It isn’t enough that you find your niche and expect to be successful in selling your items on eBay. For example, you may realize that you can knit multi-colored socks and you can be very good at it. You may be the best person who can create multi-colored socks. The question is: Is there a market for it?

In my case, it was purely accidental that I found my niche by listing items that I already owned. I found out what fetched the highest price and what didn’t sell from my CD and DVD collection. The DVDs that I concentrated in buying and selling at a later time, were the ones that belonged to a specific genre because I found that there was a high-demand for it. Even with the specific genre, collectors would also put a cap on the purchase price and the profit margin could be limited in that way.

If I buy a DVD that I THINK would sell, I should be asking myself are:

1. How much would it sell for?
2. What’s the minimum and maximum price would I get for it?
   1. If I sold the DVD at the minimum price, would I still break even ( less all eBay and Paypal fees including the time you spend listing the items)?
   2. What if I sold all the DVDs a the minimum price, is it worth the trouble?
3. What is the maximum amount buyers would pay for the item?
4. Who are my competitors?

If you cannot answer these questions before you purchase items you would like to sell, you maybe positioning your business for failure. I knew a guy who purchased ethnic bracelets and necklaces because “they look great” without researching if there is a market for it. Yes, the jewelry collection looked great and it could sell but without answering the questions above - how would you know if there is a market for it?

After selling a great amount of DVDs and CDs, I wanted to diversify. The market can shift in an instant and if I didn’t diversify, I could be listing the same items over and over again when the “market need” for my items had elapsed. That would not be where you want to end up.

There is a tool that I used almost religiously as I look for products or items to sell and eBay provides it to you for free? It is called the “Advanced Search” feature. If you would like to see if there is a market for jewelry, this tool can provide you information that would likely go unnoticed to an unseasoned seller. Whenever I think of a product, I will use the Advanced Search feature and search for the item using specific keywords I believe sellers would use to list their items. In the same search tool, I would click on “Completed Items”. The result will provide me the product, how much the product sold in the past (read: How much are people willing to pay for it.) , determine if the product sold as a fixed “Buy-it-Now” price or was it through an Auction style listing. What is the result telling you?

• The minimum price
• The maximum price
• Fixed price or Auction
• The demand
• Your competitors
  • Pricing strategy
  • Shipping and handling costs
  • Product Description (It’s all about description)
  • Search keywords used

Without this study, you may start listing your items and find that you cannot sell them. Why? Either you are pricing your items too high or there is no demand for the product. If there is a demand, you may not be competitive enough against other sellers. Why would a buyer purchase a product from you for 8.99USD when the other seller is selling it for 4.99USD? Unless your market separator is about quality ( Designer key chain versus a non-designer key chain ), you should be as competitive as you possibly can without losing your capital.

For this series, I want you to try the Advanced Search feature on eBay.

• Think of a product that you believe would sell on eBay.
• Search for that product using the Advanced Search feature, and make sure you click on Completed Items.

Did the result provide you the information you would need to determine pricing, market demand and competitors?

Would you still sell that item on eBay according to the search results?

We will be talking about “Follow eBay’s Terms of Service” on our Part 3 of the Ebay and Paypal series.

Until then…

Gobble Gobble!

Pro Gobbler










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