A Terapeak interview with Trevor Ginn of Hello Baby (http://stores.ebay.co.uk/hellobabydirect)

How long have you been selling on eBay?

I’ve been selling on eBay as Hellobabydirect for about 18 months.  Before that I was working for Auctioning4u who were the UK’s largest eBay trading assistants.  All in all I’ve been selling on eBay as a business for about 4 years.

What got you started there?

At Auctioning4u I provided consulting services to businesses to help them use eBay as a sales channel.  With online sales experiencing strong growth most of my clients were doing pretty well, much better than me it seemed.  I was itching to give it a go as I was sure I could build a successful online retailing business.  I choose baby products as my research showed that the industry had healthy margins and was not as competitive as areas like electronics.  I also wanted to be in an industry which I knew something about (my first daughter had just been born), was largely non seasonable and mostly recession proof.

What sort of things do you like to sell?

We sell a wide range of baby and nursery items. Items range from small toys nursery and baby safety items like safety catches to larger, more expensive items like prams and cots.  We sell a lot of our items internationally, especially to Europe as the strong Euro makes our products good value for our friends in the Eurozone.  We sell on eBay, Amazon and our own website www.hellobabydirect.co.uk

How do you use Terapeak to help build your business?

We use Terapeak to research products and also to investigate the tactics and best selling product of our competitors.  eBay data, provided by Terapeak, is the only source I know of actual sales data about online sales.  Other, very expensive, reports from companies like Mintel make broad statements about market sectors, but this is not much use when a merchant is looking to make purchasing decision at the brand or product level.

When we are analyzing new products we will use a product search on that particular brand to establish what items are selling well and then drill down to individual products to establish average selling prices.  We then put the sales data into a spreadsheet which allows us to calculate the profit we can make from selling the item by taking into account cost like sales tax, PayPal and eBay fees.  This process saves us from buying product for which the market is very competitive and there are poor margins.

We also make extensive use of the seller report.  This allows us to see the products which our competitors are selling successfully and how their business is performing.

Terapeak Tips from Matt – What else Hello Baby can do to build their business using research?

Trevor mentioned that a good portion of his business is targeted at international marketplaces.  A lack of availability for products in certain regions can create excellent opportunities to sell your goods for a higher price.  Terapeak’s International Report compares statistics for 6 eBay marketplaces around the world including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany and Australia.  The International report provides charts detailing buyer and seller location and helps identify which eBay site represents the highest potential margin.    I would recommend Trevor try using the International report for some of his products and see if he can expand his offerings into more eBay sites around the world.

If you’d like to be featured in a “How do they do it?” please contact us at pr@terapeak.com.

The products range from “Miley’s Closet” items like dresses and tank tops worn in published magazine shoots, to signed and personalized movie posters and photos, to the grandaddy prize of all — a chance to be Cyrus’ “Roadie for a Day,” which includes a backstage meet and greet, as well as a “personalized Miley fan kit.” We’re not sure what we’d say to the star if given the chance (possibly, “Why didn’t you respond when we tweeted you about our last Hannah Montana blog?”), but it’s good to know that all proceeds from the auctions go to the Pappy Cyrus Family Foundation.

In terms of helping other eBay sellers, this is a case where a lot of bidders will end up losing out when these auctions close in a few days, and there’s a decent chance other Miley/Hannah-related sellers will pick up sales because of it. We’ll be monitoring the situation, and we’re curious to see the fall-out!

Good on ya, Miley! (Even if you don’t respond.)

Every year during the eBay Developer’s Conference (San Jose, June 16-18, if you’re interested in coming along) eBay awards the Star Developer award in a few categories:

• DSR Rockstar (improving customer service & buyer experience)
• Most Innovative
• Early Adopter
• Service to the Developer Community
• NEW: Rapid Evolution (boosting seller efficiency in a dynamic marketplace)

eBay relies on external nominations to select the award winners, so if you’re using an application for eBay that is based off of the eBay API platform and you love it, send in a nomination (shameless plug: Terapeak is eligible for nomination).

All you have to do is send a nomination to developer-relations@ebay.com before May 15, 2009. Include in your email your name and contact info, the nominees name and contact, the category of award (from the list of 5 above) and a brief explanation as to why you think the application is award-worthy! Toss “eBay DevCon Star Dev Award” in the subject line so your note gets to the right people.

If, by any chance, you’d want to nominate Terapeak, we’d be stoked, and promise not to cry, babble, forget the words, or recite a boring acceptance speech for hours upon hours.

For more information on the Developer Program at eBay, visit http://developer.ebay.com/

I’d like to thank the nomination committee… my family…

For immediate release

March 16, 2009

Victoria, BC, Canada

Terapeak, an eBay Certified Provider, today announced the release of several new features for its eBay Marketplace Research tool. The new features promise to improve upon Terapeak’s already-popular web-based research tool, found at www.terapeak.com. For the past five years, online sellers have trusted Terapeak’s reporting tools to provide them with metrics needed to make decisions around pricing, seasonality, and listing of goods on and off the eBay platform.

