The BBQ Showdown – Gas vs. Charcoal

Continuing along the theme of posts about sales trends (this will be my last one before eBay Live!, I promise), this one comes out of a discussion I had with a buddy recently about an outdoor BBQ we're planning for a friend's birthday. I'm a huge fan of just about anything you can cook outdoors (especially bratwurst), but we had to figure out how we actually wanted to do the grilling. The classic debate was raging between us yesterday – is the convenience of a gas grill worth more than the flavor of old-fashioned charcoal? That's when it struck me that I should check out what eBay members think.

While purists may vehemently disagree, the majority of eBay has answered with a resounding “Yes." In the last month, according eBay Marketplace Research well over twice as many “gas grill” related items have been sold than “charcoal grill” items (although sales for both have jumped sharply in the last two weeks as the weather gets progressively warmer). I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised, considering we settled on the same answer.