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…

We are always listening to customer feedback and we’ve heard some requests for more advanced keyword search options. We’ve recently added a bunch of wild card search options and OR search options. A full list of our supported search filters is as follows.

I am Andrew E.R. Sukow, CTO at Terapeak.com.  This is a quick note to let everyone know some of the great additions coming to Terapeak shortly.  We have been listening to everyone’s feedback and comments.  We will be adding some new functionality and improvements to Terapeak shortly and will continue to improve Terapeak based on your feedback.  Here is a quick list of items that are launching in the next two weeks.

New Research:

- Average Shipping Price:  We will be moving “Start Price” down lower and will be replacing it with “Avg. Shipping.”  We have heard from our members and agree that knowing the shipping price is valuable.  We worked hard to overcome some technical hurdles but will be adding this data very soon.

- Improved Keyword Data: Currently our keyword research can be sparse or missing in certain circumstances.  This is a trade-off we made years ago in an effort to improve search speed.  We’re proud to say though that with some of our recent hardware purchases we can now boost our keyword research to analyze every single keyword in the result.  The keyword section will show rich information for any search term or any seller once this is launched.

- Faster Searches: Search speed will become 2x as fast in the coming weeks.  We have put in significant work on our database software and we have purchased cutting edge hardware to boost our search speeds.  

- Video Tutorials (with sound): Many people have requested sound to be added to the videos so we are updating our videos with sound video by video and hope to have them fully updated and vastly improved.  A sound icon is next to the videos that have sound.  These are available now online.

We appreciate everyone’s feedback and invite you to continue to provide feature requests, bug reports, and any type of comment.  Please send us your comments.

Sincerely, 

Andrew E.R. Sukow

CTO, Co-Founder

Terapeak.com

You can find us at BOOTH 529 at this year’s eBay Live! in Chicago. The team attending is really looking forward to another great eBay event and meeting up with all of the fabulous Terapeak users out there.

Please stop in and say hello if you’re at the event next week! We’ll be updating live from the event, which for some of us starts Monday at the eBay Developer’s Conference.

See you in Chicago!

As the big budget film Iron Man hits theatres this week, demand for Silver age Iron Man comics has soared as well.
According to results found using Terapeak’s Hot Categories research tool, Iron man comics from between 1956 and 1969 are super hot on eBay this week.

This trend chart shows the last two years of activity in category #32735:

As you can see, listings and sales are both way up. Last week over 600 listings were posted in this category, generating $27K in sales.
That’s impressive activity for 40-50 year old collectibles. Notable listings this month:
IRON MAN & SUB-MARINER # 1 (1968) sold for $4650.00, making it the highest priced listing in this category in April.
The INVINCIBLE IRON MAN Complete Collection DVD ROM was the most frequently listed title in April. Digital formats for comic books are a growing industry.
Iron Man, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow, opens in theatres across North America on May 2nd, 2008.

We had a great time at the AfterBuy.com BBQ a few weeks ago.  We had the chance to speak with many eBay sellers in Germany and learn from their experience how research can be applied to their online businesses.  Terapeak’s full focus on research has helped us be able to listen to online merchant’s feedback on how research can truly help their businesses succeed. 

You can see some pictures of the event, our booth, and of our presentation in our flicker page.

 Also, congradulations AfterBuy.com for the successful acquisition by eBay.de.  We wish you all the best and look forward to our continued partnership!

 Andrew

Terapeak recently presented at the E-Commerce Paris 2007 Event. Our team at www.terapeak.fr had the opportunity to share the benefits of eBay research with merchants in France. We have two 30 second video clips of our presentation (french). In general, it was an excellent event for both us and the attendees.