Martha's Ebay Statistics Problem
The Scenario:
Martha wants to sell books on Ebay but she doesn't know which ones to buy or sell.
How will she find out:
- Which books sell the most over a period of time?
- Which books sell for the highest amount?
- What is the total sales figure for an item and can she compare several books?
- What is the average value a book sells for over a given period?
- What is the highest value a particular book sells for over time?
- What is the lowest value of a particular book over time?
- Number of completed items?
Martha wants to do the same on Amazon
Analyzing the problem:
Ok so where do I begin solving Martha's problem?
Ebay have data on their sales. How do I access that data.
Do I have to run a search and parse all the pages the search returns?
No. This wouldn't solve the problem at all. The data we need is not current but historic data.
We have to look at data stored by Ebay about particular items and categories of items.
Data based on sales made over the last two or three months.
Ok so what do Ebay provide in terms of statistical data for free to the average ebay seller?