This week Terapeak’s parent company, Advanced Ecommerce Research Systems, was bestowed the honor of inclusion in the “Ready to Rocket” list – a list of the top twenty-five private companies best positioned to capitalize on trends for growth in BC. The Rocket list is compiled by Rocket Builders, a market strategy and consulting firm based in Vancouver, BC.

“Each year when we choose the Ready to Rocket companies, we are looking for those companies that have best matched technical innovation with market opportunity. Advanced Ecommerce Research Systems is an excellent example of the right technology for the right customers at the right time.” said Reg Nordman, Managing Partner, Rocket Builders.

The list is released by Rocket Builders annually, and this year’s list includes 19 repeat companies and 6 new companies. Advanced is a new entry onto the list, as reported by the Vancouver Sun January 27 .

“We’re thrilled to be in such good company, including other innovators benefitting from an early commitment to SaaS” Says Advanced’s President and CEO Fred Speckeen, “Ecommerce is a commercial phenomenon that creates massive amounts of streaming, information-rich data. Advanced enjoys working directly with two of the largest ecommerce companies, eBay and PayPal, and we’re utilizing a combination of proprietary large data techniques, PaaS and SaaS to provide real-time analytics in this real-time marketplace.  Additional platforms and service providers will soon be added to our list of partners.  It’s a very exciting time for our very talented team, and we’re thankful for the honor of this recognition by RocketBuilders.”

About Advanced

Advanced Ecommerce Research Systems (Advanced) is Terapeak’s parent company, and specializes in delivering ecommerce-based analytics and insight to support the investment, product management, marketing, and advertising decisions of its thousands of clients. Advanced does this based on its core competencies in storing and mining large e-commerce datasets.

The company was founded in 2004.

About Ready to Rocket

Ready to Rocket is a unique business recognition list that profiles technology companies with the greatest potential for revenue growth. Each year, based on analysis of trends that will drive growth in the information technology sector, Rocket Builders identifies twenty-five (25) private companies that are best positioned to capitalize on the trends for growth. This selection methodology has been an accurate predictor of growth with “Ready to Rocket” companies exceeding the industry growth rate. Also, many of these companies raise investment capital and each year many of the profiled “Ready to Rocket’ companies are acquired.  http://www.readytorocket.com

We’re more than halfway through the 2009-10 NHL season, and there’s been a pretty significant shake-up at the top of the Terapeak NHL Index.

When we reported on the index at the beginning of the season, Pittsburgh and Detroit (last year’s Cup finalists) were leading their respective conferences in total eBay sales. A few months into the season, however, both have been overtaken: in the East, Boston has jumped out to number one, while in the West, Chicago is dominating ($320K to second-place Detroit’s $176K).

So what’s triggered the movement? Well, in Chicago’s case, you’ve got a first-place team in a first-rate hockey market, with a host of young superstars… That’s a pretty good recipe for eBay success.

Boston, meanwhile, hasn’t had the same kind of hot start on the ice, but hosting the 2010 Winter Classic was great for merchandise sales. The game’s other participant, the Philadelphia Flyers, have also seen a big jump in total sales — all the way up to fourth in the NHL!

Pittsburgh continues to sell well (if only every franchise had a Sidney Crosby!), and the Sabres have been surprisingly profitable as well. Poor on-ice performances from a pair of Original 6 teams, the Maple Leafs and Canadiens, have led to disappointing merchandise sales, and subsequent drops in the Terapeak NHL Index standings.

With the league set to break for a few weeks when next month’s Winter Olympics begin, it’ll be interesting to see how the Games affect NHL sales. For many of the league’s superstars, the Olympics in Vancouver will be the biggest stage they’ve ever played on. And where legends are born… jerseys are bought!

In a recent article analyzing the sales of of Electronic Arts Inc.’s Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf video game, The Wall Street Journal mentions Terapeak as a source of sales research:

According to Terapeak Market Research, which tracks listings and sales on eBay, more people are selling the game on the auction site after the incident, but more people are also buying them, albeit for slightly less ($35.90 vs $36.68)

This isn’t the first time The WSJ has used Terapeak to illustrate a sales trend; last April, the paper mentioned Terapeak in an article about a high-end Dallas clothing store selling its excess merchandise on eBay.

Quick, name a New Year’s Resolution!

Quit Smoking? Save money? Spend more time with family?

The above are all popular amongst resolution-makers, no doubt, but you’d be hard-pressed to find many more that aren’t fitness- or weight-loss-related. You can chalk that up to whatever you want — the way we gorge ourselves over the holidays, the perception of a new year and a fresh mindset — but the fact remains: fitness sells in January. (Seriously, go to your local gym this week and ask what their sign-ups have been like.)

That phenomenon translates to eBay, too. While we’ve spent much of the past couple months showing you category trends that rise and fall with the holiday months of November and December, check out some of these two-year total sales trends in eBay’s Weight Management category.

For example, the Weight Loss Patches subcategory:

And here’s one for Scales:

And finally, here’s Program Materials, Accessories:

Now, you may not be able to tell from these blurry screen-caps, but all three of those trend lines correlate pretty tidily with the first week of January!

As for those other resolutions, a quick search for “quit smoking” in Terapeak’s Category section tells us there’s an eBay sub-category under Health & Fitness titled Smoking Cessation, with further sub-cats like Patches, Gum/Lozenges, and Alternate Therapies. Here’s a total sold listings trend for the latter:

So there’s that, too!

Good luck everyone with your own!

