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We’ve been tracking Techvibes’ Startup Index for Victoria, BC since our initial debut many moons ago… and now look where we sit!

It’s a great honor to be considered the top startup in this beautiful city of ours, especially considering the other companies on this list. Terapeak has grown leaps and bounds as both a product and business over the last several years, and we’re committed to keeping that going!

Congrats to everyone involved in making this happen!

This isn’t exactly the hardest time of year for us to find visually-dramatic sales trends — in fact, it’s almost certainly the easiest. A majority of all two-year Terapeak trends will show peaks and valleys in correlation with the holidays, and there’s no better category for that than eBay’s Toys & Games.

We’ve seen time and time again how certain toys will blow up for one season (Furby, Tickle-Me-Elmo, Cabbage Patch), while others will continue to sell year after year. Today, we’ll look at a few examples from 2009 — though of course there are hundreds more.

First is Leapster, an educational handheld game console that teaches kids the alphabet, phonics and basic math (among other things). First released in 2003, there’s been a recent spike in demand for Leapster 2, released last year. Here’s a 60-day total sales trend for “Leapster”:

Next is a classic: Lego. Dating back to the 1930s, the little building blocks are a big-time seller all year round… but rarely to the scale that the holidays provide. Here’s a 60-day sales trend for “Lego” (which, last Sunday, totalled more than $1.5 million in eBay.com sales!):

And finally, here’s this year’s phenomenon: Zhu Zhu Pets. You may have read about them already — robotic hamsters! — but if you’ve yet to believe the hype, check out this 60-day trend for “zhu zhu pet”:

It’s a prosperous venture, this toy racket. Here’s to guessing what next year’s craze will be!

We told you a couple weeks ago we were in the final stages of testing, and now the big day is here…

Terapeak Collectibles is live!

Available exclusively via eBay’s Selling Manager Applications platform, Terapeak Collectibles is a brand new application that allows users to research antiques and collectibles data mined from eBay, other online marketplaces, and real-life auction houses. We’ve partnered with a company called WorthPoint, whose “Worthopedia” database houses data from more than 10 years of live and online auctions — and that entire database is available with each Terapeak Collectibles search!

With antiques and collectibles such a specialized selling field — that is, pricing can be difficult on rare items that don’t frequently sell — we think Terapeak Collectibles is a perfect solution for those who need a more expansive antiques and collectibles database.

To access Terapeak Collectibles (there’s even a 7-day free trial available), you must first be subscribed to eBay Selling Manager or Selling Manager Pro. You can then add the application at this link.

Big week for Terapeak! Congrats, team!

As a token of our appreciation for each and every Terapeak subscriber, we’re proud this month to not only introduce our brand new iPhone application, but to offer it FREE as part of all North American Terapeak subscriptions!

The Terapeak iPhone app has been in the works for a long time, and it’s a tool we feel will add a whole new dimension to conducting market research. Now you’ll be able to take Terapeak with you wherever you go — to garage sales, trade shows, thrift stores, and more!

Similar to Terapeak’s web version, the application allows users to see average prices, listing totals and sell-through rates for each search. Results are viewable and sortable by end price, start price and number of bids, and can be filtered by category, minimum end price and maximum end price. All of this data comes neatly packaged and is accessible with only a few clicks, so it’s easy to always keep on top of your game.

To access the application, all you need to do is download it on your iPhone from the Apple store in iTunes*, then enter your Terapeak username and password to get started!

We hope you enjoy it! And happy holidays!

(*Please note: Currently, the Terapeak iPhone app is only available via the American and Canadian iTunes stores. We apologize for any inconvenience.)

So, Black Friday was last week, and if you spent any part of the weekend near a shopping mall or TV or newspaper or the Internet, you’re probably sick of hearing about it.

But whoa, what a day.

If you happened to be one of the thousands of business owners who capitalized on the big day, you were probably (and understandably) less bothered by all the hoopla. You may even have soaked it in like leftover gravy on a turkey bun.

Just look at some of these Terapeak total sales trends, and the range of products covered. They’re all 30-day graphs, with the final date shown representing last Friday, or Black Friday.

Here’s one for “wii”:

And here’s one for “zhu zhu pet”:

And finally, here’s “toaster”:

… Toaster! Seriously!

