Auction 411

The length of your eBay auction listing and the ending date are two factors to consider. Depending on what you’re selling, you need think about the following options:

One Day Auctions

If your products are in high demand and the average item is getting many views and bids, you can consider listing them for a one-day auction. Listing the auction one day will send your items to the top of the list since most people view the listings that are ending first. It’s all about being creative with your pricing, in order to try to reach the highest bid. Imagine your starting bid is only a dollar or two below your Buy-It-Now Price. Many bidders may bid the lower amount, in hopes of winning the auction at a lower cost. However, in many cases, the bidder spoils the BIN and may end up bidding more than the BIN in the end!

Three Day Auctions

Three Day Auctions are a good choice if you have a hot item that people want, or if you have a hard-to-find holiday item that people might want sooner. It’s similar to the one-day auction, only you’ll have a couple extra days to squeeze in some additional bids.

Auction411.net Tip: Double Up

Try putting up a Three-Day Auction at the end of a very successful seven day auction two days before it ends. If a red-hot item is getting bid on like crazy, throw in a three-day auction and cash in on the bidding craze. You might end up selling both items for a large amount.

Five Day Auction

If you don’t have a whole week to post a listing or if you want an “extended weekend” listing, put your item up in a five day auction. It’s longer than a three day, but shorter than a whole week.

Seven Day Auction

Many people put their items up for a seven day auction mostly because there is more of a chance to get an increased number of bids. It’s sort of the standard amount of time for an auction — not too long and not too short. Many bidders won’t think one week is too long to watch an item.

Ten Day Auctions

You might want to opt for a ten-day auction listing if you have a rare item that you’d like to maximize exposure for. Collectibles that aren’t very common could yield much more in the end if it’s listed for two weekends. If you start the listing on a Friday, it’ll have two whole weekends to be viewed.

Ending Date

So now that you’ve thought about how long your listing will run for, on which day should your auction end? More specifically, what time of the day will your auction end? These are also important questions to consider, since there will be more bidders on eBay at certain times looking at certain items.

First and foremost, don’t end your auction on a national holiday or any holiday actually. Obviously, most people are out traveling with their families or enjoying their day off, instead of surfing the internet. Besides that, we recommend that you should end an auction on a Sunday evening, when more people will be at home viewing the site. The time that we have found to be the optimum time is 8:00pm PST as you will get a good number of eyeballs on both the east and west coast and everything in between. If you can’t end on a Sunday, then try the next best day — Monday! Monday usually is a day many people come back from their long weekend and relax by surfing the internet and doing some browsing, hopefully on your eBay store! Coming in third is Thursday as it’s not exactly the weekend yet, but close enough to spare a few extra minutes browsing eBay a bit. But remember to be smart about your product and to understand your target audience. For example, if your target audience are men between the ages of 18-35, then it wouldn’t be very smart to end a bid on Mondays, since this demographic is usually stuffing their face with hoagies and beer, watching Monday Night Football!

Here are the best times we suggest to end your auction:

1. 6:00pm - 10:00pm PST
2. 9:00pm - 12:00am PST
3. 3:00pm - 6:00pm PST
4. 1:00pm - 4:00pm PST

The worst times to end an auction are:

1. 2:00am - 6:00am PST
2. 12:00am - 3:00am PST

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