| Keyword | Volume | CPC | Competition | 12-month trend |
|---|
How it works
The eBay Keyword Tool harvests real autocomplete suggestions from eBay's public suggest API (the same engine that drives the dropdown in eBay's search bar) for any seed term you enter. Suggestions reflect what real eBay shoppers have typed when looking for products. We then enrich every harvested phrase with monthly Google search volume, CPC, competition, and a 12-month trend via the Keywords Everywhere API.
How the harvest works. The harvester runs in your browser via CORS fetch (calls go from your IP, not ours) and hits eBay's autosug.ebaystatic.com/autosug endpoint with callback=0 to get raw JSON suggestions. We iterate your seed combined with the alphabet (a-z, 0-9) plus ~70 modifier words spanning brands, models, sizes, conditions, era qualifiers, and buyer-intent phrases. For each prefix eBay returns 0-10 suggestions; we collect every unique one. A typical 5-seed harvest produces 200-500+ keywords.
Volume enrichment. As keywords are harvested, batches of 100 are sent to the KE API for Google volume, CPC, competition, and 12-month trend. eBay doesn't publish per-keyword volume publicly, so we use Google's data as a relative-popularity proxy that correlates well with eBay search demand for product-related terms.
Country targeting. The Country dropdown selects the volume-lookup country. eBay's suggest endpoint is host-bound by domain (.com vs .co.uk vs .de etc.) so the suggestions reflect the .com US market. Your last-picked country persists across sessions.
Conservative pacing. The harvest is paced at roughly one request every 1.5 seconds to stay below eBay's per-IP rate limit. A full 5-seed harvest takes ~15 minutes. You can stop early at any time and keep the keywords found so far.
Plan caps. On the Free plan you can run 500 keyword lookups per day across all our keyword tools combined.
What the columns mean
- Keyword
- The exact suggestion eBay's autosuggest returned for some prefix of your seed term. Use these phrases directly in your listing titles, item specifics, and product descriptions to match how real eBay shoppers search.
- Volume
- Monthly Google search volume averaged over the past 12 months, sourced from Google Keyword Planner via the Keywords Everywhere API. eBay doesn't publish per-keyword volume publicly; Google volume is used as a proxy that correlates with eBay buyer demand for product-related terms.
- CPC
- Average cost-per-click that advertisers pay in Google Ads for that keyword, in the country's currency. For e-commerce keywords this is a useful proxy for "commercial value" of the term, both on Google Shopping and eBay Promoted Listings.
- Competition
- Google Ads' competition score (Low / Medium / High), reflecting how many advertisers bid on the keyword. For eBay listings, high competition means lots of other sellers are listing items in that category , a saturated market.
- 12-Month Trend
- Sparkline of monthly Google search volume over the past year. Rising trends often indicate growing product demand worth sourcing inventory for; sharp seasonal peaks (Halloween, holiday gifts) help time listings. Hover any point on the chart for the exact month-over-month value.
Frequently asked questions
What is the eBay Keyword Tool?
It's a free, no-signup keyword-research tool that harvests real autocomplete suggestions from eBay's public suggest API for any seed term you enter, then enriches every harvested phrase with monthly Google search volume, CPC, competition, and a 12-month trend. The harvester runs in your browser (calls go from your IP), and the volume data comes from the Keywords Everywhere API. Use it to discover what shoppers actually type into eBay's search bar.
Why search eBay specifically (vs Google) for keywords?
eBay shoppers come with buying intent already locked in. Someone searching for "vintage levi 501 36x32" on Google might be researching jeans history; the same person on eBay is ready to buy a specific pair. eBay suggest data captures the exact phrasing buyers use, including brand names, model numbers, sizes, conditions, and era qualifiers ("antique", "vintage", "NWT", "used"). Using these phrases in your listing titles matches how real buyers search.
How does eBay's autosuggest work?
eBay exposes autosuggest via the public autosug.ebaystatic.com/autosug endpoint (the same engine that drives the dropdown in eBay's search bar). The endpoint returns JSON suggestions when called with callback=0 (raw JSON instead of the default JSONP wrapper). We iterate your seed term combined with a-z, 0-9, and ~70 modifier words, collecting every unique suggestion eBay returns.
How do I write a better eBay listing title?
Run the tool with your product's primary descriptor as the seed (e.g. "leather jacket" or "ipad pro"). Pick the 5-10 highest-volume harvested phrases that genuinely describe your specific item, then weave them into your title. eBay allows 80 characters for the title , use them all. A title like "Vintage Leather Jacket Brown Men's Large 1980s Real Genuine Cowhide Bomber" beats "Brown Leather Jacket" every time because it matches more long-tail buyer searches.
Are the volume numbers from eBay?
No. The volume column shows Google search volume for the harvested phrase, sourced from Google Keyword Planner via the Keywords Everywhere API. eBay doesn't publish per-keyword volume publicly. In practice Google volume correlates well with eBay search demand for product-related terms: if many people search for a product on Google, many of those people also search for it on eBay. Read it as a relative-popularity signal across product categories.
Why does the harvest take ~15 minutes?
To stay below eBay's per-IP rate limit we space requests out at ~one every 1.5 seconds. A 5-seed harvest makes about 530 calls (5 seeds x 106 modifiers), which takes ~15 minutes. Hammering eBay's suggest endpoint faster than that gets your IP blocked quickly. You can leave the tab open; results stream into the table as they're found, and you can stop early to keep what's been harvested so far.
How do I find trending products to sell?
Sort the harvested keywords by the 12-month trend column ascending (or look for rising sparklines in the chart column). Phrases with sharply rising trends often correspond to products gaining momentum. Cross-reference with Volume: a high-volume keyword with a rising trend is a great category to consider sourcing inventory for. Look out for seasonal patterns too , phrases like "Halloween costume" peak predictably; phrases without clear seasonality and rising volume usually indicate genuine demand growth.
Does this work for Amazon / Etsy keyword research too?
Not directly. eBay, Amazon, and Etsy each have their own suggest APIs with different access patterns; Amazon's endpoint blocks cross-origin requests entirely, and Etsy's is protected by DataDome bot detection. We've verified this and chose not to build broken tools. For eBay specifically, this tool works because eBay's endpoint accepts cross-origin browser requests with the callback=0 trick. Use this tool for eBay, and use platform-specific research tools (Helium 10 for Amazon, Marmalead for Etsy) for those.