Consider, too, that many (if not most) Black Friday sales extended through the weekend, and that today is “Cyber Monday”, when millions more sales are likely to happen…

We’ll be tracking all of these trends as Terapeak rolls out new data, and we’ll be curious to see how they provide insight into which products are hot this holiday season.

(Might this finally be the Year of the Toaster? Stay tuned to find out!)

Last August, after hearing that Miley Cyrus had put some of her own clothing and schwag up for charity auction, we wondered aloud whether sellers of other Miley/Hannah-related goods would benefit — and according to Terapeak trend reports, they did.

This week, and over the next couple months, we’ll be tracking a similar series of auctions…

Or, relatively similar anyway.

According to Nine Inch Nails’ official website, the industrial rock band, which in September announced it had played its final show, has begun auctioning off “a large selection of gear and equipment”, including “guitars, keyboards, amplifiers, drums, staging, anvil cases, cables, rack/outboard gear, guitar effects, and pedal boards.”

You can view NIN’s seller page here to see the various items currently up for auction, all of which have already seen a considerable number of bids. And with nearly a week to go in each of these auctions (plus more to come in the next “several weeks”), it’ll be interesting to see the final prices these items fetch.

(Hey, we might even see a NIN-shaped dent in the Terapeak Guitar Index!)

As for your own sales, now might be a good time to see if your old copy of Downward Spiral is still lying around. Or to invest in mottled, paint-spattered, gross-looking sleeveless shirts…

Twilight is popular. We’ve known this for a while.

If you’d asked us just one month ago whether we thought the series could get any more popular, we probably would shrugged and said we’d stopped trying to guess. And it’s true: despite the fact that no new books have been written since 2005, the brand’s popularity has continued to grow at a confounding rate.

So what, then, do we make of this?

Oh, who knows.

The above, of course, is a 30-day total sales trend for “Twilight” across all eBay sites. At the graph’s lowest point, October 30th, the keyword still sold close to $45,000 in goods. But compare that with the highest point — nearly $150,000 — and you realize this thing is a full-fledged phenomenon.

So how are eBay sellers capitalizing on the craze?  Well, the obvious products are books and DVDs, but there’s a huge merchandising aspect to the series as well. From licensed to non-licensed items, it’s not hard to find posters, dolls, apparel, stationery, trading cards, watches, and a million other collector’s items.

So how much more popular can Twilight really get? We’ll only fathom one guess: that it continues through the holidays.

Since 2003, the Call of Duty video game series has been providing PC, PlayStation and XBox users with some of the most popular first-person shooters on any platform.

Never before, however, has a release left this kind of mark.

On November 10th, Activision released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the sixth installment in the much-heralded series. Not only has the new release received much critical acclaim (scoring 94% on Metacritic on both consoles), it’s also broken many of Grand Theft Auto IV’s sales records — including fastest-selling game of all-time.

Not at all surprisingly, then, the keywords “Call of Duty” are doing pretty well on eBay…

The above is a 30-day total sales trend for anything that pertains to “Call of Duty” — and that spike you see represents the day after Modern Warfare 2’s release. In the seven days following release, in fact, those keywords totalled more than $1.5 million in sales across the six eBay sites Terapeak covers, with close to 20,000 listings.

Stepping away from the actual game’s sales, it’s interesting to see where eBay sellers are capitalizing on the release’s success. Other items that have sold include action figures, keychains, and — no joke — night vision goggles.

Sales will undoubtedly continue on as the holidays approach, so if you’ve got any ideas yourself of how to take advantage, use them!

A couple days ago, Wired posted an interesting little news story on its blog, about a recently-launched site for anyone wanting to sell books, CDs, DVDs, and video games. The site, called Glyde, was created by former eBay executives, and its beta is worth checking out if you’re into media reselling.

As for the article, we’re not sure about the writer’s  decision to call online sellers “lazy” in its headline, but it’s always nice to get a shout-out from a major publication like Wired. And if you look close enough… Yup, there we are!

Not too long ago, we announced that Japanese eBay service provider 500RPM would be launching a locally-translated Terapeak tool for Japan-based sellers…

Today, we’re happy to announce that the site is already up and running!

The Japan team has done a great job getting the site together, and we encourage you to go check it out. There’s even a pretty cool welcome video halfway down, featuring AERS/Terapeak’s very own CEO, Fred Speckeen.

Congratulations, Terapeak Japan! Welcome aboard!