When we talk of “holiday selling opportunities”, you may not think of Thanksgiving first, second, or even at all. But as we constantly stress, virtually any major or minor calendar event will create some kind of market… and Thanksgiving season is no different.

Just because eBayers aren’t bidding on turkeys and spaghetti squash doesn’t mean there aren’t Thanksgiving-themed products to sell. A quick Terapeak category search for “Thanksgiving” turns up several relevant results, including the following (365-day Total Sales trends shown below each):

#912: Collectibles > Holiday & Seasonal > Thanksgiving > Current (1991-Now)

• Example products: Festive toys, decorations, knick-knacks

#29478: Collectibles > Postcards > Holidays > Thanksgiving

• Example products: Collectible postcards, vintage artwork

#34010: Crafts > Scrapbooking & Paper Crafts > Embellishments > Stickers > Holidays & Occasions

• Example products: Stickers, gift tags, scrapbook materials

As you can see by the one-year trends pictured, each of these three categories gets quite hot in November, selling multiple thousands of dollars worth of goods every day. And by searching any category using Terapeak, you can click the “Top Titles” tab to get a clearer idea of what types of items these categories entail.

With still 10 days before turkey time, there’s likely to be further growth in all of the above categories, plus many others on eBay. So keep an eye out, and never forget: the holidays on eBay should not be taken lightly!

Earlier this morning, Terapeak product manager Denise Hogue was interviewed on Marlene Gavens’ “Tips From the Top with the Savvy Seller”, an ecommerce podcast that features top eBay sellers and service providers.

Over the course of close to 30 minutes, Denise discussed everything from seasonality to holiday sales to Terapeak’s brand new free keyword tool.  If you’d like to listen in, the podcast is available for streaming here.

Good work, Denise and Marlene!

Must be the end of the month, because we’re here to remind you that the Terapeak newsletter goes out early next week, and you won’t want to miss it. Sign up below to get your fix of Terapeak, eBay and ecommerce news!

Also, apologies for blog slowness lately — we’ve been super busy getting some exciting new stuff ready!

Cheers!

In typical end-of-month fashion, we’re here to remind you that the Terapeak newsletter goes out in the next week or so, and you won’t want to miss it. Sign up below to get your fix of Terapeak, eBay and ecommerce news!

Cheers!

By now, you’re probably aware of the For Dummies book series — its classic yellow dust jacket, that little cartoon dude on the front. Since 1991, the series has published over 1,500 different titles, all with the subtitle “A Reference For the Rest of Us.” Several even deal directly with eBay — which, of course, is why we’re mentioning  it now…

In particular, eBay for Dummies has been a go-to for sellers since its original publication in 1999. Recently released in its sixth edition, written by author and eBay expert Marsha Collier, the book is a 408-page opus that details everything you’d ever want to know about buying and selling on eBay.

Here at Terapeak, we were particularly stoked to see this little snippet in Chapter 5:

Getting professional info from Terapeak Research

If you become an eBay fanatic someday, you may find yourself praising the genius of an amazing service offered by eBay and Terapeak. Terapeak Research allows you to research pricing further back than the 14 days of completed listings that the normal eBay search allows. If you come across a special or very old item, and there are not many on the site, you can use this tool to find how much the item has sold for in the past few months.

“Genius”? “Amazing”? We’ll take it!

Okay, that’s enough horn-blowing for now. But seek the book out if you’re looking to step up your eBay game, especially as the holidays approach. You don’t have to be an eBay dummy to reap the benefits!

In case you haven’t heard, there’s this wild new video game out, where you and a few friends get to be English kids with bad haircuts, who sing cute little pop songs that eventually become more complex, and eventually you pioneer this thing called rock and roll and take over the world… It’s pretty “out there”, but a lot of fun!

Okay, obviously we’re talking about The Beatles: Rock Band, which released just over a week ago, and which features some crazy specialized instrument add-ons, like Paul’s signature Hofner bass and Ringo’s branded drum kit. Not coincidentally, the game also launched in conjuction with remastered reissues of the band’s catalogue — which, here in the office, we’re pretty stoked on.  Of course, $250 retail (the cost of the 13-part box set) is a lot of dough to spend on tunes you’ve pretty much heard before — especially when paired with all the Rock Band packages — so for any fan to get in on the action, they’re looking at a hefty financial commitment.

As a result — and you know what we’re gonna say — eBay sales have gone through the roof.

