With an 80% sell through rate and the 9th highest sales revenue on the site, category #71228 (Crafts > Scrapbooking > Die Cutting Machines) is our feature hot category on eBay this week.

Die cutting machines create designs by pressing a shape or die into paper, cutting it into precise shapes or letters. Die cutting machines are popular with scrapbookers, but can be very useful to anyone looking to embellish photo albums, paper crafts, and artwork. Die cutting machines tend to be very simple to use, and much less hassle than tracing and cutting by hand.

The average price for products in this category is around $65.00, but machines can climb up to $800-1000 per unit.

Here is a 2 year sale trend for category #71228

As you can see, sales revenue has been climbing steadily in this category over the last two years.

More and more art supply stores are catering to scrapbooking and embossing interests these days, and as the products become available to a wider audience, the market for tools like die cutting machines is sure to keep growing.

(Results were found using Terapeak’s marketplace research tools.)

Topic: Create a Sales Strategy to Boost Your Profits – The How and Why With Market Research
Host: Terapeak
Date: Friday, March 14^th
Time: 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. PST

Visit the eBay Workshop Board

Whether you’re just starting out on eBay, a hobby seller, or a top grossing Power Seller, it’s important to consider your selling strategy and how your business goals affect your auction listings. This month’s interactive workshop will review different sales strategies, and how to make decisions based on these. Are you an ASP seller or an ASR seller? And how will this influence your listings? Join Denise from Terapeak to determine your selling strategy and the way it will help maximize your profits!

Let’s take a look at an interesting result from Terapeak’s Hot Category List from the last 30 days: Category # 11721: Vintage TLR Cameras.

Sporting a very unique look compared to modern cameras, TLR cameras were very popular in the 1950’s and 60’s. TLR stands for Twin Lens Reflex, meaning the camera has two lenses of equal focal length (one lens for the viewfinder and one lens to capture the image.) The advantage of the TLR over modern SLR (single lens reflex) cameras is that the viewfinder is not obscured during exposure, and maintains a constant view of the subject. However, unlike SLR cameras, many TLR models present challenges when judging depth of field, or taking close range photography.

There were 3,432 TLR camera and accessory listings on eBay in the last 90 days, with an overall success rate of 63%. Prices ranging from the affordable (an average price of $115.00) to the extravagant (a rare Rolleiflex Tele-Xenar model sold for $3500.00).

And as you can see from the trend, sales for TLR (twin lens reflex) cameras recently hit a two year peak.

Now that digital cameras have become so common, it’s great to see buyers still taking an interest in film based cameras, especially these vintage models.