Wondering how you can know how quickly your item will sell?
I will show you how to look up the current supply and demand of items. And how you can use this information to give you a good idea of how in-demand an item is. It can give you an idea of how quickly it might sell. So let’s jump right in!
How To: Know How Quickly Your Item Will Sell
I will show you how from a mobile device. The same steps can be done in a PC but will look a bit different.
Step 1:
First, type in the item you want to search for. In this example, it’s “Carhartt vest”.
Step 2:
See the “Filter” that is circled at the top right? If you haven’t used that before, you definitely want to know where that is at. You can find so much information there.
Go ahead at press “Filter”
Step 3:
After completing Step 2, this is what you will see. Notice just below the word “Filter” is how many items match the search results.
For our example, it’s a bit hard to see, but the number is 1,064. That is the number of currently listed items matching our search criteria of “Carhartt vest.”
Step 4:
On to Step 4! You’ll have to scroll down a little ways until you see “Sold Items.” Toggle that on.
Step 5:
Once you’ve completed Step 4, it should look similar to the picture below. Then, the search results will update to show how many items have been sold for “Carhartt Vest”
The number for our example says 2,200. That means 2,200 Carhartt vests have been sold.
Supply vs. Demand
So now that we have the number of currently sold items, and how many are listed, we can look at supply and demand.
I like to do this by calculating what I call the sold/current ratio. Now you don’t need to get the exact number. I usually just do the math in my head.
But for example purposes, here is how you would calculate the sold/current ratio:
Currently listed: 1,064
Sold: 2,200
Now we just need to divide: 2,200/1,064 = 2.1
What Sold/Current Ratio Means
Here are the key takeaways you should know:
- The higher the ratio, the better.
- A ratio over 1 means demand is more than supply. (Like our example. This is a HOT sell!)
- A ratio under 1 means supply is more than demand. (This applies to most items.)
So, How Quickly Will Your Item Sell?
Knowing the sold/current ratio will give you a good idea of how in demand your item is. There are definitely exceptions to the rule. Sometimes an in-demand item sits for a while before selling. Or, sometimes a low demand item sells quickly.
