The Five-Minute Research Recipe
By Amy Kendall, Research Education Specialist
Over the next few weeks, we’ll talk about a lot of different ways you can use eSB Research to optimize your listings and maximize your profits. My head’s spinning just thinking about everything we’re going to cover! But I know you’re excited to see what eSB Research can do for you right now.
Well, the best research is in-depth and takes time. But luckily, research can be as quick and easy or long and in-depth as you want. So before we dive into the deeper research strategies, I’m going to show you how you can use eSB Research to get a profitable edge on eBay in five minutes or less!
Getting the eSB Research Research Edge
In the past, you could sell almost anything on eBay and make a profit. Now things have changed. With more sellers and more products out there, eBay has quickly become one of the most competitive online marketplaces.
In order to be successful, you need to gain a competitive edge. But how do you do that? Lower your prices? Offer free shipping? Double your listings? While these may work, they also cut into your bottom line.
How can you be competitive and more successful at the same time? The answer lies in knowing your market and how your product sells in that market. In other words, you get the competitive edge with eSB Research market research.
But, like I mentioned earlier, research can take a while. But after you learn this five-minute research recipe, you’ll be able to get it done in five minutes, and trust me, you have five minutes laying around somewhere!
The Key to a Good Recipe
Now, the key to a really good recipe is having a fine mixture of tasty ingredients. When it comes to your listings, these ingredients are all the things (listing options and features) that will affect the outcome of the final product and give you the competitive edge.
Getting this edge ultimately makes your listings more successful and more profitable. It’s done by selecting the key listing options (all the “ingredients” found in your research) that bring you both the highest success rate and highest selling price.
Let’s say that I had a few pairs of Nike running shoes I wanted to sell, but I don’t want to put a lot of time into researching to find the best day to end, best listing type, etc. that will give me the biggest profit. I can simply use the Findings Window in eSB Research to give me a quick glance at how to format my listing.
Figure 1: Nike Running Shoes Results
With just a quick glance, I know that I have a 54.52% chance of selling at an average sales price of $49.72. But, we don’t want to settle for the average—we want the competitive edge! So, we want to find out how we can make our listing more successful than 54% and more profitable than $49.72.
A Tasteful and Profitable Mixture
Now we don’t have much time, so we need visuals! Scroll down in the Findings report to look at the table at the bottom.
Figure 2: Nike Running Shoes Listing Options
In eSB Research, you can expand the windows as you see above by clicking on the green arrows to the left of the options. For this example, I have expanded Listing Type and Duration (that’s how long the listing lasts).
Now, to increase our Listing Success Rate (LSR) we want to use a Dutch auction. But, take a closer look at the chart. Only one auction was a Dutch auction, which sold, making the LSR 100%. But one auction isn’t a good sample, so a regular auction may be more successful.
Now how about profit? We can see that a Fixed-Price auction sells on average for $62.35, more than $12 than the average. Glancing back over to the LSR column I can see that Fixed-Price also has a high LSR, so I will probably want to go with a Fixed-Price listing.
Now look at Duration and find which duration brings you the highest LSR and ASP (average selling price).
What did you find? How long did it take you?
Do you see how quick and easy this is? With just these two examples we have already increased our chance of selling and specifically increased our sales price by more than $12. And $12 in five minutes adds up to $144 an hour. And don’t forget, this is an EXTRA $144!
Five-Minute Research Recipe
Now, you can see that in five minutes, I could look through the Findings window and cook up answer to the following questions:
- What are my chances of selling? (LSR)
- How much can I expect to make? (ASP)
- Which Listing Type will increase my ASP and LSR?
- Which Start Day and End Day will increase my ASP and LSR?
- Which End Hour will increase my ASP and LSR?
- Which Listing Duration will increase my ASP and LSR?
- What Start Price will increase my ASP and LSR?
- What key Title Keywords will increase my ASP and LSR?
- What Listing Features will increase my ASP and LSR?
Now here’s the recipe—create a smooth combination of these options and your success and sales price will be higher than the average. That’s the reason you got eSB Research, right? To sell more, make more, and to get that competitive edge! And this is exactly how you do it!
Of course, you can also get more in-depth when you’re doing research. Stay tuned to find out what eSB Research can do for you as you delve a little deeper into the data!
Make the most of your listings with research!
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- Optimal Start Price to Use
- Best Day of the Week to Start and End Your Auctions
- Seasonal Trends
- And much more!
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