There are lots of quick and easy ways to carry out market research for your craft business. One quick way to find out what's going on in your area of interest is to look at eBay Pulse.

This might not sound like the most obvious way to find information and ideas that will be useful to a craft business specializing in handmade arts and crafts, however this can give a useful insight into what people are searching eBay for - now! 

eBay Pulse gives a snapshop of the most popular daily searches in each category. One of the best ways to use this tool is to look at the category that your products would normally belong to. This will show you the most popular searches.

eBay Pulse is also available internationally, with each country that eBay operates in having its own version. This gives a useful insight into international trends as well as those in your own country.

eBay Pulse and the Craft Business

While as someone who specializes in handmade arts and crafts you won't want to base your marketing plan and product range on what is being searched for on eBay, it can certainly help to give you ideas to research further. eBay Pulse is a free, handy tool which makes a useful addition to your market research armory.

More Information

Here are the web addresses of eBay Pulse in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. For other countries simply change the end of the url accordingly.

• http://pulse.ebay.com/
• http://pulse.ebay.co.uk/
• http://pulse.ebay.ca/
• http://pulse.ebay.com.au/