I have had approximately 50 sports-related auctions on eBay and I generally start mine, and end them as I use 7-day auctions, on Thursday nights around 7:00 PST. I see that research says the best time to end an auction is Sunday afternoon or evening as that is when there is the most traffic on eBay. My problem is that I will be selling a large lot of sports cards and memorabilia. I am afraid that all of the Sunday football would keep my target market away from eBay for most of the afternoon and evening. Does anyone have any experience with sports-related products, or any products, really? When do you have the best luck with starting/ending your eBay auctions. Does anyone know of any research done on the topic that is available for free? I’ve gotten, I think, pretty good at creating well put together auctions, I just worry that I’m not maximizing my profit by listing at the correct time.
Looks like ‘ebay’ peaks on sunday, while ‘ebay football’ peaks on saturday:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=ebay&ctab=0&geo=all&date=mtd&sort=0
http://www.google.com/trends?q=ebay+football&ctab=0&geo=all&date=mtd&sort=0
Wow, that was quite helpful. Thanks much. Looks like I should try to get my auction set up today. Thanks again.
Monday at 6:00pm PST, in my experience.
You get the high visibility on Sunday AND the people that spend their workdays surfing Ebay.
This is a little off topic of listing times but…I always felt that, if I were selling a few items that were very simular - let’s say two autographed footballs by the same person - it would be better not to list them at the same time. My thinking is that if there are 5 people interested in a Dan Marino auto football, let them duke it out over one ball, then let the 4 losers duke it out a few days later. If they think you only have one ball to sell, the bidding might get up a little higher than if they know you have another ball waiting in the wings. I had a huge lot of rolls of silver coins that I was selling for a dead uncle a while back and I applied that theory.
If I had 50 items like you have and I had doubles and simular items, I’d spread them out…but that’s just me.
For items that are just going to get sniped when they reach the top of the list (when sorted by time left), any time that can result in an end of listing on Sunday afternoon/evening.
For items that may attract actual competitive bidding, particularly if they are unusual items, maximum duration can help (it allows time for interested parties to find the item) - starting the listing on a Thursday afternoon, with a 10-day duration means it will be visible on the system for two weekends - ending on the Sunday afternoon of the second one.