Finding hot items on eBay can be surprisingly simple using a few little-known tricks.

Let's get started...

You can easily search through eBay using their advanced search tool and look for items that generate over 25-30 bids.

eBay recently integrated an advanced search option where you can select the minimum and maximum number of bids per auction listing.

Set the minimum to 25 and the maximum to 1000.

Then, browse through these auctions and look at the number of sales the corresponding member has made over the past month.

You can do this by checking their feedback comments.

Also, if the item is a buy-it-now item and they listed more than 1 item, then you can see how many purchases were made by going to the 'history' link.

Plus, it is important to check out the number of unique bidders.

In most cases, you will see that only a few bidders are battling for the auction, therefore not really identifying a true hot item.

Another identifying feature to look out for is the number of hits the auction has received. You can safely assume that the item is hot if the number of hits are over 300-500.

However, there has been incidents of ebay users refreshing their browser 100's of times to increase their auction hit counter, therefore tricking buyers into thinking that the item is in demand.

Therefore, by using the following 3 guidelines you can easily determine if a particular item is hot:

1. The item has over 25 unique bidders. (check the 'bidders' link and 'history' link)

2. The item has sold several times over the past month. (check the items in the feedback comments)

3. The hit count is 300 or higher.

Additionally, you can easily uncover hot items by browsing through eBay's completed auctions. This feature is also available in the advanced search section.

Using the same guidelines above, you can uncover hot items searching through eBay's completed auctions and therefore, possibly find your hidden niche on eBay!

Dave Guindon is a software developer and online marketer that designs software tools for ebay enthusiasts. Find all the eBay hot items in seconds at http://www.hotitemfinder.com