What Are the Best-Selling Items on eBay and How Can You Find Them?

Introduction

If you’ve ever wanted to start an e-commerce business on a site other than Amazon, eBay may be the best choice for you. The second largest online marketplace in the world, eBay receives north of 1.7 billion visits by customers per month across the entire planet. The worldwide appeal that eBay enjoys will ensure that you’ll never run out of potential buyers.

However, you may be wondering what you should sell on eBay. In the comprehensive guide below, we’ll take a look at the best-selling items on eBay, some surprisingly lucrative items you can sell on the platform, as well as how to find these winning items yourself.

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Which Items Sell Best on eBay Right Now

1. Sporting Goods

Continuing a years-long trend that started in 2021, the popularity of the sporting goods category is—when you think about it—not surprising in the least. A reason for this is because, since COVID, many customers from around the world have started to prioritize their health by purchasing home gym equipment which allowed them to stay in shape while remaining safe in lockdown. 

This fitness trend has continued well past COVID and many are still buying items such as stationary bicycles, weights, and more—all within the sporting goods category. As a seller, this allows you to sell a wide variety of different sporting equipment, allowing you to branch out and continuously grow your eBay business.

Something to keep in mind when selling items from this category, though, is that your potential customers are most often looking to pay more for branded items. By carefully choosing items that are branded, profitable, and effective, you can see massive financial gains.

Take a look at one of the most profitable subcategories in sporting goods:

• Bicycles and Bicycle Components, Parts & Clothing

2. Home & Garden

A classic product category that everyone knows, Home & Garden has retained its massive popularity among the e-commerce audience for many years and shows no sign of stopping that momentum. In particular, kitchen and garden supplies are in increasingly high demand. Even though certain items within this eBay product category are seasonal, the vast majority of them are commonly purchased throughout the year.

Another positive note about this category is that it provides a huge number of viable options for new and old e-commerce sellers alike to thrive. This is due in large part to the many lightweight products—with many cheaper variations you can sell—that do not require any approval. This perfect combination of factors means that the chance of getting a hugely significant profit margin is increased.

However, when you sell home and garden products on eBay, you must remember to always select high-quality products or—alternatively—make quality-of-life improvements over an existing one. This is important because you will need to find powerful ways to win potential customers over to your brand, rather than your competitors.

When selling home and garden products, the below should be considered first:

• Small Kitchen Appliances
• Heating
• Cooling & Air Equipment
• Building Materials

3. Jewelry & Watches

When selling in the jewelry & watches eBay category, a primary advantage that cannot be understated is how most of the items are small and light. This means that you can save a huge amount of money on shipping costs, ultimately leading to higher profits.

However, it’s not all flowers and sunshine. You’ll always need to keep an eye out for counterfeit products. Let’s use a watch as an example. Many passionate collectors will outright refuse to buy a fake watch. This means that, if you buy a fake or counterfeit watch—believing it’s real—and then sell it to an aficionado who immediately realizes the truth and sends it back, you’ll have lost potentially thousands of dollars (depending on the watch).

Also, keep in mind that selling counterfeit goods on eBay is strictly prohibited, so ensure that you fully understand the policies before making a costly mistake.

Here are the recent top-selling items on eBay in this particular category:

• Engagement rings
• Fine earrings
• Men’s watches

4. Health and Beauty

The best thing about selling health and beauty products on eBay? Everyone uses them and everyone needs to get them replaced at some point. Common personal health and beauty items such as makeup, lotion, and shampoo all get used up eventually, whether that be in a week or a month. This is great news for these eBay sellers because they will always have an audience that needs their product.

Another reason why health and beauty items are some of the best products to sell on eBay is because sales are generally consistent throughout the year. That means no prolonged periods when you’re struggling to make a profit. Instead, it’s happily a case of sale after sale.

The big however, here, is that there are many health and safety regulations on these eBay products. It is vital to understand the regulations as they apply to your products to ensure you’re not caught unawares after you’ve invested your money.

With that out of the way, here are some of the top-selling items in this category:

• Fragrances
• Anti-aging products
• Vitamins and minerals
• Acne patch treatments

Surprising Things That Sell Well on eBay

These surprising items that sell well on eBay can range from rare finds that immediately make sense, to ones that you wouldn’t normally think are profitable but most definitely are. Take a look at some of our picks here:

1. Boxes

Boxes, believe it or not, are—in this case—made out of gold (figuratively speaking) for eBay sellers who want to take their brand to the next level. By simply selling boxes on eBay, you stand to gain tens of thousands of dollars per year if you zero in on an audience and properly stock your digital shelves with this product.

One of the reasons why boxes have metaphorically grown wings and soared into the financial sky is the continued rise of global e-commerce. With this steady rise, there is also an equal rise in demand for packaging (boxes) that other e-commerce sellers like yourself can use to ship items.

If you play your cards right, you could see yourself and your brand becoming a preferred location for all your customers’ boxing needs.