Business in Vancouver has announced its “Forty Under 40″ for 2009… and look who made the cut!

The scan is a bit hard to read (clicking the image will enlarge it), but that’s Terapeak co-founder and CTO Andrew Sukow smiling for the camera, accepting his place among Vancouver’s  youngest and brightest. The BIV website describes the awards as such:

Forty under 40 celebrates the depth of business talent in British Columbia, from the rising stars of the corporate world to successful entrepreneurs, and non-profit leaders. Winners are chosen based on such values as achievement, experience, innovation, vision, leadership, and community involvement.

Congrats to Andrew, from the entire Terapeak team!

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year, and to let you know we’re back in the office after a glorious week off. Live support (phone, LiveChat) is available again, so if there’s any way we can help you get this new year of research started, feel free to contact us!

Also a reminder that Terapeak’s January newsletter will be mailed out this week, so watch for that. If you haven’t already, you can sign up below:

Greetings, everyone!

While the entire Terapeak team is excited to get some much-needed rest at home next week, our hard-working support staff WILL be available to answer questions submitted via Terapeak’s Ask a Question page, as well as by email. Terapeak live support (phone, Live Chat) will return on January 4th, while cancellations and refunds will be processed on December 24th and 30th.

Happy holidays!

Terapeak

We’ve reported similar stories about Miley Cyrus and Nine Inch Nails in recent months, and now pioneering CBS reality show Survivor is getting in on the charity action.

Following Sunday’s Survivor Samoa season finale, in which Natalie White shocked the world by defeating super-villain Russell Hantz , host Jeff Probst announced that CBS would be selling an assortment of game-used memorabilia.

The items, which can be viewed here, include everything from tribal flags to immunity idols to props used in individual competitions. (Who wouldn’t want to try their hand at that weird pole-statue balancing game?) There are even tickets to next season’s live studio show, as well as passes to next year’s Project Runway finale in New York City. (The latter is currently the highest-priced… Weird? Maybe not.)

100% of proceeds from all auctions benefit Probst’s charity The Serpentine Project, which helps young people transition from foster care to adulthood. And again, you can view all of the auctions here.

Good on you, Survivor. Even if Russell did get jobbed.

A week ago, we blogged about the holiday toy racket, which year after year provides one of the more reliable markets on eBay. But what if you were to boil that phenomenon down into one single brand? (Perhaps in a wicked witch’s cauldron, or as part of a poisonous apple?)

That brand would be Disney.

For more than 85 years, The Walt Disney Company has been one of Hollywood’s biggest money-makers, and a source for some of the world’s most sought-after merchandise. And, naturally, that fervor tends to reach its peak around the holidays.

For starters, here are Terapeak’s current top 5 Hot DVDs:

Those numbers, of course, come on the heels of Disney remastering several of its classic animated films this year, and sales have continued to rise since October. Also in the Terapeak top 20 Hot DVDs are Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Alice in Wonderland.

How about a Terapeak product report? Well here’s a 90-day All Sites search for “Disney” total sales:

Now that’s an extremely broad search, but you can see how the demand for just one keyword rises!

Finally, to show just how annual “Disney Demand” is, here are a pair of two-year category trends. First is a total sales trend for the Collectibles > Disneyana > Contemporary (1968-Now) category:

And second, a total sold listings trend for Toys & Hobbies > TV, Movie & Character Toys > Disney:

Those are some pretty serious peaks and valleys, and it’s easy to see how they match up with the holiday season. So with close to a year before next December rolls around… imagine all the Disney schwag you’ve got time to collect!

Funny what on-field performance can do to a team’s eBay sales…

When the season began, we ran a blog detailing the 10 best-selling NFL teams. In order, they were: Dallas, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Minnesota, Green Bay, NY Giants, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore and Cleveland. Each of those franchises (if you include the old Colts teams part of Baltimore) is a pretty storied one, and one that sells merchandise well regardless of wins and losses.

Three months later, for the first time in history, we’ve watched two teams not on that list combine to go 26-0. So where are they now?

Well, one is of course Indianapolis, who’ve shot to seventh in total sales, selling more than $650,000 in goods over the past 30 days. And considering Indy’s status as the league’s winningest team over the past decade, it’s remarkable they’re still that low. Could you imagine where they’d be without Peyton Manning?

The other team is New Orleans, whose rise up the Terapeak NFL Index has been even more meteoric. When the season began, they, like most southeastern teams, were sitting near the very bottom in league sales. But on the strength of Drew Brees and maybe the best offense in NFL history, the Saints have leapt to fifth in league total sales — unthinkable just three months ago. Check out this 90-day total sales trend for “New Orleans Saints”:

Many of the usual culprits are still selling strong: Pittsburgh and Dallas, despite their recent collapses, will likely always lead their respective conferences, while Minnesota’s strong season (not to mention purple Brett Favre jerseys!) has propelled them to second in the NFC.

In terms of disappointments, we expected more from Cincinnati, who despite leading a very tough division are only the 17th-best-selling team in the league. (Is it possible Bengals fans are still in disbelief?) Arizona has sold even less, despite leading their own division and having appeared in last year’s Super Bowl. And then there’s Jacksonville… poor, poor Jacksonville. Despite their winning record, they’ve sold just $83,572 in goods over the past month… pretty bad, considering the Steelers have sold well over $1 million.

Team sales may slow down as the holidays pass, but the Terapeak NFL Index will be one to watch all the way up to February’s Super Bowl… And might we finally see a clash between two unbeaten teams?