Discover What Is Trending On eBay With Web Scraping
I’ve loved taking photos ever since I was little. Before each long trip or outing, my mother would give my sister and me each a disposable camera and I would wander around, joyfully capturing each moment. This year, I started taking photos on 35mm film. Of course, the first step was finding a good camera. After scouring the internet for hours, expensive camera after expensive camera, I finally tried eBay. Within minutes I found the camera I was looking for at a great price, and I even returned to buy some accessories (flash, manual adapter, camera strap, etc.).
With all the different options, prices, and sellers on eBay, it can be overwhelming and hard to know if you are getting the best deal. Whether you are a consumer or seller, understanding the marketplace is essential to getting the best deal or making the most money. With web scraping, you can easily use eBay as a rich source for product research and market analysis. When you discover what is trending on eBay, you can stay on top of the constantly shifting markets of our modern world.
If you already know the basics of eBay trending products, then use the table of contents below to read how scraping these trends can help expand your business.
Table of Contents
What Is Trending On eBay Now? (And Why Does It Matter?)
What does trending mean on eBay?
Trending items on eBay are simply the items that are in high demand or higher demand than usual. For example: since the start of the pandemic, webcams, puzzles, and home workout equipment have been trending products on eBay. Obviously, trends on eBay will differ during the holidays right now because of the increase in gift buying. Therefore, the trends are on eBay to help you figure out what people are buying and let you in on great deals. This article can help you discover the best selling eBay products this year.
How to find trending items on eBay
On the home page, you will find daily deals and the main categories. If you go to https://www.ebay.com/deals/trending/all, you can see what’s trending on eBay right now. You can also filter your search to trending items by category.
How to find the trending price on eBay
Next to the price of an item, you will sometimes see another price labeled the “trending price”, which indicates the average price for the item on eBay. This helps you find the best deal and make sure you are not overpaying.
4 Benefits Of Using eBay Trends In Your Business
Build a better product
In a competitive market, you must always be looking for ways to make your product more appealing to consumers. Because so much of eBay is dedicated to resale, you can see what kinds of products stand the test of time despite outside changes. When you understand what contributes to the longevity and success of a product, you can better analyze how to improve your own product or business model.
When you understand how other sellers are attracting customers, you can learn how to sell your product in a different way, making it seem more unique. This is especially important in resale when the products may look identical to the average buyer.
Use eBay pricing data for your benefit
Because there are lots of the same product being sold on eBay by different sellers, eBay is a great tool for understanding pricing. As I mentioned earlier, with the trending price on eBay, you can see the average selling price for an item. If you are a consumer, this raises your awareness to ensure you are not overpaying for an item. As a seller, it helps you get real-time data about how your prices compare to the trending price (your competition). This can either help you to realize you can sell your product for more or that you can lower your price a bit to attract more buyers. For example, when I bought my film camera, I could see on eBay that the average price for my specific model was around $70, which helped me eliminate buyers that charged too much from my search and made the process quicker and easier. Even if you aren’t buying an item on eBay, using the trending prices function can help inform you if you are being overcharged elsewhere.
For more information on building a competitive pricing strategy, click here.
Understand your competition
For sellers on eBay, you are in direct competition with people reselling the exact same item. Because of this model, it is essential that you keep a close eye on your competition. eBay makes this easier than other sites because of the trending price function and the fact that search results will all be the same item just from different sellers. This also makes it easy for buyers to get a better sense of their choices than visiting a website for a single seller.
Understand your customers
The abundance of online retail eliminated many in-person buying experiences that made it easier for sellers to gauge reactions to their products. Thankfully, eBay has countless ratings and reviews that give you valuable feedback to help you grow and make better decisions. You can also see the reviews for your competitors, helping you avoid their mistakes and be inspired by their successes. In addition to product feedback, you can also better understand any shipping or packaging issues that came up in the process.
For buyers, the reviews and ratings are invaluable given the nature of resale. When I bought my camera, the reviews online were essential to me knowing which sellers had dependable, functioning cameras versus those just trying to get rid of an old camera that does not work properly. Because eBay has multiple sellers for the same item, there are many reviews of customers with vastly different experiences. Resale makes it hard to truly know the state of a product before buying since it may not be new. Reviews help you avoid scams and spend your money wisely.
4 Things You Can Learn From Scraping eBay Top Products
Web scraping is a quick and easy way to extract and organize data from webpages. Scraping can be done manually, but a scraping tool saves you time, money, and labor. Think about it like this: you could spend hours, days, even years scraping the information you need from eBay. Or, you could use a scraping tool or service to do the work for you, allowing you to actually use that data to help you reach your personal and professional goals. To learn more about the basics of web scraping, click here.
Discover market trends
In addition to better understanding your own business, scraping eBay trends can help you understand the market writ large. Scraping eBay gives you information on buyers’ previous purchases and their habits. By having this data, you can better predict their future needs and desires which gives you an edge over the competition. As the holiday season arrives, this data becomes even more interesting as it helps you understand peoples’ gift-giving habits. Not only do you know what they buy for themselves but what they buy for those they love the most. While trends on eBay are informative, read here to discover all the business trends scraping can help you identify.
