Research Help

How it Works Overview: Data retrieval and statistical analysis

Enter your search criteria and click "search". A "confirm search" button lets you review your selections before submitting the search and deducting a credit. The search is sent to the database of eBay listings where, 1 - all matching listings are pulled from the database and, 2 - the statistical analysis of the data set is performed.

Create your search

Select keywords and Seller ID as you would on eBay. The matching closed eBay listings are collected for statistical analysis. The analysis search is stopped when 100,000 successful listings have been found to keep processing time below 30 seconds.

Keywords: Each word in this field is used to find exact whole word matches in listing titles

• Punctuation is ignored
• Case-insensitive
• Keyword order does not matter
• The limit is 55 characters
• To exclude keywords, precede each excluded word with a minus sign (no space between the minus and the word).

The most common reasons for no or few research results:

• Too many keywords - the search looks for exact matches of all specified keywords in listing titles
• Avoid plural keywords - use gown instead of gowns, camera instead of cameras. Shoes and jeans is correct usage.
• Keywords or Seller ID are spelled wrong. Try the provided link to check your spelling on eBay.
• Seller did not sell items on the site or time period specified. If the Seller ID is correct, change the site (US or UK) or the date range.

Please correct your search and try again.

Good keyword examples:

• cashmere sweater
• Ralph Lauren
• Old Navy jeans
• Motorola pink Razr
• 24K gold
• new pendant necklace -gold
  -> returns listings that include "new" "pendant" and "necklace" but do not include the word "gold"
• vintage jeans -wholesale -lot
  -> returns listings that include "vintage" and "jeans" but do not include the words "wholesale" or "lot"

Bad keyword examples:

• wool sweaters
  -> a title usually contains the singular form of "sweater" not "sweaters"
• DVDs
  -> same issue, use "DVD" instead
• Garmin Streetfinder 7200 7500 7700
  -> "7200", "7500", "7700" are model numbers. Listing titles will usually contain one model number to describe the item. Better searches would be "Garmin Streetfinder" or "Garmin Streetfinder 7700".

Seller eBay ID: When you specify a seller eBay ID, items listed for sale by this seller will be retrieved, but not purchases. You may wish you cut-and-paste the ID directly from eBay. Be careful that you do not accidentally use an eBay store name - no results will be found.

Research Results and Statistics

Revenue: Total amount sold

Total Listings: Total number of listings that match the search criteria

Successful listings: Number of listings that sold at least 1 item. Note: The number of successful listings is capped at 100,000 to keep the search time less than 30 seconds.

Items sold: Total number of items sold. Some listings offer more than one item for sale (like store listings) so this figure can be larger than the number of successful listings.

Items offered: Total number of items available for sale. Some listings offer more than one item for sale.

Success Rate: Successful Listings / Total Listings

Average Sold Price: Total Revenue / Items Sold

Frequent Sold Price: The single most frequently occurring sold price - not an average.

Average Start Price: Sum of start prices of auction listings / total number of auction listings. The idea here is that fixed price and store item pricing are already accounted for in the sold prices. The start prices will be zero if your results only include store items or fixed price items.

Frequent Start Price: The single most frequently occurring start price - not an average.

Matching Items: The listings shown are in order of descending end price. A "0" in the bids column indicates it was either a Store listing or a Fixed Price listing.

Durations: The durations shown are the actual duration of the listing, not the listing duration set by the seller. A Buy-It-Now will end an auction early.

Day of week stats and chart: The statistics show you the totals for each day of the week. The chart gives you guidance on how which day to list. End your auctions on the day with the highest end price and success rate.