Selling in-demand items on eBay is by far the most profitable choice you can make when doing your product sourcing. With so much competition on eBay, theres simply not room for error or choosing to sell anything less than popular.

The problem eBay sellers face however is that the state of the market is constantly evolving. Last months best-seller may be this months total flop.

No matter how difficult or competitive selling on this auction giant may become, eBay will always try to make the process as painless as possible. Fortunately, eBay itself provides a number of tools that can help you identify the latest selling trends. This article will briefly explain these tools to you, show you how to access them, and evaluate their usefulness.

The first tool that eBay provides is The Hot Items Report (http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/hotitems.pdf) - In the words of eBay itself Hot...Very HotSuper Hot! Discover which categories and products are on firewhere bid to item ratios are high and demand is outpacing supply. This is certainly an invaluable resource that will help you keep a check on the current state of the eBay marketplace and stay on top!

Second up there is the The eBay Pulse (http://pulse.ebay.com) - This allows you to view the most popular searches, largest stores, most watched items and more. Its an extremely useful tool, but a word of warning sometimes only the most unusual and intriguing items show up here, and not the ones that are in the highest demand. It may not always be a true reflection on what is really the most popular item(s) on eBay. To demonstrate this, on the day of writing several items featured in The Pulse were what you might call get rich quick schemes, whilst another was someone offering to have your advert tattooed on their back for all to see!

Marketplace Research

(http://pages.ebay.com/marketplace_research/index.html) is a new service that allows you to analyze data on completed auction listings. Although the service does incur a monthly charge, it may be worth a look if youd like in-depth data and statistics already collected for you. If youre familiar with eBays advanced search features you may be able to accomplish something similar to Marketplace Research on your own.

The eBay Community (http://hub.ebay.com/community) is another useful section to the site if youre seeking out popular items. The chance to talk with other sellers, network, and discuss the latest trends may mean you can keep ahead of the pack. Its nice for a good old elbow-rubbing session with fellow eBay nuts too. eBay is such a humongous marketplace most sellers realize its not a bad choice to share your success stories with potential competition, since you may pick up some tips for yourself.

Of course you can also simply keep an eye out yourself. Take a look at completed auction listings. Is the item youre thinking of selling doing well for other people? Is this a seasonal item? How many other sellers are in this niche?

With this wide range of tools at your disposal, youve got a ready-made resource to search for those hot items. Ive got dollar signs in my eyes already!

Chris Vendilli Copyright 2006