Founded in 1995, eBay has become one of the most popular eCommerce websites offering customer-to-customer and business-to-customer marketplaces only second to Amazon. In the last decades eBay transitioned from providing an online auction platform towards an eCommerce website with fixed-price listings. In late 2016, 87% of eBay’s gross merchandise volume (GMV) came from fixed-price listings underlining the change eBay made in the past years. With more than 1.5 billion product listings worldwide and 171 million active users, eBay is one of Amazon’s biggest competitors in the US and worldwide. It’s main advantage is its global reach, supporting websites in 27 countries and reaching consumers in over 190 markets worldwide.
eBay US is the second largest marketplace for US sellers behind Amazon. In 2017, the GMV of eBay US was a staggering $36.28 billion, growing at 5% compared to 2016 and is expected to grow in 2018 at a similar rate.
Algopix’s eBay US product research
On average there are over 450 product listings per eBay seller making the marketplace one of the most competitive in the world. Additionally, when searching for a product, there are multiple identical listings on the search result page. eBay’s way of displaying products on their search result page is about to change but in the meantime, it stays cluttered so it is hard for sellers to position their listings to potential customers. While optimizing your product listings can help you rank higher on the search result page, it’s effects on your business can be limited if you’re not under the first three results. This makes assessing the competition level for a new product a crucial task. Algopix’s eBay US product research provides you with an indicator for the competition level so you don’t have to worry about any negative consequences.
eBay US seller fees
eBay charges different fees for allowing one to sell on their marketplaces. Besides taxes that need to be paid (depending on your buyer’s location), there are Final Value Fees (FVF), PayPal fees, and Fixed Price Insertion Fees. To make it even more confusing, fees will vary depending on if you have an eBay store or not. Not having you own eBay store will put you in an inferior position if you want to compete with eBay’s top sellers, of whom 91% run an eBay store.
Algopix’s eBay US product research tool provides you with a detailed analysis of any expenses related to selling a specific product on eBay so you can have the full overview over what you pay. Algopix even gives you the option to choose whether you use Multi-Channel Fulfillment or traditional shipping carriers for your orders. This allows Algopix’s eBay US seller tool to calculate different expense scenarios for you and additionally, will provide you with an estimated profit margin enabling you to keep the overview and make fast, informed business decisions.
Good inventory management starts with the right product sourcing decision
It is easy to buy products to sell on eBay but itis hard to sell these products in a timely manner. Many eBay sellers have deadstock in their storage because they did not have perfect information when deciding on a product. This deadstock is not only a financial loss, but also blocks storage space for other, probably more profitable products you could sell. Algopix’s eBay US market research offers valuable insights into all relevant aspects related to sourcing new products. Besides a demand and competition level indicator, it provides you with a detailed expenses analysis, calculates your profit margin, the sales volume and gross merchandise volume in the past month, and gives a recommendation on a product. The best thing: It can do so for 14 different markets all over the world.
eBay offers a global network of marketplaces, that should be used to its fullest by more eBay sellers
eBay’s marketplaces are home to customers from 190 different markets worldwide. eBay US is still the largest marketplace;however, over 60% of eBay’s marketplace revenue comes from non-US countries. Given these facts, discovering new promising markets outside the US is not only a luxury, but an integral part of growing your eCommerce business. Assessing market opportunities is never easy because lots of questions need to be answered before being able to make a commitment to new markets. Tax-related topics, as well as every question about the demand level and sales volume in international markets are not clear enough to make an easy decision.
A variety of Algopix’s features can give you the support you need to form an opinion on a market’s profitability. Algopix’s competition level indicator gives you a rough idea about a marketplace’s competitive landscape. The new Sales Estimator feature answers questions surrounding a products demand level in the form of outputs for a product’s sales volume and gross merchandise volume in the past month which enables you to obtain valuable insights into a market’s dynamic. Lastly, Algopix’s full expenses analysis offers you detailed information about taxes, shipping fees, and other marketplace fees related to selling a product in a selected market.
Algopix’s eBay US marketplace research
With sellers on eBay offering hundreds of products, you won’t succeed with just a handful of products in your store. But sourcing new products is time-consuming because it takes lots of manual research and cannot be done for multiple products at once. Algopix’s product research platform tackles this task in two ways. First, it’s intuitive, easy-to-read dashboard minimizes the time to gather the most important information needed to assess a new product. Second, Algopix’s eBay US marketplace research allows you to perform bulk analysis of up to 200 products at once while still delivering the same high-quality results as if researching one product at a time.