Evaluate product reviews
Scraping product reviews is the most efficient way to get feedback. As mentioned above, reviews offer honest feedback relating to the shopping experience, the product, and the shipping/delivery process. However, it can be hard to scroll through endlessly looking for good insight. With using a web scraper, you can easily download and organize this information so it is easier to understand for both you and others. This not only helps you build a better product but a stronger overall experience for potential buyers.
The most up-to-date information
In our globalized world, markets are constantly changing. Thankfully, eBay makes it easy to see prices and bids change in real-time which gives you amazing insight. When you scrape product information on eBay, you can see what products are selling quickly and up your stock accordingly. You can see when competitors are struggling so you know the perfect moment to step up your game. Personally, you can tell when your own stock is low which helps you avoid losing customers. Scraping competitor information on eBay alongside your own data helps you understand where the market is at and how you compare.
Understanding prices
Wondering how to find trending prices on eBay? A competitive price point is essential to success. As mentioned earlier, trending prices on eBay help you discover that sweet spot. However, scrolling through pages and pages of prices that constantly shift is a thief of valuable time. Using a web scraper speeds up this process and ensures your pricing information is up to date. This way, you can constantly shift prices as needed based on what your competition is doing without sinking a ton of time into following prices like an obsessive fan. For more information on developing a successful pricing strategy, read here.
Other Reasons To Scrape Trending Products On eBay
Scrape eBay seller data
Many sellers on eBay work within a specific genre of products instead of just one item. When I bought my camera, the same seller sold flashes, adapters, and other relevant accessories. Because I had a positive experience with that seller, I knew to return to them again when I needed extra parts or lenses since I already knew they were reliable. If you are a seller, scraping information on other sellers gives you a look into their operating process which helps you study and implement what works and learning from what doesn’t.
Scrape eBay product data
Sellers on eBay are constantly shifting, emptying, and refilling their stock. This creates a more chaotic sense of product availability than most online retailers. With the bid function, product availability is constantly changing. However, it is not possible for any one seller to spend enough time online to personally check competitor availability all the time. Scraping helps you quickly gather data so that it is up to date and accurate for each moment. Because checking availability daily by hand would be too much work and lead to inaccuracy, scraping is the perfect solution to this problem.
This function is also useful for buyers that want to keep an eye on availability so they can plan for when prices may be lowest as sellers try to get rid of excess stock.
Especially during the holiday season, availability is all over the place as people tend to buy all their holiday gifts within the same few weeks.
Scrape eBay image data
Resale often comes down to the art of the image. When you are selling something that is used or out of the package, you have to create a compelling image that proves to buyers you can be trusted. When you scrape images on eBay, you can understand what kinds of images competitors use and which ones are the most successful at turning into purchases. This helps you pick the best way to display your items so that you can edge out the competition and create a culture of trust among your buyers. There is no worse feeling than finding a great price on an eBay product only to click on the photo and see damage on the product or an unappealing setting.
Scrape eBay production details
For both buyers and sellers, information about how a product is made and processed is essential. If you are a buyer concerned with ethical production, scraping product details on eBay gives you insight to the journey your item went through before coming to you. As consumers become increasingly concerned with ethical means of production, sellers can scrape production details of the competition in order to create a safer and more ethical process than other sellers. Buyers will notice this, respect it, and value the honesty and ethics of what you are doing.
Scrape eBay shipping costs
When I browsed through cameras on eBay, I found many sellers who sold the camera at the exact same price with drastically different shipping costs. Obviously, the shipping costs depend on how close you are to the seller and their shipping methods. If you are a seller struggling to make a competitive product price, scraping for shipping costs can help you gain a competitive pricing point in a different way if the cost of the product is fairly fixed. If you are a buyer, scraping for this information helps you see your options more clearly and find sellers that are closer to you.
Find What’s Trending on eBay Right Now With Scraping Robot
While Scraping Robot’s eBay product scraper does a great job of showing you pricing and product details, there is so much more information on eBay that is essential for your business and easily extracted. At Scraping Robot, we understand that each seller or buyer has specific needs when it comes to their experience on eBay. For example, you may already have a solid price point, but want to understand more about reviews. Whatever your needs, Scraping Robot is dedicated to creating custom scraping solutions for you and your business. Contact us with your requests so you can get the best and most reliable scraping experience tailored to your needs like a perfectly fitted suit.
Conclusion
eBay is a great resource for buyers and sellers alike. Whether you are trying to see the average price for an item you want or finding the perfect niche gift, eBay is a great tool. There is also tons of useful data to extract with a web scraper that helps you identify the best reviews, best prices, stock information, and more. As the holidays inch closer and closer, scraping eBay is a great way to get ahead on the competition this season and make sure you are getting the best deals.
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