ON THIS PAGE: More Than Buying Used Junk. Using eBay for Research. Using TradeMe For Research. Additional Resources. Next Tutorial.

Auction Sites Have More To Offer Than Buying Used Junk.

What better way to start a tutorial about auction sites than with a little dose of Weird Al Yankovic?

Once you’re done with his foot-tapping, poppy little tune, you might like to think about extending your competitor research to encompass auction sites such as eBay or TradeMe (New Zealand).

The decision whether you do or not may come down to your brand positioning, product and target market, nevertheless it always pays to be informed about your industry even if you have no intention of trading on eBay, Trademe (or their equivalents).

In their respective markets, both auction sites are major retail channels, and both offer a researcher information relating to product demand, sales and pricing strategies.

eBay is one of the world’s largest online trading communities. It enables trade on a local, national and international basis with local sites in numerous markets in the United States and country-specific sites in the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Japan, Korea and Australia.

By contrast, Trademe, which is owned by Australia’s Fairfax, is limited to the New Zealand market. Despite its limited geography, Trade Me has 2.5 million registered users and 5.5 million auctions listed per month.

Using eBay for Research.

eBay Australia is the 7th most popular website in Australia (Source: Alexa) and more than 80% of its traffic originates from Australia, making it a great place to undertake Australian research.

According to trafficestimate, eBay Australia received 27,730,000 visitors in the last 30 days, so that gives you a sense of how popular and big this website really is.

In the good old days, you could research anything you wanted on eBay and it didn’t cost you anything.

That’s changed now, but there’s still some research you can perform as explained in the video tutorial below.

In summary, the areas of research that can be undertaken on eBay are:

• An examination of current listings to see the level of interest and expected price points by using site search.

• A historical view of sales using the advanced search menu option and checking “Completed Listings”.

• Store research by category and name or products sold.

• Feedback that offers insight into how much is sold per month, what products are sold and at what price.

• A Power Seller symbol indicates strong sales via the eBay channel (at the minimum $2000AUD per month).

• Marketplace Research (which has now been outsourced to TeraPeak, an American research company.

Using TradeMe For Research.

TradeMe is the New Zealand equivalent of eBay.

If you are thinking about selling products in the New Zealand market, you might want to get a view of the products currently available and their price points.

TradeMe is a really good place to start.

There are essentially 5 pieces of research you can undertake at TradeMe. These are:

1. You can look at current listings.
2. You can look at stores.
3. You can review seller feedback.
4. You can search historical sales.
5. You can look at sell rates by category.

As the video tutorial shows, some store keepers don’t use good descriptions to explain the types of products they sell.

This can cause frustration due to the need to drill by category, not individual product.

Always make sure you include a good description.

There’s no point annoying a customer before they even start doing business with you.

Additional Resources.

• Terapeak – Paid research service managing eBay marketplace research.

• eBay Pulse – What’s Hot on eBay

• MedVed – eBay sell through Statistics (at category – not product – level)

• Power Sellers Unite – Forum and charts with number of listings (Membership required, free to join)

• Auction Intelligence – Paid Service from Certes (offers 2 week free trial)

• eSeller Street – Paid intelligence service (from $0.35USD per report)

• Most Watched Items on eBay – can select by category, free to use

• What Sells Best – Top categories and top bids for products by category, free to use.

• Fun Facts About eBay – Mashable

Next Tutorial.

Hot Searches – Find out what’s scalding hot online.