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How to find the right products to sell on eBay

john dale · 2008-12-02T19:51:11+00:00

eBay is a very competitive market as I am sure many of you know. I think the best way to look for products is to clear any preconceptions about what you want to sell. I know many say to sell what you are familiar with or are interested in, but I think this is a bad way to go. You have to be a hawk. You have to sell what is wanted not what you want to sell ! Another problem I see is people looking to break into selling something that is to competitive. Like as mentioned here at SaleHoo, don't try to crack electronics or other high tech items unless you have a great connection to get them. I am constantly seeing requests here on SaleHoo for, does anyone know where I can get iPods cheap? The sooner you realize this type of product is not available to you for selling on eBay the faster you can get on with finding a good product to sell on eBay! Ipods is a dead end. So are many electronic and computer products. Here is a good research site to find products or research sales of products. terapeak.com They are a little pricey but have a 14 day trial period where you can try and cancel for a refund within 14 days if you don't want to keep the subscription. There is a vast amount of data available. You can even research 90 days of sales from sellers. You can see the amount of listings a seller had to produce to get sales; their sell through %; whether they did auction or fixed price;what time of day they listed etc... . You can even see a list of their completed listings and visit their listings on eBay. You can easily find hot/hotter and hottest items selling on eBay in real time. You can track trends for the last 2 years etc etc... . Now, what you do is find about 10 items that are hot on eBay and search for suppliers. You can do that here on Salehoo and through your own research. There are ways to check companies. I'm not going to get into that in this thread. BTY, Expect to spend not only hours doing this but days. This should take about 20 to 30 hours or more of research. Then once you find your product and supplier, expect 4 or 5 hours researching on terapeak to find how your product is sold successfully on eBay by other sellers and copy their successful habits. Then expect to spend 5 to 10 hours prepping your eBay listings to look good. ( creating a nice listing template that looks professional.) Then another 1 to 4 hours listing. Hope this helps.

haus1028

A good rule of thumb is if you can click on a so called dropshipper site and buy an item without contacting them first to set up an account, they are not a good dropshipper. Any good dropshipper will not sell to the public and it will take some work on your part to sell their products.

knagahisa

Yes, I agree with many of the members posting. It is good to find out what the top selling products are on eBay and go from there. Like any business, there are risks involved. I didn't realize that when I sold an iPhone on eBay for $1100.00 I had to pay a whopping $99 in fees. That didn't include my PayPal fees either. Crazy! I guess the cheaper the item, the less they take out in fees. When I sold another iPhone on auction from eBay at $750.00 I had to pay over $60. The fees are a lot. There are other auction sites that don't charge nearly as much as eBay.

fudjj

I'm going to totally disagree with the theory of chasing the top selling items on a site like eBay as the best place to start for new sellers. If anything, it's the best place not to start, unless you have the budget that will allow you to buy in serious volume and make serious savings on your items.

Even after that, you will need to rely on a reduced margin, high turnover business model for any sort of extended success in that genre.

It's simply saturated to the point where people are making next to nothing on sales, and spending plenty in purchasing because of the competition. Anyone with a serious budget behind them will go straight for a high turnover market, which in turn makes it hard for anyone without that type of budget to compete.

If you got the budget, then great. If you don't have the budget, the best advice is to dig a lot deeper than just the best selling top ten. The general rule of success on a site like eBay, the less money you have backing you, the deeper you have to dig to find a market where you can compete.

The term niche is a term that gets a lot of use, and these are markets that usually lay well beneath with ones in flashing neon lights. They are rarely obvious and usually require a lot of digging, but no one ever said that making a success out of e-commerce with very little or no budget to back you up was ever easy, and if they did, they were speaking pure cra*#@#@*

fm1234

The general rule of success on a site like eBay, the less money you have backing you, the deeper you have to dig to find a market where you can compete.

Should be in the header of every page of this site, and in the footer of every page of any guides and such.

People coming into this with the idea that they are simply "professional order takers" who are going to post up some eBay listings, forward orders to a dropshipper, and watch the money roll in, make up fully two-thirds or more of the people who take a stab at the business of selling online.

If you're looking for

1) Easy Work

2) Cheap Outlay

3) Fast Results

The good news is, these things are out there. The bad news is, you only get to pick one of the three, generally.

Frank

junction412

Hello!! I have just joined salehoo account. And new at selling on ebay

I've sold few things around the house to see how selling works on ebay.

Now I am facing what to sell next.

what would be a good inexpensive start up items to sell??

I been using research labs and ebay to get some ideas, but with the low budget I have it's hard to decide what.

can you please help.

richelle_salehoo1

Hi and welcome to SaleHoo junction412 :)

There are lots of things you can try selling but honestly it would be a challenge to provide you with a list of products that's guaranteed to sell. There are several factors that need to be considered, like your target market, your location, current trends, market demand and market competition and even the available suppliers for the products you will eventually decide to sell.

Remember that what might be selling for others may not necessarily sell at your end - This is where market research plays a key role! I think you will find the tips Marc shared in this Link hidden: Login to view helpful.

Also, I recommend checking out our guides under Link hidden: Login to view for some creative and free ideas on how you can find out what products will sell well!

