Have you ever wondered what sold and what didn't? There are several resources you can take advantage of to implement your own research and then apply the learnings to your own auctions. And of course, here they are below!

The first thing I want you to do is to return to eBay and search for

model horse

Now, look to the left and scroll down a wee bit - you should see a link entitled

Completed items

Click on that. You should now be brought to this page.

Okay! Spread out before your shrewd eyes is a list of all the completed auctions that have the word "model horse" in the title.

Click on the ones that DIDN'T sell. Quite often, you'll see what I mean when I talk about "enticing the reader."

Now click on some that did sell!

You might see phrases like

This would look great in your collection!

Not many of these around anymore

Looking for a caring retirement home

He's near-mint condition

A great addition to your Breyer collection

Notice how many sellers have About Me pages? This can provide additional information about you plus links to your other offerings as well. Silent Sales Machine explains in detail how to craft a fantastic About Me page.

Look some more! What else do you see? How are the pages laid out? Are there any set formats by people who sell multiple models? Is there anything you can learn from them?

One of the tools I love to use when analyzing items for sale on eBay is Deep Analysis. This superb tools allows you to enter in

Keywords

eBay Seller ID

Category

and then see how many items that fell under your requirements sold...what was the sell-thru rate, and much more.

For example, during the month of June I ran an analysis on 2,000 items from the Traditional 9x12" category. The sell-thru rate was around 65% (meaning that 65% of all listed items sold) and the combined value on all high bids was over 51K.

You can also run an analysis on any eBay user you'd like as well! Let's say that you wanted to see the top seller - from the earlier example, you can click on the Sellers tab, sort by "Auctions with sale", and the run an analysis solely on the seller with the most success.

Deep Analysis is great for market research. I recommend it highly and personally use it daily.

Other research tools you can consider is

Anadale Research

Its seller report includes:

• Does this item sell on eBay? - Get the average selling price, # of bids, and # of listings.

• In what category to list? - At-a-glance chart shows you popular categories to list in, and drill-down with one click.

• What features should I use? - See the usage, sell-rate, ASP and average # of bids using extra eBay features.

I haven't used it yet myself, but will in the future.

Now it's time to turn our attention back to your own personal auctions. You now have at your fingertips all the tools you need to increase your model horse profits - let's go over the checklist one last time to ensure you don't leave anything out.