Online store owners and vendors on marketplaces like Amazon and eBay know how crucial it is to keep tabs on consumer preferences and emerging trends in order to capitalize on emerging markets.
This article was written for you because we believe that researching the most popular products of 2020 will help you determine which products will do well on this platform and give you insight into the future of your business.
From the most popular items on eBay in 2020, we have compiled a case study from which we can draw conclusions and project into the future. This manual could prove invaluable if you plan to sell items on eBay.
Why sell on eBay
eBay reported a 3.8% drop in sales for Q1 2020, but that things picked up in early April, with some product categories seeing week-over-week increases of 20%. The most recent data show the following crucial indicators:
Marketplace GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) by 9% compared to the first quarter of 2018, reaching $25 billion; the number of active buyers on eBay increased by 1.75%, from 171 million in Q1-2019 to 174 million in Q1-2020.
What to sell on eBay: let’s talk about categories
Let’s jump right into it by looking at the top-selling items across eBay’s many categories:
Cell phone accessories, especially mobile screen protectors, were the best-selling items in the electronics category, which is essentially the king of all categories.
Fashion: the best-selling products in this sector were fashion accessories and athletic footwear.
The third category to win is collectibles, which have always been popular with customers who wanted to amass memorabilia of their favorite television shows or hobbies. This is a difficult category to scale, however, because you need to be aware of the latest trends at all times.
This link will take you to the most up-to-date rankings and best-selling products.
Also, we’ll let you in on a little secret: eBay has a fantastic resource called What to sell. Check it out to see what’s hot right now as well as what’s been selling well on eBay overall or in any specific category or subcategory, and even by country.
You can also conduct a search within a specific time frame, and the software will then examine the over 232 million items that were sold in the 30 days prior to that time frame. There will be a breakdown of sales by country, item, and category, as well as an analysis of the most and least popular products in each.
What to sell on eBay: percentages in various countries
Now that we know how each product type is performing, let’s examine the raw data for each country. The percentages you see represent the number of successful ads. By analyzing the data, we find that Germany had the highest rate (38.3%), followed by the United Kingdom (37.5%), and finally the United States (35.1%).
It may come as a surprise that the United States market, the largest one, has the lowest overall sales rate, but after some consideration, we can deduce that this is because this country has the greatest number of insertions and, thus, a greater degree of competition.
Conversely, competition is lower and conversion rates are higher in Germany because it is more difficult to upload products on eBay there due to a number of restrictions.
It’s clear that picking the right market for the right product requires more than just trusting one’s gut; it requires analysis of the data with the methods we’ve outlined here.
Conversions by product category
To that end, we’d like to present some data on standalone offerings, elucidating how they convert better than top-sellers despite not being particularly popular.
These are the items with the highest rates of purchase completion:
Strips for diagnosing diabetes (87.66%)
Trackers that measure physical activity and health (82,13%)
Macbook computers (81, or 22%)
Games consoles (80, or 46%).
Types of products that have the lowest conversion rates:
Gemstone jewelry (3.41%)
Tank Top (3.43%)
Painting on Canvas (4,13%)
Formal attire worn by the bride’s attendants (4.38%)
These numbers suggest that specialized niche products, like diabetes stripes, will have less competition and a higher conversion rate than more generic offerings, like can-be t-shirts.
As the popularity of fitness tracking apps shows, it pays to capitalize on a fad that may be highly profitable right now but will eventually die out.
On the other hand, the example of diamond rings demonstrates that although eBay is a massive marketplace, it is not well suited to all products. This is especially true for high-priced items like diamond rings, as buyers will need to place more trust in the seller before making a purchase.
Sell on eBay easily
Because eBay is so large, you can sell almost anything there, and we hope that the data we’ve analyzed will help you determine which products will do best in your particular market.
Buying goods from China to resell on eBay can be very lucrative if you are looking for a supplier. Chinese manufacturers can provide you with anything, especially with new and trendy items.
One viable strategy is to create a product family that incorporates all the best parts of the products your competitors offer but at a lower price point.