2. Toilet Paper Rolls

No, we’re not joking. Selling toilet paper rolls on eBay may seem like a very odd thing to do, but it’s incredibly profitable. There are many reasons why selling this innocuous product can be the best decision of your entire e-commerce career but, to save time, we’ll only focus on two.

The first reason you should sell toilet paper rolls is that, as you might expect, it’s a household item that everyone needs. This means that the demand for this product is always going to stay consistent—or go up in the case of a global pandemic.

The second reason—actually related to the recent pandemic—is that many sellers became aware of how popular, in a sense, toilet paper is. To this end, some creatively oriented sellers started to create themed toilet paper. This simple idea has exploded in popularity, but there’s still room to join in and see your e-commerce profits increase.

3. Vacuum Cleaner Parts

Yet another surprising product you can start selling on eBay is vacuum cleaner parts.

A reason why this product in particular is silently successful is due to the sometimes outrageous cost of buying a brand new vacuum. Due to this expense, most current vacuum owners are choosing to simply fix their existing vacuums on their own. Of course, fixing vacuums instead of buying new ones requires replacement parts.

That’s where you come in.

By selling vacuum cleaner parts on eBay, you give this growing number of customers an easy-to-locate way of purchasing their much-needed parts. You can even further specialize in either generic parts or vacuum parts from big-name brands. 

As a plus, replacing different parts of a vacuum is more environmentally friendly than purchasing a brand-new one. Here’s a tip: add this fact to your marketing tactics and see what happens!

4. Bicycle Parts

Bicycle parts are, oddly enough, one of the most surprising—and profitable—product categories on eBay.

Not only is bicycling a popular activity for both exercise and transportation, but it is also a simple hobby for those who like to get out of the house and explore the world around them. These hobbyists in particular are always on the lookout for the latest and greatest additions or upgrades for these bikes, which is good news for you!

By selling bicycle parts on eBay, you can stand to make a pretty penny by taking proper advantage of this surge in demand.

Furthermore, a growing number of customers—mostly those who live in cities or dense suburban areas—are choosing to sell their cars and stick to biking instead. Not only is this a great way to reduce harmful emissions, but it also saves them money on a car payment while giving them a great workout at the same time.

The combination of all these factors serves to make selling bicycle parts on eBay a safe and secure market to watch your growing business thrive.

How to Find Items to Sell on eBay

The first instinct of many new eBay and Amazon sellers is to provide the top-selling products on the site. While this can be a good idea, it’s not set in stone. Many other factors need to be considered in order to find success as an eBay seller. Some of these other factors include profit margins, size, weight, cost, and more.

To quickly find winning products to sell on eBay, we recommend using our popular Black Box tool. Here’s how to use it:

Find Products with Amazon Data

Step 1: Use the initial Black Box search filters to input key criteria including category, competition, price, and monthly revenue. You can also select “Advanced” on the right side of the screen for a wide range of specific filters. We recommend looking for products that have 1000 or more monthly sales; these are winning products.

Step 2: Once Black Box has found your products, it’s a good idea to narrow your product search a bit more. By clicking the “Edit Filters” button in blue above the list of products, you can discover more filters that’ll help you find the best of the best products.

Step 3: It’s important to focus on new releases or upward trends when you can. By inputting a max Listing Age of 3 months in the “Edit Filters” section, we can more easily find stand-out, profitable products.

Step 4: Click the blue “Apply Filters” button to get the new top product list.

Step 5: From this new list, take notes on what products interest you or, if you find this list to still be a little long, quickly hop back in the filters and add more parameters to narrow down the selection further. You can also add products that you like to a list within Helium 10 by clicking the blank checkmark box on the left side of each listing and then clicking the “Add to My List” button right above.

Step 6: Head to eBay and find out how many sellers on that platform are selling the items you added to your Black Box list. Then, you should discover the overall condition of the item being sold, as well as the number of sales. However, above all else, ensure that the product you settle on is in high demand.

Even though Black Box—and other product research tools—are primarily designed for Amazon, you can see how easy it was to use Black Box to find information that directly translated to eBay.

Find Products on eBay Using Search Filters

If the above method isn’t your style, you can instead use eBay’s helpful filters to find products to sell on eBay.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Find a category and subcategory that you want to sell in.
2. Utilize the filters located on the left-hand side of the screen to find top eBay products.
3. Under the section titled “Condition”, select “New.”
4. Select a price range from between $10 and $60. This will help you find eBay products with successful sales margins.
5. Below the “Buying Format” section, select “Buy it Now.” This will filter out any items that are available for auction.

FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the most profitable items to sell on eBay?

While there isn’t one golden product that will guarantee profits, selling products such as vintage clothing, legos, musical instruments, broken electronics, and antiques will put you on the path to success.

What are the easiest items to sell on eBay?

Products that are both cheap and trending are the easiest to sell on eBay. In particular, these products include antiques, phone accessories, pet supplies, and sports memorabilia.

What items don’t sell well on eBay?

It has been found that certain items such as expensive designer items, food, and handmade crafts do not sell well on eBay in comparison to other e-commerce platforms like Amazon. For new sellers, it’s a good idea to sell vintage clothing and other popular items instead.