine, to find the best supplier, then in turn research each and every one to insure that they are legitimate.
You will want to speak directly to the products source, the manufacturer. Perhaps they wll sell to you directly if not get their list of authorized wholesale distributors.
The harder it is to find a supplier for your chosen market the better it will be for you, the market will probably be more profitable, and it’s more likely you will be the “go-to” person in that niche.
Finding the perfect product to sell on eBay will take some work, but get this right and you can profit wildely from you eBay auctions.
Instead of just following the crowd and selling whats hot today, take these for steps and build a business. The rewards will be much greater.
The hottest selling items on eBay today may not move at all in few months.
Stay ahead of the crowd, of other sellers, sign up for Google alerts and receive news about you niche market sent to your in box every day.