eBay Sell Through Rate Calculator
Use the free tool below to work out a products sell through rate. Want to learn how to spot great items at garage sales and thrift stores? Read Flip Weekly’s newsletter or listen to the podcast.
What is Sell Through Rate?
Sell through rate tells us how in demand something is. This number directly correlates to how quickly an item will sell. We work out an items sell through rate by taking the number of Active Listings on eBay, dividing it by the number of Sold Listings and multiplying by 100. Sounds complicated, but trust me once it’s explained it will help your reselling journey.
Why is this important?
When you’re buying items to resell, you want inventory that is going to sell quickly. You’re investing money into an item, you don’t want it tied up on eBay for 2 years before you see a return. A high sell through rate means you make money faster which can then be re-invested into your business.
Can you provide an example?
If you’re a visual learner like myself, this might help you. Let’s start off with an item with a bad sell through rate: Bruce Almighty on DVD. Despite being a hilarious movie, it is not something you want to buy in a thrift store or garage sale to resell. On eBay, it has 1,700 Active Listings.
Now if we adjust the filters to only show us Sold and Completed Listings, we see just 73 results.
If we plug those numbers into our eBay Sell Through Rate Calculator, that gives us a sell through rate of just 4.29%. These numbers are poor as it indicates that of all of the Active Listings, only 4.29% sell within 90 days which is the length of time eBay keeps data available for Sold Listings. If you find an item in a thrift store or garage sale and I told you it had a 4.29% chance of selling within 3 months, would you buy it? No. If we extrapolate the above data, we could expect to sell our copy of Bruce Almighty within approximately 5.8 years.
Now let’s use a good example. Something that I’ve bought in a thrift store before for just $4 and it went on to sell for $250 within just 5 days. It’s a book that’s now out of print by the popular YouTuber Spanian. There are 17 Active Listings.
If we check out the Sold Listings, we can see a total of 38 results which is double the amount of Active Listings. If we plug those numbers into the eBay Sell Through Rate Calculator we get 223.53%. This means that if you found this book in a thrift store (like I did) and put it on eBay, there’s a 223.53% chance it will sell within 90 days.
As you can see, sell through rate means everything when it comes to making money on eBay. You want to buy items that sell quickly so that you can reap the rewards. Avoid items that have a low sell through rate and aim for high sell through rate items.
How can I learn more?
Flip Weekly is a 100% free newsletter and podcast released each Thursday morning that teaches you how to make money going to thrift stores and garage sales. If you’re a reader, you can subscribe to the newsletter here or read past issues here. If you’re more of a listener, you can listen to the podcast here or listen to past episodes here.