For those keeping score, your crazy-colored vampire eyes don’t deceive you: that’s HBO’s True Blood laying a whuppin’ on the former undead champs.

But unlike Twilight, which has more than its share of detractors, we’ve heard almost exclusively good things about the HBO series. Now in its second season, the show stars Oscar-winning actress Anna Paquin as Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress, and chronicles the mystifying events of a small town in Louisiana.

Below is a 90-day total sales trend for “True Blood,” produced by Terapeak’s All Sites package:

We’re not actually sure what’s produced such a spike — the DVDs were released several months ago, and the show’s second season only just began — but then we also haven’t had a chance to really bite into the television series… (hah!)

Maybe if there weren’t so many freakin’ Twilight books to finish?

But what of this trend that compares eBay sales between July’s most recent film, Half-Blood Prince, and 2007’s Order of the Phoenix? Below is a two-year Terapeak trend for total sales in the Harry Potter Collectibles category:

Even if the text is a bit hard to read (we’re working on fixing this), you can see pretty clearly the two major sales points for the series: release date and the holidays. And while the disparity between the holidays (the two middle peaks) can be attributed to Order of the Phoenix’s DVD release, the difference between the two films’ theater releases is more than 2:1!

It should be noted that July 2007 also saw the release of  Rowling’s final Potter book… but the decline in sales of related collectibles is still quite shocking. Is it a case of fans simply losing interest in the series? Is it possible that the series lost its luster when the books stopped coming out? Heck, we’re even wondering if it’s some kind of Twilight effect!

The next Potter film is slated for release in November 2010, with the final installment coming July 2011. Before then, however, comes Half Blood Prince’s DVD release… which will no doubt make for another interesting comparison!

Perhaps most intriguing to eBay sellers is the litany of products available exclusively to SDCC attendees — many of which, according to Terapeak’s research tools, have seen high eBay demand since the event ended last week.

In the past seven days, more than 2,500 items using “SDCC 2009″ as keywords (not counting tickets and passes) have sold on eBay.com, accounting for over $130,000 in total sales. Some of the most popular products include Green Lantern: Blackest Night figure sets, He-man reissues, Twilight figures, Kidrobot vinyl toys, and Star Wars collectibles. And despite the high prices (many are already selling for over $200), the sell-through rate on these listings is an impressive 76%.

As always, Comic-Con will be back next summer, so if you’re an eBay seller focused on collectibles, perhaps it’s worth making the trip to sunny San Diego! (Really, is it ever not?)

So obviously, if you’re in the popular DVD biz, these titles are among your bread-winners. But what about other merchandising opportunities? This blog will take a look at memorabilia and paraphernelia related to these films, and examples of ways to make the most of Terapeak’s Hot Research.

As you can see — and it’s no surprise, really — first on our list is Twilight, the initial film adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s best-selling vampire series (which we blogged about fairly recently). A 30-day All Sites search for “Twilight” uncovers more than 78,000 results, and with such an obsessed worldwide following, you can bet anything Twilight-related has a good chance of sparking interest. Beyond DVDs, here are its next five most popular Level-2 categories:

1. Movie Memorabilia (15,501) — Dolls, Posters, Blankets
2. Fiction Books (7,440) — Individual novels, Collected novels, Autographed novels
3. Fashion Jewelry (5,337) — Pendants, Rings, Bracelets
4. Desktop & Laptop Accessories (4,198) — Laptop skins, Laptop cases, XBox skins
5. Watches (3,146) — Watches, Faceplates, Wall clocks

Next is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, David Fincher’s adaptation of a 1922 F. Scott Fitzgerald story. The film, starring Brad Pitt, led the 2009 Academy Awards with 13 nominations, but that hasn’t exactly translated into merchandising opportunities. (Perhaps viewers who sat through its 165 minutes felt they’d had enough?)

