What’s Selling, What’s Hot and How to Find It

Are you searching for the next trendy gadget to sell at your online store? Many people are looking to catch lightning in a bottle, but locating trends in the marketplace requires thought, research and analysis.

Find Clues to New Trends

There are resources for online entrepreneurs who are searching for products to sell, but the next big thing might be right under your nose according to Lisa Suttora, founder and CEO of WhatDoISell.com™ and co-author of What to Sell On eBay and Where to Get It.

"To find clues to new trends, you need to get out in the world and begin looking and listening in order to learn what people are thinking and doing," Suttora said. "It's a process of gathering clues to new niches and putting together pieces of the puzzle. It's about connecting the dots to things. You start seeing opportunities everywhere.

Turn On Your Radar

In her book as well as during free, online eBay forums and at workshops, Suttora counsels business owners to turn on their radar and develop the "Product Sourcing Mindset™" (a term trademarked by Suttora). She advises etailers to put everything they encounter in a day's time through a product-sourcing filter.

When you're reading a newspaper, sitting in a dentist's office looking at old magazines, walking down the aisle at a grocery store or watching your child play soccer, study your surroundings and be open to new ideas and new trends. When you observe something, write it down in what she calls a "Product Sourcing Notebook™" (another term she trademarked). This is simply a small, portable notebook where you can write down ideas. For you high-tech types, a PDA will suffice; just write it down.

"You should always be looking at products and ways to add to your product line, but do it in the routine of daily activity," Suttora said. Many people, she said, try to think of new products to sell by plopping in front of their computer and plowing through search engines. According to Suttora, you'll have greater success if you turn outward and begin evaluating what's happening around you.

In her book, she outlines many free ideas to help identify new products and trends in the marketplace. Some of the things she suggests for creative online product-sourcing strategies include:

Sign up for Google Alerts for a particular topic. When a new story is released in your area of interest, and the search engine captures the story, it will be emailed to you.

Watch television programs and be attuned to other media within your niche. If you have an online site with home and garden products, you should be watching Home and Garden Television or DIY Network on a regular basis. When you see new products featured, take note. There's a good chance they will be hot sales items.

Sign up for free newsletters from trade associations in your niche market as they are full of new trends in the industry.

Suttora says "Idea Hotspots™," like trade shows, trade organizations, magazines, consumer catalogs and newspapers, are resources where people can get an unending supply of product-sourcing ideas. Once you've narrowed down products that you are interested in selling, you'll be well served to capture as much quantifiable data on the product and the marketplace that you can. That's where a company like Terapeak comes in.

Find Easy-to-access Market Research

Terapeak is an eBay Certified Service Provider that offers in-depth, easy-to-access market research. Do you want to know if sewing thread is moving on eBay? Terapeak showcases a tremendous amount of data, including: average sales price; average starting price; average listing duration; quantities sold on each day of the week; whether it was more successfully sold at a bid auction, fixed price or multi-item; if a bold listing moved the product more quickly, etc. You can see there was $12,470 of thread sold on eBay on Tuesday, May 2 on 1,069 listings and $15,187 in sales on 1,340 listings on Sunday, April 30.

A particularly handy feature is the "sell-through rate," which tells business owners the percentage of listed products sold. (In case you're wondering, 47 percent of listed threads were sold on May 2 compared to 27 percent of the 1,558 listings of black iPod Nanos on the same date.)

Evaluate Opportunities

"Terapeak can help an online entrepreneur evaluate an opportunity and the potential of that niche," said David Frey, Brand Manager for Terapeak. "It lets you get in and see the trends and do the research. By combining Terapeak data with what's going on in the real world, businesses can make an educated decision on products."

Terapeak analyzes eBay's data and packages it as an easy-to-understand tool for people looking for product trends. Its graphing option allows entrepreneurs to take a longitudinal view of sales activity so they can closely monitor where the item is in its product cycle.

Frey said their "Hot List" is one of the site's more popular offerings.

There is a $16.95 monthly fee for the service. Its data covers 100 percent of the traffic on eBay outside of eBay Motors and Real Estate. Like Terapeak, eBay itself also sells marketplace data and provides three tiers of pricing options. The general data is the same as Terapeak's, but it's not presented in the same form. Terapeak also includes features like its "Hot List."

To make it in the highly competitive online marketplace, a successful merchant must employ various tools to ensure success. Some, like Suttora noted, are free, and others are paid resources.

Woman sues eBay over rights to sell the sun

Maria Duran has owned the sun for about five years now. She filed a claim with a Spanish notary office in 2010, after which she attempted to bill people who use solar power. Her claim was recognized by the Spanish courts because Spain is a country where logic and sense don't exist. While she has been unable to collect any fees or payments, she has still been generously allowing millions of people around the world to use her giant gas ball for energy an yway.