Terapeak is integrating eBay’s Fixed Price 30-day listing format into search results, and will now report on every specific item as it sells. This transactional information allows sellers to access detailed sales information about their products and competitors. As well, International sellers will be able to review sales across six sites (US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, and Australia) with one fast report. Terapeak is also introducing Value Track, a time-saving tool that allows subscribers to enter a list of their favorite search terms. Terapeak will provide a weekly reporting page each time the user logs in. Finally, thanks to server technology innovations, the speed of searches has improved to less than a second’s wait per report.

Building on subscribers’ feedback and developments on the eBay platform, Terapeak carefully maintains its relevancy to users. Terapeak CEO, Fred Speckeen, explains the growth of the product: “We’re extremely lucky, because we do everything — from support to coding — in house. This means that a comment from a subscriber can literally become a new feature within days, and it means that the dialogue between our users and our team is frequent and interactive. In a rapidly evolving field such as ecommerce, and especially eBay, keeping close to the needs of your customers and the changes within the industry is imperative.”

Terapeak will be rolling out more improvements and features in the coming months. Watch for simple solutions to arbitrage goods internationally, new search filters, and more site improvements!

Share data like…the average price for a locked iPhone was $493.53 at time of writing. The average unlocked iPhone is selling for considerably more – $603.05. This same time frame saw 354 unlocked iPhones sold in a single day, and only 139 locked ones. This reveals a significant market preference for the unlocked iPhones! In total, $60,075 worth of locked iPhones sold in a single day, while the vastly more popular unlocked iPhones scored $192,808 in sales (that’s more than three times of the locked revenue).

Fred Speckeen, CEO of parent company AERS Inc., says, “This widget is a lot of fun. It sits on top of a tremendous mine of ecommerce information. Our Fortune 500 clients benefit tremendously from our price, volume, buyer demographics and geographic analytics. Updated daily, our analytics show today what will be news for their competitors three months from now…”

As iPhone aficionados everywhere watched Steve Jobs’ much anticipated keynote speech at the June 9th Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, and the resulting release of the 3G iPhone, means the iPhone Index will be one to watch as the market changes.

Please visit www.terapeak.com/iphone to view the entire index, and grab your own embeddable widget to share from the top right hand corner of the index!

Topic: International Research to Maximize your Sales! Discover new markets and cash in on the new UK Listing Option!

Host: Terapeak

Date: Friday June 6

Time: 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. PST

Visit the eBay Workshop Board

eBay’s recent addition of an option to include your listings on the UK site for pennies means that you can now advertise your sales to an entire new market! This month learn to make the most of your listings by using Terapeak’s UK research. Understand this new market quickly and easily using Terapeak’s market research. Join Denise from Terapeak to review how market research can take the guess work out of your auction listings and find new and unique UK niche markets!

This week we launched Terapeak 5.0, the next generation of our existing site that incorporates not only a fresh new look and feel (and oh yeah, it’s faster too) but also some unique new features.

Those of you familiar with the site will notice that Terapeak now includes actual seller ID’s in all reporting (no more hashed number reports) and numerical totals in the category trending (previously it was percentage of total value). For example:

We can see that the week ending March 09, 2008, $429.88 K of sales occurred in the
Consumer Electronics > Televisions > LCD Flat-Panel TVs > 40-49 inch LCD TVs
category.

We’ve also taken our user’s feedback to heart and developed new tools that answer a question we hear everyday, “what can I sell on eBay?” Our new Hot Research tools make finding hot products and discovering new niches easier by providing you with information on what eBay shoppers are actively searching for, and what items are topping the sales within sub categories. The following is a report on the Hot Products within the Clothing, Shoes & Accessories > Men’s Clothing > Shirts > Casual category:

The Terapeak team is very proud of the 5.0 site, and we all hope that you’ll check out our new features, and our new interface! For more information, drop us a line here or at support@terapeak.com

-denise

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.

Director Stephen Sommers (the Mummy) is attached to the project and actors Marlon Wayans, Sienna Miller, and Christopher Eccleston have joined the cast.

Nearly 40,000 GI Joe listings ended in the last 30 days on eBay.com, 66% of which ended in sale, and worth over $690,000.
The 3 3/4 inch GI Joe action figure category showed up in this month’s Terapeak Hot Category list, due to a high success rate, and growing demand.
Here’s a trend of that category:

 The listings in this category have enjoyed above a 60% sell-through rate for the last years. This means that 60% of all listings sell, and that’s a steady category!

Hasbro’s other line of toys, Transformers, was also adapted into a film franchise that grossed over 300 million in the US box office. Demand for Transformers toys peaked at the time of the movie’s release last summer, and demand for GI Joe listings will likely follow the same pattern.