How competitive is the market for car audio products?

So I have a dilemma. The products that I am most interested in and have the most knowledge about just so happen to be products many say to stay away form selling...electronics...mobile audio to be more specific. Car audio is a passion of mine and is, quite frankly, the reason that I began considering online sales (of the drop shipping variety). Do car audio products really fall into the same taboo category as things like Ipods, XBOX's, laptops, and whatnot? Or is that field maybe just far enough from the limelight to give me a fighting chance. One way or another, I'm going to sell things to many people. I just don't know if I have to modify my niche (I have ideas, of course), or if I should (gag) follow my heart :>0

Welcome to SaleHoo, capitolj80 :)

I decided to get the help of our Research lab in checking on the demand and competition for car audio products. Based on 30 days live eBay history, here's what the research lab found - car audio products have a sell through rate of 32.4% with relatively low competition while demand varies from average to very low all throughout the four eBay sites - eBay.com, UK, AU and Canada.

You might want to give the lab a try too!

You may also want to experiment with your product lines a bit, offer a bit of this and that. You can easily do this by selling a few things from home and see which products sell well - you might even discover another viable niche product in the process :) You can do this along with selling a few car audio products as well.

Hope this helps somehow, all the best!

Thanks Richelle. That is helpful. I was under the impression that the competition in that field was a lot steeper than that. I'll take what you said into consideration. Thanks again :)

I used to sell a lot of car audio on eBay, all second hand and I found it to be a very specific market.

My experience was that quality brand name equipment always got a decent amount of interest, and quality prices that reflected that level of interest. It all come down to price with second hand, as it does with most things on eBay, but I could still make decent money on no name audio, but only on limited interest, and mostly from buyers who were not car audio fans, more price buyers.

If I was to go back into second hand sales on eBay, car audio would be high on my list of priorities as a product choice.

For the most part, eBay is flooded with low quality imported car audio, all pretty much garbage for the most part. I would suggest that car audio itself isn't a bad field to be in, but stick to quality products to generate the most interest. If you're a car audio fan, then you have the knowledge to position yourself within that market correctly.

Thanks Richelle. That is helpful. I was under the impression that the competition in that field was a lot steeper than that. I'll take what you said into consideration. Thanks again :)

You're welcome capitolj80 :) Mine was purely research, so you should read Marc's post as his is based on experience!

All the best!

Thank you both. I feel better about being able to go with what I know and what I care about. Fudjj, you're right, high-end to mid-grade audio is pretty much what I had in mind. I personally wouldn't feel good hyping and selling junk. With the product knowledge I have, I can also offer customers some of the "quality on a budget" products out there (they do exist, you just have to know yer stuff). Thanks again, guys!

Jeremy