Check out this 30-day All Sites total sales trend:

… and that’s just any listing with the keyword “Beatles” in it!

If total amounts aren’t your thing (fair, considering the new release factor), consider this: in the two weeks leading up to release date, sell-through also shot from 38% to 51%,  while bids per listing nearly doubled. And if holiday patterns are any indication… well, that’s only the beginning.

Terapeak’s Hot Media charts for September won’t come out for another couple weeks, but do you remember the following from a couple months back?

… Okay, we still can’t get over how unbelievable that is. Jaw-dropping. Inconceivable.

But don’t be surprised to see some kind of Beatles “lite” version as holiday sales pick up…

A week ago today, Apple released its new operating system, Mac OS X v10.6 — better known worldwide as “Snow Leopard”. Announced to the public and released to developers in early June, “Snow Leopard” has been getting shout-outs in advertising for new Macs (including those sold on eBay) for a few months now, but only upon its official release has the buzz really taken off.

Consider, for instance, that in the 30 days prior to August 28th (release day), Terapeak shows 1,807 eBay listings that used the keywords “Snow” and “Leopard”. The sell-through rate of those listings? 29.28%. In the 5 days following release, there were 635 listings… and the sell-through shot to 59.37%.

Of course that’s not the hugest sample size, and it deals with “Snow Leopard” as keywords directly… so consider instead the keywords “New” and “Macbook”. In the 30 days preceding August 28th, Terapeak All Sites shows 16,025 listings for “New Macbook”, with a sell-through rate of 36.04%. But in the 5 days after Snow Leopard’s launch, the sell-through on those same laptops rocketed to 48.87%.

We don’t really talk about sell-through on the blog as much as we’d like to, considering it’s one of our fave statistics, but often that’s because inventory rises alongside demand, and sell-through doesn’t always fluctuate much. In this case, however, demand for new Macs is at an all-time high, even at a time (”back-to-school”) when most suppliers are as well-stocked as they’ll be all year… and Snow Leopard has helped contribute to that big-time.

So, are we saying you should go out and start selling Macbooks? Well, no, that’s not exactly the easiest market to break into. But do have a look at sell-through when you can, and take note when you see it trending up specifically.

There’s an economic theory called the Lipstick Indicator — in brief terms, this is a trend observed in times of economic downturn, coined when retailers noticed women spending money on small luxury items (ie. lipstick) instead of high-end items (cars, new homes, etc). It seemed that people were compensating for lack of “big ticket” items by choosing smaller specialty goods.

Today, we can see this trend reflected in eBay sales. Terapeak has been comparing the trend-lines of middle-to-high-end luxury items, and one of our first instincts was to examine the sales of ladies’ handbags — a market we’ve been following for quite some time. Here’s a category trend taken from the past 365 days:

As you can see, there’s a decline over the past year — about 25% — though it’s by no means a “dead” market.

So then what about smaller items? What sacrifices are these buyers making, if not investing in luxury items? Instead of lipstick, we’ve selected another luxe good — anti-aging products. Check out this trend-line for the “Anti-Aging Products” category:

Pretty striking, don’t you think? It’s just one more example of how a fluid online market is near-impossible to contain, and how being forward-thinking and mindful of the Lipstick Indicator will help any seller find their niche.

We’re pleased to announce a new feature to the site – upon log in you’ll notice an occasional TeraTip! TeraTips are short snippets of information on how to use the different tools in Terapeak.

We’ll release new tips all the time, and hope that these will help you to not only learn more about Terapeak, but find new cool ways to improve your business! They’re quick and easy to read, and get you on your way to researching more efficiently!

ZOIKS! Also, our sincere apology to anyone we emailed when turning on our new system. We’ve launched a lovely new mailing program that sent a few subscribers a “test retention” email. The email was just from us, and it shouldn’t happen again! Just delete and accept it as an unexpected “high five” from us to you.

Topic: Keywords, Keywords, Keywords and Listing Titles Too!
Host: Terapeak
Date: Friday July 18
Time: 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. PST

Visit the eBay Workshop Board

Join Denise from Terapeak Marketplace Research to explore ways to use market research and find top dollar keywords. Your eBay listings have a 55 character store front, and that is your customer’s gateway to your items! Are you using the best keywords for your item, and are you maximizing your exposure? We’ll review a few simple methods to evaluate keywords using Terapeak research using some topical examples. The workshop will be open for the hour for any questions related to research and your eBay sales.