What’s Hot and SUPER HOT at Ebay These Days?

Each month, Ebay posts a new adobe acrobat file describing what’s HOT and SUPER HOT on their auctions.

If you’re trying to decide what categories will be best for your business, this is an excellent guide…

Click here for the Current Hot Categories Report

So what makes the cut as “Hot” or “SuperHot”?

Ebay explains…

The Hot Categories Report (a.k.a. “The Hot List�) is updated monthly and gives an unadulterated view of level 4 (L4) categories that meet the following criteria:

1. Month-over-Month bid growth is at least 1%.
2. Month-over-Month bid growth is at least 1.5 times greater than month-over-month listings growth.
3. Bids-per-item is greater than the average for the relevant level 3 category. Note: this is per item, not per listing. For example, the number of bids-per-item for work boots (L4) in a given month may be 7, while the average bids-per-item for all L4s in boots (L3) may be 2. Therefore, work boots would pass this condition for “hotness.�
4. Conversion rate for the L4 category in the most recent month was at least 50%.
5. Level 4 category must receive at least 100 bids per week.
6. In the interest of providing clear and actionable information, L4 categories named “Other� have been omitted.

Definition of degrees of “Hotness�

“Super Hot� – at least a 35 percentage point spread between bid growth rate and listing growth
rate. For instance, month-over-month bid growth for the L4 Category may be 50%, while monthover-
month listing growth for the L4 Category may be 10%. Because the percentage point spread
(40 percentage points) is greater than 35%, this category is deemed “Super Hot.�

“Very Hotâ€? – a percentage point spread between 15% and 35%. For instance, month-over-month
bid growth for the L4 Category may be 10%, while listing growth may be -10%. Thus, this
category is deemed as “Very Hot.�

“Hotâ€? – remaining hot L4s with spreads up to 15%.