That generosity has run out for eBay, however. She is now suing the online retailer over their removal of her listings on the site selling small plots of the sun, citing it as an "intangible good." According to a June 9 AOL News report, she was getting about a dollar US per square meter of land on the sun.

The suit is expected to move forward sometime in July, with Duran asking for $11,000 in damages. She had already sold hundreds of plots since listing them on her account a couple of years ago. However, in a callous display of corporate heartlessness, eBay shut her down.

They claim that she can't sell plots of land on the sun, partially because there is no land on the sun, but also because there is no way for anybody to actually collect their purchase--yet. Their intangible goods policy precludes anyone from selling things that don't actually exist, nor things that someone doesn't have a claim to.

Duran does have a legal claim to the sun, however. Under Spanish law her claim of ownership has stood for several years with very little challenge, and she claims to have the right to do so for a variety of reasons. First, since companies are able to profit from other natural resources such as wind and water, why shouldn't she do the same for the sun? Additionally, thanks to loopholes in United Nations treaties, an individual has the right to claim ownership where a government or corporations could not.

eBay doesn't care about any of that, however. Rather than recognize her totally legal and reasonable claims, they have decided to arbitrarily protect their customers and the integrity of their site. It's not like she had ever made any other ridiculous claims of ownership and attempted to charge people for using them. We're pretty sure she totally had a legitimate claim when she copyrighted the 1932 book Call of Tarzan, or that time she tried to start her own religion. Those aren't the actions of a con artist nor a profiteer, just a reasonable woman who is trying to protect her interests.

Sold on eBay

PHILADELPHIA – Her arms draped in Hermes Birkin handbags that retail for $13,000 each, a laughing Linda Lightman had to confess: She doesn't own a single one herself.

"But they're coveted by many," she added with considerable appreciation.

Such longing will translate into $25 million in sales this year for Linda's Stuff, the online luxury-consignment business Lightman started 15 years ago.

At eBay, where a projected $83 billion in gross merchandise value was transacted last year, Linda's Stuff is considered a superstar. It lists about 140,000 unique items daily, the best of which are also offered at shoplindasstuff.com.

"Their business has basically grown up on eBay," said Jon Kuhlmann, enterprise and strategic account manager for the online-shopping kingdom. "Their dedication to customers and the selection they offer is tremendous."

The family company – Lightman's husband, Fred, is president, and the older of their two sons, Max, is vice president of business development – has a workforce of 110 (average age 25, starting at $10 an hour). After five expansions since 2007, Linda's Stuff now occupies 93,000 square feet at its Philadelphia-area base.

Highly organized hoarding: That was my initial reaction once inside. Rows of stacked blue-plastic Sterilite storage bins containing pre-owned handbags, clothing and jewelry, and some home decor, seemed to go on forever. What wasn't in bins was in cardboard boxes or on hanging racks and shelves. There was a photography area, and spots for appraisals, listings and returns.

About 2,000 items are shipped to buyers daily. UPS delivers hundreds of boxes a day from the 22,000 consignors who sell through Linda's Stuff. Sophisticated software enables them to track their goods, for which they receive 62 percent of sales under $1,000, 75 percent for sales up to $5,000, and 80 percent for anything above that.

Consignors are assessed no fees. Linda's Stuff covers the cost of shipping, except internationally, and absorbs eBay costs – generally a 9 percent fee for clothing, shoes, and accessories.

Linda's Stuff's headquarters is so big, said Laura Weglinski, photography manager and Fitbit wearer, she usually has logged 10,000 steps by 3 p.m.

This selling behemoth began with the most modest intentions: Lightman, who practiced labor and employment law until 1991, was looking to sell her sons' video games.

"I got hooked," she said. "When our video games ran out, I started selling my clothes."

First, she had to teach herself how to use a digital camera. With no studio lighting, she opted for natural light, photographing her clothes outside, spread on patio furniture.

Soon, friends started asking her to sell their things. In 2003, she hired her first employees.

A home-based stock trader, Fred Lightman would help with shipping after the markets closed. By 2005, with Linda's Stuff steadily growing, he quit his job to focus on his wife's.

"I was scared," recalled Linda Lightman, 53. "It was a very weird feeling for me. The stuff I'm selling on eBay is going to support our family? It wasn't a leap I took lightly."

In retrospect, it was a no-brainer. "Your audience is the world," she said. Currently, about 35 percent of her sales are international.

Marni Isaacs of Los Angeles has been consigning with Linda's Stuff for more than five years because, she said, it pays the best in the industry and because Lightman is "a very dedicated and personal business woman."

With annual sales close to $2 million in 2007, the Lightmans moved the business out of their home, where it had consumed just about every room. To Max's annoyance, that included his bedroom.

