There are thousands of possibilities for things to sell on eBay. The question is how to learn which items shoppers want. This article outlines multiple approaches to finding products in demand.
eBay is probably not the site you first think of for selling handmade items. But before Etsy lured thousands of handmade sellers away with lower fees, eBay was the largest online market to list handcrafted pieces. eBay may still be an option for some makers, depending on what you make.
The following search results were for a recent (to the time of this article) search looking for the demand for “dog clothes” on eBay.
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Search term: “dog clothes”
Filters: “sold items”
Results: over 32,468 listings sold
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Here’s how to find any kind of items selling on eBay and how much they sold for.
On the left side of the page, under “categories”, select “crafts”, then look for and click on “handcrafted & finished pieces.” Then look for “preferences” and choose “completed listings.”
On the right side of the results page are completed auction listings of products.
Sort the listings by choosing “price: highest first.” Look for: (1) products that are selling, (2) number of bids—this shows whether people are eager to buy these crafts, (3) price—shows the highest bid or how much people will pay.
The examples above were for handmade items made from repurposed materials. But you could follow the same research steps to discover the demand and the average highest price paid on eBay for any product you can think of.
More Online Places to Sell Things
Besides eBay, here are several other sites worth exploring for learning what kind of items are in demand:
www.etsyrank.com. ERank (formerly EtsyRank) is a subscription service that lets you quickly assess competition of your keywords and products. Type in words closely describing your item and it will return related keywords and the top sellers and their prices.
www.marmalead.com. Marmalead, like Erank, is a subscription service providing similar analytics of Etsy keywords, sales, and prices.
www.sundancecatalog.com. Sundance Catalog is among the most popular mail-order catalogs featuring handmade items. They mail copies to millions of shoppers. Unfortunately, for the craft artist, catalogs want items priced that they can mark up at least four times.
www.artfulhome.com. If you want to sell to interior designers, this is a great site to check prices on. Some pieces listed here sell for thousands of dollars.
www.faire.com. A major site allowing handmakers a way to offer their product lines to wholesale buyers. To help store buyers, Faire also shows what items are bestsellers or in their words, products “flying off the shelf.”
www.indieme.com. Like Faire, this site lists craft items for sale to wholesale buyers like stores and galleries. Although it won’t tell you what items are selling, it will give you an idea of prices other makers are asking.
www.amazon.com/handmade. Amazon Handmade shows a variety of handmade products. For insights into average market prices, look for product listings (of items like yours) with reviews. The more reviews, the more an item has sold, therefore the price must be right.
In a hurry to start selling on Ebay, check out the video below for 5 ideas of things to sell on eBay.