Myth # 130: Find a list of “hot” items you can buy cheaply, and then sell the same thing.
A favorite question of new eBay sellers is “What are the hottest items on eBay?” What they really mean is, “What things have other sellers done very well with that I can sell, too, without working too hard to come up with ideas of my own?”
“Hot” is an amorphous term, but the best definition I’ve heard is that a hot item on eBay is anything that sells in such vast quantities that there is too much competition, and minuscule profit margins.
Of course, anyone who knew which products sold the best with the least amount of effort would be unlikely to tell you what they are. Why encourage even more competition and ever lower margins? Did Macy’s tell Gimbels?
In practice, the question “What are the hottest items on eBay?” is a bit vague. Do you mean hottest in the raw numeric sense: which items are featured in the most number of auctions posted, or perhaps, have the largest number of sales? Maybe you’d like to find out which products attract the largest number of bids, or have the broadest range between opening bid price and final price? Or would you prefer to know which items produce the most revenue or the most profits? Better yet, would you like to know which goods have the highest profit margins?
Unfortunately, knowing what items are “hot” in any of these senses is unlikely to do you any good, for the following reasons:
Items that are the biggest sellers usually have the most competition. Everyone wants to get in on the bandwagon, so if a particular product becomes very popular, before you know it there will be dozens or hundreds of other sellers offering the same thing. Do you really want to jump on a bandwagon that’s already over-crowded, and end up competing with multitudes of sellers who may be smarter than you, have lower costs, and offer lower prices?
Hot items usually have the lowest margins. All that competition leads to cut-throat pricing and typically low profit margins. That bandwagon is not only crowded, but the pay is lousy.
Today’s hot item is yesterday’s fad. Trying to respond to fast-moving trends in hot items is like attempting to understand popular culture by reading Rolling Stone Magazine. By the time the information reaches you, it’s already so far out of date that it’s useless. The crowded, low-paying bandwagon is probably a mile ahead of you on the road, and you have little hope of catching up with it.
Instead of trying to follow on the coat-tails of last month’s hot item, you’re better off trying to find your own niche and own selling style.