eBay product research has always been a bit tricky. There are lots of tools for Amazon sellers that can show them how many of something sells in an average week or month but there hasn’t been a reliable research tool for eBay. There is now, as you’ll find out further down the page but first, we want to cover what’s changed recently in eBay product research and show you a way to access the data you used to be able to see easily, then we’ll cover our new tool at the end, both are useful.
If you’ve ever done product research on eBay, you’ve probably looked at the sales history of similar items to those you are considering selling. This information would have told you how many items have sold, how fast they sell, what price they sell at, and which variants sell the best. Unfortunately, this is no longer an option.
What’s Changed?
As of last week, you can no longer access the purchase history of an item on the listing page. It only shows the total number sold. Previously, you could click on this figure, and it would highlight the last 100 transactions for that item with the date sold and, for products with variants, details of which variant was sold. This figure is no longer a clickable link.
This change makes it much more challenging to conduct effective product research, as the total number sold could be in the last week or the last year! For a multiple variation listing, it may be the case that only one of the variants sells well, but you can no longer tell.
There is a Workaround
The good news is we have found a workaround for sellers wanting to access the sales history of a product for research.
Copy and paste the following text into your search bar, then replace the text “enter-item-number-here” with the actual eBay item number that you want to look at (for example https://www.ebay.co.uk/bin/purchaseHistory?item=385543168522), then hit enter:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/bin/purchaseHistory?item=enter-item-number-here
This will bring you to a page showing the sales history exactly as you were previously able to access directly from the listing. To look at the sales history of further items just delete the item number each time and replace it with the one you want. Once you have searched one item, leave it’s item number in the link and bookmark it and it will take you to this page each time, and then just replace the item number with the one you want each time.
You’re welcome!
Learn More
If you’re looking for an ebay research tool, try our Insights tool. It will show you which are the fastest selling products on eBay for any category or any search term.
To learn more about our design services and our other tools for analysing and maximising your sales on eBay, book a free 15-minute discovery call with one of our eBay experts today.
