Do You Know What Your Buyers Want?
Written by Kelley Hopper on January 6th, 2010I’ve been reading on some of the e-commerce forums that for many, sales have slowed to a snail’s pace. They blame the venue, they blame the policies, they blame the buyers, they blame other sellers but they never consider the fact that the market has shifted and their items are no longer wanted. How do you know what buyers want? You do research.
One of the simplest ways to find out what buyers want is to go to the Want It Now section of eBay. This is an under used area for sellers to find out what buyers are looking for. You can search by keyword or you can search by category and you will find thousands of people looking for stuff.
I was browsing the Want It Now items tonight and found people looking for holiday dinnerware they had at Target, a vintage set of china that I actually just saw for sale at a local thrift store and soap from Trader Joe’s. I even saw an ad for a guy looking for firewood close to his location. Remember, not every one lives near large stores and many times the items they want are new or nearly new and available to you locally.
I look at the Want It Now items at least once a week just to see if someone is looking for something I haven’t listed or something that I own that I hadn’t even considered selling before. Since I sell a lot of china and silverware those are the categories I focus on.
After you have browsed the Want It Now, head over to eBay Pulse. This is where the most searched for and most watched items are featured. You can see what buyers are looking for by category.
You may have a specific category you sell in and you just want to know what is selling. Do a search for the item on eBay then click on completed listings in the lower left hand column and you can sort the completed listings and see which items sold and for how much. I use this monthly to determine which china manufacturers and patterns are selling for the most money then these are the ones I search out on Craigslist and other local venues. I have learned more about fine china values by doing this than reading any book.
For Amazon sellers, you can download a Pre-Order report from your seller account. This report for hard-to-find and out-of-stock items that have already been released but are not currently listed by any Amazon sellers. Buyers can choose to pre-order an item and set a dead line date. The buyer can also select the condition of the item they want to buy. This is a great resource for book and music sellers to find out what their customers are looking for.
The market changes and the items that sold for $50 yesterday aren’t even bringing in $10 today. Maybe the market got saturated, maybe the holiday season ended or maybe technology has changed. Whatever the reason, if you don’t constantly do your research you may be sitting high and dry until the next wave hits. Don’t get stuck in the “this is what I sell” mindset. Explore your options and expand your horizons. Change is good and necessary for the marketplace to continue to grow and you have to be willing to change with it or be left behind.
Sales haven’t slowed for all sellers, just those who are selling the wrong thing at the wrong time.
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Tags: research, what buyers want, what to sell, where to find inventory
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