Hi Michael,

Thanks for asking.

The methods would vary depending my starting point and or my objectives.

While Hot Selling Products are nice...They are still just Indicators of a "Potential Market"

So my ultimate objective would be to find a hot Industry with many profitable players;COMPETITION.

Here is the "Starting Point" continuum as I see it.

Starting Point:

1. Braintorm/Get Ideas
2. Find: Hot Ads...which Leads to "potentially"
3. Hot Products/Services...which Lead to "potentially"
4. Hot Players/Businesses...which Lead to Other "potential"
Players in a market (Competition)


IF I am able to determine there are MORE than ONE profitable players in a market then you have a better chance of being successful.

THE MORE COMPETITION THE BETTER

THEN I would spy on the TOP 5 or 10 to determine the who, what, when where, why, and how's of their marketing.

O.K all that said. I would 1st go to EBAY, because I find that it is one of the most Transparent ways to do market research.

You can determine to the penny the last 30 days TOTAL SALES volume for a market. Real buyers and Real Sellers.

Let's use Michael Ross's example of "rust repair"

I would use his PPC method as a quick start. (sidenote: keyword elite would automate a lot of that process)

However, my preference would be to go to EBAY since THAT is where the buyers and sellers are.

My Objective: Find PLAYERs that are or have made money in the last 30 days

So looking at my "continuum" from above:

1. Brainstorm/Get Idea:

Rust Repair!

2. Find HOT Ads/Listings: Manual Method

At this stage we are doing a QUICK "eyeball" of any number that shows in GREEN which denotes a sale.

a. go to www.ebay.com
b. enter "rust repair" (no quotations)
result: only 19 ads are currently listing
c. Check box labled "completed listings"
d. Click "Show Items" button
e. Login to your ebay account
f. Eyeball and count the number of Green: Red numbers

RESULTS:

58 completed listings (29 (Green)/58 listing successful 50%)

I want to get more specific data about the Ads, the Hot Products and the players so I'll bring out the heavy duty research software from www.hammertap.com in this market[/i].

2b. Find HOT ADS automatically: LEVERAGE SOFTWARE

a. Load up my "spy software" (hammertap.com)
b. Click on product search
c. Enter "rust repair"
d. Click on "show detailed listings" icon

RESULTS:

Headline Number #1

BODYWORK RUST REPAIR AUTO BODY SHEET METAL

Headline Number #2

Dishwasher Rack Repair Kit -repair rust

RESULT:

Headline #1 is repeated 4 times.
Headline #2 is repeated 5 times.

This means that our software has automatically checked the completed items and the 2 headlines are the ONLY ones that have been REPEATED more than 3 times each. We KNOW for certain that these are HOT ADS.

3. Hot Products/Services

a. Of the two repeated Ad, look and read each auction to determine
the product or service

Result:

We can see that Headline #1 is advertising a GUIDE ie. Information Product
We can also see that Headline #2 is advertising a physical product. Some kind of vinyl touch up paint.

4. HOT PLAYERS/BUSINESSES

We now can SPY on each of the Players that have these HOT ADS

Let's just stick with the dishwasher headline.

a. We go back to our hammertap software
b. Click on "Seller Search"
c. Enter the name of the seller (ebay userid)

Results:

We see that this seller has a 100% success rate across 18 different auctions
and has grossed $106.84 cents in the last 30 days selling his dishwashing kit thing at an average sale point of $5.74

So for this Player he is targeting a very,very slim segment of the rust market.

Who woulda thought!

Now YOU can go and SPY on HEADLINE number one and determine how much
money he has made selling his INFOPRODUCT! :->

Conclusion:

So using this methodology and the spy software we know that there is about $200 worth of volume per month. There are only really 2 players. Each targeting two different segments. One has an info product that he sells repeatedly. The other sells a physical product.

So Is this market viable? Sure! You just have to determine what YOUR OWN criteria for viability are!

As usual Thanks for reading and thanks to everybody that has contributed to this so far.

Duane Adolph

P.S

Using this EXACT same method, I "Spyed" a fellow Sowpubber making money with his OWN info product recently :->

"HE" is a player but I ain't Tellin who :->

P.S
www.hammertap.com has a 10 day free trial