Love it or hate it, eBay is massive. As such, they are in the privileged position to be able to provide some of the best information you can get to tell you what's hot online.

eBay Pulse is the place to find this information.

You can drill down from the top (which, more often than not, seems to list iPods and games consoles as the hottest items) right down in to your particular niche.

As an example, I had a look in Toys & Hobbies => Outdoor Toys, Structures. I could also have gone in to more detail and looked in "Kites", "Pedal Cars" etc…

I can now see a live picture of what real people are looking to buy - there will be good money in all these keywords - people searching on eBay are people who have money in their hands and are ready to hand it over.

You can also see which auctions in your chosen category are being "watched" (so they will be notified when the bidding changes) by the most people. This can be useful in discovering what individual products are desirable to your target market - if the most watched items are all trampolines, it's probably a good idea to start promoting them over other products

eBay Pulse is, by no means, a "one stop shop" for niche research, but it provides an excellent starting point for you to go from…