Product research
Finding what sells on eBay from the record, not a guess
Whether a product really sells is written in eBay's sold listings. How to read them, how to work out a sell-through rate, what to look at in a competing store, and how to do it without hours of scrolling.
Before you list a product, the first question is simple: does it sell on eBay? The most reliable answer is eBay's own record, its sold listings. How many people watch a listing, how many put it in their cart or what its title claims doesn't show a sale; a sold listing does.
What sold listings tell you
eBay shows sold listings for about 90 days. In that window you see how many units a product sold, at what price, and how the sales spread over time. If a product spiked for a single week and then stopped, that's written there too.
- Units sold: whether the product really finds buyers.
- Sale price: whether the price you want to list at is realistic.
- Spread over time: whether sales are steady or a one-off wave.
How to look by hand
You don't need an account or a paid tool to see sold listings. Search for the product on eBay and tick "Sold items" in the filters on the results page. The list comes in order of sale date; green prices sold outright, crossed-out prices closed with an offer.
- Search the same product with two or three different phrases; sellers call the same item different things.
- Filter by condition (new, used) and location (US only), so the sales you compare are like the one you'd make.
- Look at the middle of the prices, not the bottom; one discounted sale doesn't make a market.
Sell-through rate: demand next to competition
Units sold alone is half the picture: if a hundred sellers list a best seller at once, your share is small. The quick way to see this is the sell-through rate: divide the listings sold in a period by the listings sold plus those still open.
Example: with 45 sold listings in the last 90 days and 30 open listings today, the sell-through rate is 45 / (45 + 30) = 60%. The higher it is, the faster buyers use up the sellers; a very low rate tells you the shelves are full.
Reading a competing store
Do the same for a whole store and the picture becomes clear: you see which products the store really sells and which just sit on the shelf. A good store read answers four questions:
- Are sales piled on a few products, or spread over hundreds?
- What price range do the products that sell cluster in?
- Which categories are the store's real business, and which are window dressing?
- Do newly added products sell, or does revenue come from old ones?
The trouble is that opening a store with thousands of listings page by page and noting down the units sold takes hours, and if you stop halfway you start again. SellerLibrary's store research does this for you: the Chrome extension reads the store's listings and sales history, products are ranked by units sold, and revenue is summed up by month. If the scan stops, it picks up where it left off.
What to watch out for
- Listings with variations: sales of a listing with color or size options are added up under one product; look at which variant sells.
- Older sales: sales older than 90 days aren't shown; a yearly figure is always an estimate and should be read as one.
- One-off waves: a seasonal product can sell a lot in a short time and then stop; look at how the sales spread over time.
- Price spread: if the same product sells at very different prices, the lowest one sets the market; your price should be near it.
- Protected brands: a best seller's brand may restrict who sells it; check eBay's VeRO program before you list.
A short check before you list
- Has it sold steadily in the last 90 days?
- Is the sell-through rate high enough to be worth the competition?
- Once fees and cost come out of the sale price, is anything left for you?
- Can you ship it from your own stock or an agreed supplier?
Units sold prove demand, not profit. Once you've found a product that sells, the next step is to count in its cost and eBay's fees and see what you keep; the post on eBay fees walks through it.
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