As an avid ebayer, I have been under it's spell since 1998. As a recently new collectable retail seller, I have an insatiable appetite to find climbing trends before they become fads. I like to collect, that's how I got into this business. As a collector I want to find out everything about a particular interest. As a retailer, I need to know a lot about many interests on behalf of many collectors. They drive the business. I may love tin lunch boxes, but that particular collectable is on the wane. I need to know what's new and hot.
I have followed eBay's "Collector's Weekly" for many years. It is basically a compilation of the top 50 items by either price or bidding interest in several different categories. There is one for records, one for books, one for sports cards etc, etc. I find the information invaluable. It allows me to skim, and to see what's hot, what's trending and what's cooling off. In today's email, I find eBay has added a new category. "Souvenir's" That general catch-all that covers everything from flags and pennants to coffee mugs and maps. The one thing most souvenirs have in common is...they're common, and usually cheap. They were designed for the masses as either freebies or cheap drek that could be picked up on a whim as you arrived or departed from your once in a lifetime vacation.
Glancing over the new category, the first thing I notice is that it is an incredibly affordable hobby. Where most of the other categories have items that start in the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, the highest priced item in the souvenir category is a reasonable $177 for a 1876 World's Fair fan. It has 43 bids and 7 watchers as of this writing. That's a lot of interest for a ladies fan. Why? One reason may be it's easy to collect World's Fair items fairly cheaply. To find a functional item 150 years old for under $200 is for most people, reasonably affordable. There are thousands of sub-categories that one could specialize in. Matchbook covers can be had for less than a buck. You can build a fairly impressive collection for under the price of a good bottle of wine.
I'm going to keep an eye on this category. I may have found a niche that is under utilized and that isn't saturated with sellers...yet.
I have followed eBay's "Collector's Weekly" for many years. It is basically a compilation of the top 50 items by either price or bidding interest in several different categories. There is one for records, one for books, one for sports cards etc, etc. I find the information invaluable. It allows me to skim, and to see what's hot, what's trending and what's cooling off. In today's email, I find eBay has added a new category. "Souvenir's" That general catch-all that covers everything from flags and pennants to coffee mugs and maps. The one thing most souvenirs have in common is...they're common, and usually cheap. They were designed for the masses as either freebies or cheap drek that could be picked up on a whim as you arrived or departed from your once in a lifetime vacation.
Glancing over the new category, the first thing I notice is that it is an incredibly affordable hobby. Where most of the other categories have items that start in the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, the highest priced item in the souvenir category is a reasonable $177 for a 1876 World's Fair fan. It has 43 bids and 7 watchers as of this writing. That's a lot of interest for a ladies fan. Why? One reason may be it's easy to collect World's Fair items fairly cheaply. To find a functional item 150 years old for under $200 is for most people, reasonably affordable. There are thousands of sub-categories that one could specialize in. Matchbook covers can be had for less than a buck. You can build a fairly impressive collection for under the price of a good bottle of wine.
I'm going to keep an eye on this category. I may have found a niche that is under utilized and that isn't saturated with sellers...yet.
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