Terapeak Quantifies the Michael Jackson Effect on eBay

[eBayNews]

Market research firm Terapeak revealed a major spike in eBay activity around Michael Jackson related items after the performer's recent death. On Wednesday, June 24th, the day before his passing, there were 251 eBay listings containing the words "Michael Jackson." By the end of June 25th, there were 7,680 listings - a 3000 percent increase in one day. By Monday, June 29th, there were over 13,000 Michael Jackson related items listed for sale on eBay.

Terapeak is an eBay-certified provider of real-time market research and data analytics. Company spokesperson Hal Walling said the sell-through rate for "Michael Jackson" items (the percentage of items listed on eBay that actually sold) was 31 percent over the 30 days prior to the celebrity's death, a number that rose to 66 percent in the six-day period that followed.

Walling provided average selling price for Michael Jackson related items, filtering out a few outlier listings of over $100,000, which were questionable web domains that would skew the data. Walling said it was difficult to evaluate average price on a per-day basis, but, he said, "consider that in the 30 days prior to Jackson's death, average price for "Michael Jackson" was $20.28. Over the six days since then, it's $30.25." He noted that expensive concert tickets had likely driven up the average price prior to the performer's death.

Walling said, "On one hand, it's of course upsetting to witness the passing of an icon and innovator, especially one that's followed by such an outpouring of sadness... But from the standpoint of a company whose main interest is in data and trends, this is also as fascinating an event as we've seen in quite some time. Even the U.S. Election at least had some build-up!"

http://www.terapeak.com