All the best :)

all-discountz-wholesale-dropshipping

i think to find something that can be sold in ebay you must do some research using tools like terapeak,ebay pulse which can give you idea to sell good on ebay

Bingo...this is the best way to find out what may be best to sell on ebay.

imzune

same question as the title,

anyone sells on ebay of iphone cases? the profit is okay? i mean not high profit, but okay profit will be good to me, :). i wanna try on ebay

dannb

I've actually responded to this question in another thread, but I would suggest there is a lot more to learn than just where to buy your stock. Your questions do raise an alarm bell with as to your business experience.
10 grand is one thing, and yes, it will get you some decent stock deals, but you are looking at jumping into a pond with some pretty big fish, and you will want to make sure you know how best to protect you investment with some solid grounding in business.
If you just jump straight in with 10,000 it can vanish right in front of your eyes if you don't know what you're doing.

nicksrb118_2

The general rule of success on a site like eBay, the less money you have backing you, the deeper you have to dig to find a market where you can compete.

Should be in the header of every page of this site, and in the footer of every page of any guides and such.

If you're looking for

1) Easy Work

2) Cheap Outlay

3) Fast Results

The good news is, these things are out there. The bad news is, you only get to pick one of the three, generally.

Frank

So What I want to ask after reading this is, what wise words would you say to someone who has determination and is eager to start getting things rolling with their new e commerce business... ?

eh932011

Hi,

I've been trying to sell some items on ebay and can't seem to sell anything yet. I get a few watchers, but not sure if I'm posting right? What I'm selling is American Made In USA Military Flag Display Cases through Link hidden: Login to view. I found them through SaleHoo and have been very happy with the customer service, but can't seem to sell their products yet. I need to find something else I can sell on ebay to make some money, but not sure what? I haven't found my niche yet. I'm new at this and don't know if I'm doing this right?

I need some advice and help getting started. Any advice or suggestions? I appreciate anything right now.

Thank you,

Erin Hester

Link hidden: Login to view

eh932011

Hi Richelle,

I'm a member of SaleHoo and looked at your post here. You had several dropship websites to choose from. I too am looking for reliable decent dropshippers I could look into to help me sell on ebay. Are these websites and companies screened out by SaleHoo and are they good ones to work with?

Thank you,

Erin Hester

Link hidden: Login to view

Hello sherymedo3603,
I'm glad to have been of help :)
Dropshipping won't really help you earn more profits than what you can earn from buying through wholesale or liquidations.
But I want to be of help so here are dropshippers that might have what you are looking for -
Women's Shoes -
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Women's Handbags -
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Fragrances and Make-up
Link hidden: Login to view ... 19141.html
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Hope this helps, please let us know how you get on.
All the best!

shadeenterprise.tm

Hi Marc, You said that if you sell popular items there is too much competition and if you sell specific items that they don't have much around, you can get more sales. But what if you didn't focus on any item in particular? What if you just listed every single item from every single drop-shipper on salehoo. Then you can land on profitable items and not so profitable items.without having to do any market research.Plus you have the opportunity to sell on tons of different markets and besides wallmart is one of the most profitable businesses out there and they sell almost everything out there.

fm1234

posted by shaeenterprise.tm:

What if you just listed every single item from every single drop-shipper on salehoo. Then you can land on profitable items and not so profitable items.without having to do any market research.

But that itself would be research, extremely time-consuming and expensive research at that.

wallmart is one of the most profitable businesses out there

Wal-Mart's financial statements indicate a 5.5% pre-tax profit. While more than the average for big box stores, contrary to popular belief WM and the other BBs are not exactly swimming in pools filled with cash -- the overall high income that (some of them) make are a product of high volume, not high profits.

Just saying that trying to emulate the WM/BB business model without starting at the base of it -- massive upfront capital, teams of experts, decades of trial-and-error research, a global network of sourcers, shippers and so forth -- may not be the best plan.

Frank

fudjj

Hi Marc, You said that if you sell popular items there is too much competition and if you sell specific items that they don't have much around, you can get more sales. But what if you didn't focus on any item in particular? What if you just listed every single item from every single drop-shipper on salehoo. Then you can land on profitable items and not so profitable items.without having to do any market research.Plus you have the opportunity to sell on tons of different markets and besides wallmart is one of the most profitable businesses out there and they sell almost everything out there.

Hi Noah,

Certainly too much competition in the hottest selling items category, especially for dropshippers. As Frank has touched on, the biggest issue with that strategy is time and expense. That's a lot of listing fees and they will add up quite quickly. Now I'm not saying that's not a legit strategy, in fact volume listing is an option, but I would suggest there should still some research involved to make sure the items you do list are based on some sort of merit.

If you just go crazy and blind list everything, then the chances are that you'll get sales, but the chances also are that what ever you'll make will be given, plus much more to cover eBay fees.

I will say this, if volume listing is the strategy you choose, researched or not, you should consider an eBay store platform to at least get reduced fees.

shadeenterprise.tm

Thanks Marc

quinnline24

I have had a hard time trying to find a niche. I can't think of anything. Since I can't think of a good idea that will sell, I can't use the market research tool. I mean you have to type in a product or niche to analyze when I need the opposite. I need the output to be a niche or idea for a product.

fudjj

Hi Heather, you're right. the research tool can only provide market results on data entered. It can't unfortunately give ideas out of fresh air lol, although we're working on a thought generator currently, so watch out for that one lol (joke everyone, no thought generator on the way)

It is really hard to think of a niche and to be honest, most people just stumble on niche products through good fortune. For example, someone walking around at a weekend market finds some had made jewellery. They buy a few pieces and being hand made, they are unique, but even more unique than the buyer suspects.

They list them, buyers love them and BAM, you have a niche product on your hands.

So that's just an example, but that's really how a niche product is developed. From there the buyer then has to work out how to make sure they are the only ones selling the jewellery. Do that and you then create a niche market for yourself.

So my suggestion would be to not focus on finding a niche, that's far too limiting. Let your imagination flow. Get out and about, see what's around and go from there.

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