A 30-day All Sites search for “Benjamin Button” results in 2,832 listings, with the most popular related Level-2 categories being the following:

1. Movie Memorabilia (119) — Props, Posters, Postcards
2. CDs (26) — Original soundtrack
3. Fiction Books (25) — Short story collections, Graphic novels
4. Nonfiction Books (24) — Short story collections (bizarre?)
5. Autographs-Original (15) — Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, David Fincher autographs

Placing third is Paul Blart: Mall Cop, a Kevin James comedy that reached #1 in North American box offices. We weren’t sure what to expect in terms of non-DVD merchandise… and a 30-day search for “Paul Blart” turned up barely 2,000 listings. In fact, here are all the non-DVD Level-2 categories that turned up 10+ results:

1. Movie Memorabilia (47) — Posters, Photos, Football jerseys

Seriously, that’s it.

Finally, rounding out the top five are two classic Disney films, remastered and re-released: Beauty and the Beast and Lion King. These old faves require no introduction, and both (like most things Disney-related) have been merchandising gold mines for many, many years. Here are the top non-DVD categories for both, beginning with a 30-day All Sites search for “Beauty and the Beast”:

1. Disneyana (620) — Figurines, Toys, Snow globes
2. VHS (380) — Original editions, Remastered editions, Sequels
3. Children’s Books (250) — Picture books, Braille books, Read-a-loud books
4. Comics (125) — Grimm Tales, Graphic novels
5. Dolls (122) — Barbies, Barbie clothes, Stuffed toys

And “Lion King”:

1. Disneyana (1,355) — Figurines, Artwork, Snow globes
2. TV, Movie & Character Toys — Broadway tickets, Other tickets, Figurines
3. Games (Video Games) (778) –NES, Game Boy, Sega Genesis games
4. VHS (450) – Original editions, Remastered editions, Sequels
5. Children’s Books (443) — Picture books, Bath books, Read-a-loud books

If you’re a Hot Research subscriber, check out some of the other top titles… The examples shown above are barely the opening credits!

But how long, really, can it last?

Following the box office (and subsequent DVD rack) domination of last summer’s film adaptation, coupled with Meyer’s announcement that plans for future Twilight novels have been delayed indefinitely, you might expect a gradual decline in related sales… but not so fast. A movie sequel has already been green-lighted for the series’ second book, New Moon, as has something called The Twilight Saga: The Official Guide… and of course there remains the possibility of future novels.

Today, a quick 90-day Terapeak All Sites search shows the Twilight brand holding strong as ever…

… while a peek at Hot Media shows more Meyer-induced domination…

… So when can we expect this train to start slowing down? Well, if J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter timeline can be used as any kind of barometer — the seven book releases were scattered across an entire decade, the film series won’t wrap up for another few years — we may be hearing a lot more yet from these vampire kids in the Pacific Northwest.

(That’s Terapeak’s lair, too, for those keeping score!)

Today, we’ll take an early look at a few popular searches and see how they stack up across the different eBay sites. Of course, it’s important to always consider language barriers when conducting international searches (especially with regards to .de and .fr), but the following three examples should be popular and branded enough to apply to our purposes here.

Let’s start with a 90-day international search for “ipod nano“:

As we can see already, results for certain keywords can vary quite drastically from site to site. Just look at the discrepancy in average price and sell-through between Australia and Canada — those are pretty astonishing figures! And even though eBay.ca returns a reasonably small sample size, price and sell-through on the busier sites are also significantly up from those in Australia — certainly enough to warrant listing placement consideration!

Next, let’s look at the 5th-most popular eBay search, “wii“:

As a search term, “Wii” of course encompasses many different products — everything from consoles to games, to the smallest of accessories — but the sample size for this search is big enough to assume a reasonable level of balance across the board. And what can we conclude? Well, Germany seems like a good place for Wii sellers (highest average price by far, second-highest sell-through), while the UK (lowest prices, lowest sell-through) lags far behind.

Finally, let’s have a look at the “Twilight” phenomenon:

Judging by sell-through rates, there appears to be an especially-high demand for the books in both Australia and France (they’ve of course been translated), and reasonably consistent pricing (except in France) across the board.

That’s all for now, but expect  the blog to detail more examples of effective arbitrage in the future!