For maximizing the price, what time and day of week is best? I think it’s best to end the auction when the most people are online so they can bid manually, but when is that? Weekday during the day? Weekday evenings? Weekend afternoon?
I’ve found the best time to have an auction close is Sunday evening after 9:30 PM EST. That means I like to run seven-day auctions that start at roughly the same time. You have to figure that people are at work during the week and might not have internet access, or they do family stuff all week and go to bed early, and aren’t home much on weekends. But Sunday night, most people are home, relaxing after the weekend, getting ready to go back to work or school, and may be more likely to be wasting time online and checking eBay. I only say “after 9:30” so checking the auctions doesn’t interfere with watching Family Guy.
I think the best time is on a Sunday afternoon. It appears a billion and two people–including mr.stretch–are hovering over the auctions they are watching that will end on Sunday afternoon. Lots of ebay buyers are not on-line during the week; we have to earn the money to buy your stuff.
Which is why the SDMB is deserted during the day on weekdays… 
But that sounds reasonable, thanks.
Ditto the Sunday evening thing…but I have to remember not to have auctions end on big US holidays–I just put up some items yesterday, and used a 10-day–I remembered that next weekend is US Thanksgiving! I figure that there will be too many folks drowsy from excess turkey, so I decided to have the auctions finish on the Tuesday night instead.
Hey, I’m on vacation this week! 
I can’t ebay from work*–it’s specifically prohibitied in our Internet usage policy. So, I’m an evening and weekend ebayer.
*I can’t post to the 'Dope from work either. 
I think the peak is Sunday, 10 pm Eastern.