Best Time of Day to List

Why is the time your auction ends important? Because some of the most intense bidding takes place in the final few minutes of your auction, from snipers trying to steal the high bid at the last possible moment. To take advantage of last-minute bidders, your auction needs to end when the most possible bidders are online.

For example, if you end your auction at 3:00 in the morning, most of your potential bidders will be asleep, and you'll lose out on any last-minute bids. End your auction in the middle of the day, and you'll miss those bidders who are stuck at work or in school.

Better, then, to end your auction during early evening hours. That's when the most number of users are online, and when you're likely to receive the most number of last-minute bids.

Remember, though, that you're dealing with a three-hour time-zone gap between the East and West coasts. So if you time your auction to end at 7:00 p.m. EST, you're ending at 4:00 p.m. PSTwhen many potential bidders are still at work. Conversely, if you choose to end at 9:00 p.m. PST, you just hit midnight in New Yorkand many potential bidders are already fast asleep.

The best times to endand thus to startyour auction are between 9:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. EST, or between 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. PST. That way you'll catch the most potential bidders onlineon both coastsfor the final minutes of your auction.

Bestand WorstDays to List

Just as the time of day your auction ends affects your results, so does the day of the week. While different types of items perform better on different days, the general consensus is that Sunday is the default "best day" to end most auction items.

Here's why.

When you end your auction on a Sunday, you get one full Saturday and two Sundays (the starting Sunday and the ending one) for a seven-day item listing. Sunday is a great day to end auctions because almost everybody's homeno one's out partying or stuck at work or in school. End your auction on a Sunday evening, and you're likely to get more bidsand higher prices.

There are exceptions, however.

As with the time you end your auction, your ending day might also be influenced by the type of item you're selling. If you're selling an item of interest to college students, for example, you might be better ending on a night during the week because a lot of students travel home for the weekend; you're more likely to catch them in the dorms on a Wednesday or Thursday night. Items targeted at churchgoers might also be better ending during the week, so you don't catch bidders when they're at Sunday evening church services. (Which makes this one big exception to the Sunday evening rule!)

So if Sunday is normally the best night of the week to end your auction, what's the worst night?

Friday and Saturday are probably the worst nights to end most auctions, because a lot of eBay users are out partying on these non-school nights. End an auction for any item (especially youth-oriented items) on a Friday or Saturday night, and you eliminate a large number of potential buyers.

Seasonal Variations

When you're planning your projected eBay sales and revenue, you need to take into account the fact that sales rates vary throughout the year. It's no surprise that sales go up in November and December, due to the Christmas buying season. But did you know that sales go downway downin the summertime? That's right, eBay traffic in general drops significantly during June, July, and August. Lots of potential buyers are on vacation, and even more are outside enjoying the sunshine.

Keep these seasonal trends in mind when planning your business. That might mean putting fewer items up for auction during the summer months, or holding your highest-potential items for the fall or winter. Just don't assume you'll keep a steady sales rate throughout all 12 months of the yearbecause you won't.