Computers & Networking

The computers and networking category has a few good deals at the moment. Apparently, Dell laptop batteries are prone to die or maybe people just want a spare. The batteries rank at the top for most watched items in the computers & networking category. A close second place is Dell's little netbook with Ubuntu installed. One of the items that really caught my is the 16 megapixel web cam for $14. It looks like over 2000 people have purchased one. Go to whats-hot-weekly.com and look at the most watched items in the computers & networking categore!

Surveillance Equipment is HOT Right Now

With summer vacations starting, people are going to be leaving their homes unattended for extended periods. THE hot selling item in eBay's gadget category is security cameras. There are some massive security camera kits that can be used to monitor one's home remotely over the web or to record events that could be taking place at home while one is relaxing on the beach.

There's also a cool pen cam in the top 5 for that category along with some other cool gadgets.

As always, use whats-hot-weekly.com to find the most popular items on ebay.

Hot Watches on eBay

There are some cool looking watches(as in timekeeping) on eBay at the moment. This watch is a 1305a Omega Speedmaster Professional 3592-50 Moon Watch. The current bid is at nearly $800. Of course this may be too expensive for some people (including me). However, $800 is nothing compared to the $2500 watch just three items down at Whats-hot-weekly.com. It's beyond me why someone would spend that much on a watch. That could be the poor boy inside me coming out, but I mean come on. You can buy a $50 watch at Walmart that does the exact same thing. I simply can't comprehend why someone would spend that much on a watch.

Internationalization is complete

Is that a word? If so that is huge. Whats-hot-weekly.com is international at any rate. I retrieved all categories by site code and placed that into a new SQL database. I then made the necessary code changes to the site and hot swapped to the new database. The site was not down a second.

Since that day, the site did suffer from a major outage that lasted around 10 hours. This was due to the server having a major issue and at the time I didn't have access to submit tickets for a server outage. It made me wish I had the site on my own server. That conversion would be brutal for me right now though.

Find Niche Markets in Subcategories

One of the best arguments I've heard for looking at the most popular items on eBay was from this website. In it the author sources an expert from AuctionBytes. The expert's name is Ina Steiner. Ina states that knowing the most popular items on eBay is bad for the seller because they are looking that the most competitive items on eBay.

Now this is true for the most popular items on eBay all-around. The general most popular items are going to be the most competitive. However, whats-hot-weekly.com gives one the ability to drill down into subcategories and search by keyword. This is a MAJOR advantage for the seller, buyer, or marketer. Other sites, not to name any names, don't allow one to drill down into subcategories. They only give the top-level categories. Drilling down into the subcategories allows one to find great niche items.

I know this works because my wife uses the tool all the time to find niche markets. I prefer to code so I spend most of my time looking for new coding ideas. She asked me to write whats-hot-weekly.com for her. With it, she can find great niches.

There's another one of my sites that she uses just as often if not more so. I haven't released it for public use yet but it's a bit more focused on niche market research. I had originally planned on selling it but I've decided that when I do release it, it'll be free for all.

So, even though Ina says that looking for the most popular items isn't a great way to find things to sell, I totally disagree. Drilling down into subcategories lets one find items that have roughly 10 watchers but are the most watched items in their particular category. These do not have a lot of competition. They are great markets.

Zippo Pipe Lighters

I've recently taken up pipe smoking. I quit smoking cigarettes last September. I realized that I still wanted to "smoke" but I don't want to actually inhale. So I just puff on my pipe to relax. Of course, I get a bit of nicotine from it but it really isn't as habit forming.

So I decided I needed a good lighter. Seasoned pipe smokers will tell you that butane lighters burn too hot and aren't good for lighting a pipe. Your best bet is to go with a zippo pipe lighter. These are great for lighting a pipe because they are specially designed with a hole in the side. This allows for easier pipe lighting.

I did a quick search at whats-hot-weekly.com and sure enough, ebay is full of them. I'll probably grab one of the cheap, plain metal zippos. I've lost probably $500 worth of zippos in my life.