"Girls were sitting in my room watching soap operas and listing," said the 24-year-old graduate of George Washington University, who now can't get enough of the business.

Linda's Stuff moved to its current locale in February 2014, taking on additional space twice since then.

"Until we moved to this office, we were always hamstrung by our size," said Fred, 56. "This is now the first time we have enough space to grow. Our sales will continue to go up just organically because we can list more items."

In the last couple months, they listed more new items than used, the result of a new trend: retailers turning to Linda's Stuff to sell leftover inventory.

The mother who set out to unload some video games now is in demand for TV appearances and lectures to business-school classes. And astounded by it all.

"This," she marveled, "was in my kitchen."

Terapeak launches free eBay analytics app

eBay and Amazon analytics company Terapeak has updated its eBay analytics dashboard and launched a new free app that can help sellers understand their sales better.

Sellers can now analyze web traffic and sales performance by category, marketplace and revenue, as well as examine the performance of individual listings.

The dashboard looks pretty good (check out the screengrab below) and allows sellers to get a glimpse of valuable selling data. To find out more on the Terapeak site, visit this page.

Kevin North, CEO of Terapeak says: "We invested heavily into our Listing Analytics product because merchants who have access to critical performance dashboards will understand how to better navigate eBay, make better decisions, and ultimately improve their sales. With its ability to now aggregate multiple performance metrics, the new dashboard promises to be an indispensable free tool for every seller."

There's nothing to lose with a free trial like this so we recommend that you take a look.

Terapeak's Listing Analytics App Upgraded With New Dashboard to Help eBay Sellers Grow Sales

-- Free Terapeak-Powered App Now Provides Multiple Measurements of Merchant Performance

TORONTO, June 4, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Terapeak, a leading source for analyzing, understanding and predicting consumer and product behavior in ecommerce, today announced a major upgrade to its free eBay Listing Analytics tool that now gives sellers a top-down view of their sales performance from a single dashboard housed in eBay's 3rd party Applications tab.  Since introducing Listing Analytics four years ago, it has become the #1 free app in the eBay app store with more than 2.5 million users.  Its new dashboard for eBay sellers, also built and powered by Terapeak, provides immediate insights into a seller's listing performance over specified time periods. Sellers can analyze web traffic and sales performance by category, marketplace and revenue, as well as isolate individual listings, allowing them to identify the best opportunities to grow their sales.

Listing Analytics users can now visually track their traffic and sales trends with a graphical overview of total impressions, clicks, sales and daily selling price for all eBay marketplaces in which they participate. The dashboard also displays the increase or decrease in sales and revenue over selected time periods, the percentage of impressions that led to clicks, and the percentage of clicks that converted to sales.

From this summary view, sellers can drill down using any variable or date range to explore the underlying details, compare listings or sales results over time, and identify the causes of performance changes in any area. Individual listings in each category can be sorted by factors ranging from the number of impressions, clicks or sales to price and other listing attributes to facilitate analysis.

Users also have the option to optimize any listing with a paid service that can be accessed with a click from each individual listing. The service will instantly identify changes that should be made to the listing category, title, description, image, price or other elements, based on analytics that dissect eBay traffic and transaction patterns, and automatically update the listing upon receiving seller approval.  With this feature, sellers can analyze their web traffic, assess their marketplace performance, and both improve and update their listings with a single integrated tool.

"Terapeak has been working with eBay for over 10 years, and we believe that it's still the best marketplace in the world for new merchants entering e-commerce," said Kevin North, CEO of Terapeak, which was the first authorized analytics provider of eBay market data. "We invested heavily into our Listing Analytics product because merchants who have access to critical performance dashboards will understand how to better navigate eBay, make better decisions, and ultimately improve their sales.  With its ability to now aggregate multiple performance metrics, the new dashboard promises to be an indispensable free tool for every seller."

To try the new Listing Analytics tool, visit: http://tinyurl.com/qfflex3

About TerapeakTerapeak is the leading source for analyzing, understanding and predicting consumer and product behavior in ecommerce. Terapeak analyzes more than 4.6 billion transactions per year and over $70 billion in online consumer spending to provide marketplace intelligence to clients ranging from entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 companies.  Ecommerce merchants use Terapeak's online analytics platform to evaluate pricing, sourcing opportunities, market trends, product behavior across regions and their competition.  Terapeak provides marketplace analytics on eBay, Amazon.com and Yahoo! Japan, and merchants can view their own sales performance across multiple channels through Terapeak's MySales product. Founded in 2004, Terapeak's U.S. headquarters are in Palo Alto, CA. Learn more at http://www.terapeak.com.

SOURCE Terapeak

RELATED LINKShttp://www.terapeak.com

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