eBay Hacks, 2nd Edition

Schedule Your Listing for Optimal Exposure

Choose the best day of week and time of day to start and end your listing.

Timing is as important in online auctions as it is in comedy. Most of your customers will see and bid on your listing during its last day—and particularly, in its last few minutes—on the auction block. So it stands to reason that you should favor end days and times that are most popular with your customers.

When creating a listing [Hack #43] , you’re given the opportunity to select a listing duration and, for an extra fee, a start time and day, but what you should really be thinking about is the day and time your listing ends.

Choosing a Duration

With an assortment of durations at your fingertips, you have the ability to choose almost any day of the week to end your listing. If only celebrity boxing was this accommodating.

You can choose a 1-, 3-, 5-, 7-, or 10-day listing. eBay charges the same insertion fee for 1-, 3-, 5-, and 7-day listings, but imposes an extra fee [Hack #46] if you want your listing to last 10 days. The duration is important for two reasons: it determines how long your listing is active on eBay (and thus how many customers see it) and, when taking the start day into account, what day of the week your listing ends.

Conventional wisdom holds that the longer the duration, the better. The theory is that the more time a listing is active on eBay, the more bidders will see it, and the more bids you’ll get. In most cases, the extra exposure afforded by ...