EBay Launches Analytical Tool For Sellers, BuyersEBay Launches Analytical Tool For Sellers, Buyers

EBay Inc. on Thursday launched a service that gives sellers and buyers access to listing, bidding and pricing trends.

EBay Marketplace Research, launched in anticipation of the upcoming holiday season, provides customizable data, charts and graphs that show historical and real-time transaction trends among users of the online marketplace. EBay has 168 million users and 60 million listings, according to the San Jose, Calif., company.

For the shoppers, the new tool can check average sold price to determine how much they should expect to pay for a product. Other information includes the number of times a product has been listed and average bids per item. The latest features follows by a couple of months the introduction of reviews and guides related to products on the online auction site.

For sellers, Marketplace Research provides data that goes back as far as 90 days to help merchants spot trends in starting prices and average sold price, shipping charges and top search terms. The information is meant to help sellers adjust sales strategies as trends change.

"EBay Marketplace Research offers (buyers and sellers) a convenient but powerful new e-commerce service, just in time for the key holiday season," Bill Cobb, president of EBay North America, said in a statement.

The new service is available in three subscription levels: $2.99 for two days of use, a basic subscription for $9.99 a month and a professional subscription for $24.99 a month. The first two services show data as far back as 60 days, while the pro version goes back as far as 90 days.