Do you know when the most opportune times to list on eBay are and how they can affect your overall sale? Discover how to take advantage of the "24-Hour" window and dramatically boost your profits.
Both the duration of your auction and the listing time play a huge role in how successful your auction is. It really can be the difference between your item successfully selling, and the auction remaining unsold, so it’s imperative you get it right.
You may have noticed that most bids seem to occur in the last 24 hours before the auction ends. This is because eBay automatically arranges the search results in order of “ending first”. The auctions with the least amount of time remaining will appear further up the list. Why is this important?
Well, think about this… items that have less than 24-hours remaining will generally be displayed on the first page of results. An auction that has 10 days left to run may appear on the 5th or 6th page. Think about how many times you look at the last few pages of search results when you’re looking for an item. Probably not that often. Most customers will get fed up after clicking through 2 or 3 pages, and therefore will not see your listing until it is closer to the end date.
When your item eventually comes into the last 24-hours, it will most likely be showing on the first page of search results, and therefore gaining far more exposure.
For this reason, I like to try and list items every single day. By constantly having your items in this 24-hour window your auctions will gain far greater exposure, and you will really start to see results. Now of course, only a number of my items are in that “24-hour window” at any given time, however all adds to process of getting buyers to look at your other items.
Ultimately, the goal is to get people looking at your auctions. Even if they don’t purchase the item they initially clicked on, they may always click on “See Seller’s Other Items” and buy an alternative product you have for sale.
You’d be surprised how many times I’ve sold an item, then a minute later sold another, to the same customer, and then another and another, all because they clicked to view my other items.
Now we know why it’s so important to frequently have items in the 24-hour window, you must now select your audience and market specifically to them.
Remember, the time your auction starts is also the time it ends. You must first take into consideration where the majority of your target audience is located. For example, let’s say you are aiming to sell toys to the Japanese market, it’s no use listing in your own timeframe, you need to think about what time is best to list in relation to when the Japanese market are most likely to be online.
Just because you list an item in the evening at your location, doesn’t make it evening when it will end in another part of the world. For this most this isn’t a huge issue on it’s own. If you are in the US, and selling to the US, the regional time differences are that great. However it is still important to know when most users come online.
Of course, this is generally in the evenings after people have returned home from work or school. Take the weekends into consideration; although the evening is generally when most people are online, this may not be the case on a Friday or Saturday night. From my own personal experience I’ve found Thursday and Sunday evening’s to be when most activity happens. Depending on your own niche, you’ll need to do a little experimenting to ensure your listings ending at the opportune time.
I’ve also found that eBay often perform site maintenance on a Friday morning and parts of the site seem to be inaccessible. While I’m not 100% sure if this affects any logins, or bidding activity it might be best to avoid this period just in case.
About the Author:
Ian Marples is an Internet marketer and web author who runs the website http://www.uncleslinky.co.uk to help budding online entrepreneurs succeed Online. For similar information to this article subscribe to his FREE Newsletter by sending a blank email to marketing@uncleslinky.co.uk
