eBay has shared some practical insights into the 2022 holiday season across various product categories. The advice, which considers how the current economic uncertainty impacts buyers and sellers, focuses on a trend eBay calls “never-before-seen intentionality.” This trend suggests that consumers haven’t stopped shopping but are actively seeking highly personal and valued items to deliver the ideal gift.

Highlighting the opportunity on eBay this holiday season, Adam Ireland, VP and GM of eBay US, said, “It’s only on eBay that shoppers can get so personal – so intentional – with their gifting, and that’s what we aim to broadcast on your behalf. To put you in the strongest holiday position possible, we’re going to focus shoppers’ attention on eBay’s endless gifting possibilities – all while helping you deliver a best-in-class experience for high-value, enthusiast buyers, and key categories like fashion, luxury, collectables, motors and more.”

In-Demand Products Across eBay’s Top Categories

With current buying trends in mind, eBay has created a list of in-demand brands and items across the following categories:

Collectables

A hugely significant category on eBay, collectables covers everything from games, to pop culture and sports. In 2021, eBay sold a staggering 63 million trading cards on the online marketplace. And while trading cards are incredibly popular on eBay, they represent only a tiny fraction of the inventory available on the marketplace. Hot trends in the trading card game category include Garbage Pail Kids, Magic: The Gathering, MetaZoo, Pokémon, and Yu-Gi-Oh! Meanwhile, searches for sports trading cards and memorabilia featuring stars like Tom Brady, Serena Williams, Roger Federer, and Rob Gronkowski are particularly hot.

Toys and games are highly sought out at this time of the year, particularly when the stock of specific items isn’t available through traditional retail outlets. eBay suggests that brands including Beanie Babies, Barbie, Funko Pop!, LEGO and Squishmallow are seeing incredible demand this year. Highlighting the demand for specific “must have” toys, eBay searches for Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga have increased by more than 500% since the beginning of the year. Similarly, demand for Mattel’s Meditation Mouse has jumped by more than 700%.

eBay is also seeing continued interest in board games. Top-selling board games include Axis and Allies, Battleship, Candy Land, and The Settlers of Catan.

In the field of entertainment, nostalgia is proving a big hit, with sales of Tiny TV Classics (tiny toy TVs playing famous scenes and quotes from popular shows like Friends, South Park, and Batman) increasing by 130% since January. Vinyl records are also proving popular, with festive hits from Mariah Carey, Nat King Cole, and Michael Buble topping the charts.

Fashion

When it comes to high-end, luxury, and vintage fashion, an increasing number of consumers are having their heads turned by pre-loved fashions. A recent survey by Vogue Business suggested that upwards of 70% of consumers were interested in buying pre-owned goods. This figure increased to 80% amongst Gen Z consumers.

eBay’s authentication services undoubtedly enhance consumers’ experience buying pre-loved watches, handbags, jewellery, and sneakers.

Hamilton, Omega, Seiko, Tag Heuer, and Tissot top eBay’s most-sold list in the watches category. But eBay’s watch category isn’t just about luxury timepieces. For example, in 2022, Seiko consistently ranked as a top 5 seller.

In the handbag category, luxury brands, including Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Prada, are all vying for top positions. Interestingly, when shopping for designer handbag brands, consumers are equally likely to buy pre-owned products as they are to purchase brand-new items.

When it comes to buying jewellery for holiday gifts, consumers tend to shop early. With more than 7.8 million fine jewellery listings added to eBay every day, there is an incredible choice, resulting in an average of eight pieces of fine jewellery sold every minute on the marketplace in 2021.

The sneaker business on eBay is kicking it. Current popular sneaker searches include New Balance 550s, Air Jordan 1 Retros, and 11 Retros, and, with more than 50,000 searches a month, the Nike Dunk Low Panda.

Motors, Parts, and Accessories

With nearly half-a-billion listings, motors have always been one of eBay’s biggest and most successful categories. While the motors category helps motorists keep the cost of keeping their cars on the road and indulge in their passion for vintage vehicles throughout the year, it’s also a very popular gifting category during the holidays. Top-selling gift items this year in the motors category include specific products, like the Chemical Guys Cleaning set, Craftsman Easy Read Socket Wrenches, Craftsman Mechanic toolsets, Topdon Portable Car Jumps, and the Vevro Car Jack.

Electronics (Including Refurb)

Conscious consumerism continues to make significant inroads into eBay’s electronics category. Gen Z consumers are particularly interested in buying refurbished items, with 80% regularly purchasing pre-owned items.

Highlighting increasing environmental awareness and the impact of the cost-of-living crisis, searches for refurbished electronics have risen by 25% since June 2022.

Hot products in the electronics category include Sony, Bose, Dyson, DJI, and Samsung, with sales of Sony Wireless Headphones, the DJI Mini, the Samsung Galaxy, and Bose’s QuietComfort Headphones leading the charge.

Optimise Your eBay Sales Experience This Holiday Season

If you have access to any of the brands or products listed above, the time to list them on eBay is now. But that’s only half the battle.

To ensure your items sell well, you need to ensure that your listings are optimised for search visibility and conversion. Frooition’s free eBay Listing Optimisation Report is a great place to check how well your listings will perform on eBay and compare your optimisation strategy against your competitors.

Find Products That Sell

Of course, not all sellers will have access to the brands or products that eBay highlighted as top sellers this year. This is one of the biggest challenges facing businesses just starting out on eBay. Where do they find the hot products they need to scale their business on the online marketplace? With these sellers in mind, Frooition has recently launched the free eBay Hot Product Finder Chrome extension, which allows sellers to search for specific items on eBay and find similar products ranked by sales volume.

Learn More

To learn more about how Frooition can help you optimise your sales experience on eBay, Amazon, or your own website this holiday season, schedule a free 15-minute discovery call  with one of our eCommerce experts today.