posted on April 13, 2001 11:17:36 AM new
I took a relatively small sampling of 400 completed auctions and wanted to see the best end days as far as successfully ended with at least one bid. I also figured the days that ended with the most bids.By no means is this scientific nor captures a broad range of categories. I did capture a broad range of dollar value however.It's worth noting that one bid does not mean the seller did not make a nice profit, nor having 15 bids shows that the seller received a profit. The results are for general reference only.The day with the least successful (1+ bids) auctions is Monday with 55% completion. The best day is Friday with 78%. Saturday's rated second worse.Bid count: Day with the highest percentage of one bids is Thursday. The day wih lowest one bids is Wednesday.Day with highest amount of 4+ bids is Wednesday. Day with lowest 4+ bids is Thursday. Fri-Saturday were mixed with an equal percentage of one bid vs 4+ bids.The winner....Friday.
posted on April 13, 2001 11:27:28 AM new
Well, i post my stuff on sunday nights. What are other sellers' opinions about best day/time to end their EBAY auctions?
posted on April 13, 2001 11:38:58 AM new
Sunday nights are a no no! eBay fudges with their "infrastructure" software on Sunday nights and is the most frequent time that outages have occured in the past. Stay away - far away...
I've found Thursdays to be the most productive for us. I stay away from Sundays and weekends in general. I believe that most purchases are made on work computers, not by home users.
posted on April 13, 2001 11:46:42 AM new
I have been listing for almost 2 years and in that time, have tried every single day to see what ends with the best results.
It seems for the items that I sell, which are primarily mens suits, that Monday, Tuesday and Thursday are by far the best. Wednesday would come in next, but Friday, Saturday and Sunday are by far the worst.
So my primary listings are done on Monday and Tuesday with a few listed on Thursdays.
I do have some items that I sell on a regular basis, I won't mention what, but they do better when listed on Friday and Saturday, it's a weekend thing, and more people are looking for those during the weekend hours.
So really I think that it's based on what you sell, as to when is the ideal time to list and to have them end.
posted on April 13, 2001 11:55:58 AM new
Sundays had the second highest success completion percetage. Sundays I'd rate as the second best day to end auctions.
My results were used based on other sellers auctions, not mine. That gives a better sampling.
posted on April 13, 2001 01:04:24 PM new
I run Dutch auctions almost exclusively. I've tried just about every possible combination of ending days, times, and length of auction. This is what works best for me (and no other formula even comes close):
- List on Thursday evening at 10 PM EST.
- List for 10 days. This has my auction running for 2 complete weekends and ending on a Sunday night.
My Dutch auctions do very well when I use this formula. I have found that the pluses of ending on Sunday night far outweigh the minuses even with the frequent Sunday outages factored in.
Of course if you run regular auctions instead of Dutch, a Sunday when ebaY craps out can cost you big-time. But for Dutch auctions, I'll never do it any other way.
posted on April 13, 2001 04:33:46 PM newquickdraw
As you, my statistics prove that by far my best day that I receive bids on is Thursdays (during the day). Haven't completed my best ending day information because I'm experimenting with something a little different right now.
posted on April 13, 2001 04:59:25 PM new
Quickdraw and Brie - do you think Thursday is a high bidding day because people have just been paid? Or are they past hump day and thinking about recreational things, looking forward to the weekend, etc?
posted on April 13, 2001 05:21:39 PM new
rca, Thursday is not a good multiple bidding day. 54% of the successful auctions ended with one bid. However, it has a successful completion rate of 69%, not bad if you're using BIN.
I'll be breaking down by hour some other time, but I've seen early morning tends to get many higher count of bids. We'll see if that holds up when I put the numbers together.
posted on April 13, 2001 05:31:06 PM new
Very interesting info. I have found Thursdays to be best for me with relatively early evening ending times. The only days I list anymore are Sun, Tues & Thurs--I had tried ending around 7:30 Pacific time and found that I do better if I end about 3:30 Pacific--must be the time when everyone is checking from work.
This strategy seems to work well most of the time--except for this week which has been a real dud. I'll never list during Spring Break again!
posted on April 13, 2001 06:40:27 PM new
Ah, the age old question of the best day to end an auction. We've taken this poll twice, once in late '99 and another time earlier this year and with several thousand respondents these are the results we got:
posted on April 13, 2001 07:32:58 PM new
I'm going to keep adding categories to my testing, and see how these numbers hold up across ebay. I think people are confusing profits with bidding activety, a totally different subject matter. Vidpros poll is opposite from the factual numbers I obtained straight off ebay.
posted on April 14, 2001 12:39:51 AM new
Wow, I have not kept track of auctions in a percentage form, but I have auctions running 7 days/week. Each week varies to me...
-Trey
***********************************
"If your mind can conceive it, and you believe it, then you probably can achieve it."
posted on April 14, 2001 05:20:13 AM new
I think Monday and Tuesday are the best nights to end. I have never understood the sunday night thing. I am Never on the computer on Sunday and the few times I have listed stuff to end then it flopped. I sell just about anything. Very interesting to read about other ebayers experiences though...
Julie
posted on April 17, 2001 04:50:40 PM new
I added 1400 completed auctions to my study, and mixing up the demographics with a higher age group and using non-collectible items.
Here's where it stands. Monday and Tuesday still are in the basement at 52% overall successful completion on Monday, and 49% on Tuesday. Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays took a nose dive in my latest study. Wednesday overall successful completion to 49.5%, down from 62%. Thursdays now at 56.5%, down from 69%. Fridays now at 62%, down from 78%. Sundays now at 59.5%, down from 74%. Saturdays remained pretty consistant, overall at 57%.
It's clear from these seperate studies that what you sell does make a big difference on which days to end. In my second study, Mondays and Saturdays (which were a bad day for my other group of items)actually surpassed Fridays and Sundays as a better day using a new group of items.
It's been a real eye opener for me because I sell such a wide variety of items and end them on the same day. Now I'll have to alter the end days based on what I sell.
Here's what else I've found. Sundays are confirmed the biggest listing day, doing as much as twice the listings as Thursdays, (Is it because of SURVIVOR??). The younger crowd in the first test obvious to me either spends Thursdays at the bars for the 50¢ tap (Thursdays are normally Lady's Night at the club.) or watching Survivor, because my higher age demographics listings on my second test for Thursdays remained pretty consistant with the rest of the midweek.
posted on April 17, 2001 05:26:07 PM new
Sunday is still #1 for my sales. Later in the evening is best rather than earlier. Followed by Saturday, then Friday. After that, the days of the week are the worst.
IMO, ebay is still too much of a "fad" thing to be able to get reliable statistics for any one market or segment.
Back before I started selling, I might get on ebay, be a very heavy buyer for a couple of weeks...then it might be months before I got back on again.
It's not like WalMart where people drive by & see it everyday, so they think of something they need & stop in.
My bet is the demographics of who's on ebay & what they are shopping for changes dramatically each week...people tune in, people tune out.
To me, it's more important to know who your target audience is. If it's sports buffs, then you don't plan your auction to end during the big game. If it's younger people, then don't plan to end it during Survivor. And so on.
Learn when YOUR audience is most likely to be on ebay. Don't rely on what other people say unless you KNOW you are selling in the same target market as they are & are likely to draw the same audience.
posted on April 17, 2001 05:49:12 PM new
These are interesting stats. Thanks for posting.
Since I'm just a closet cleaner, I arrange my auctions to end when it is convenient for me: Monday mornings Hawaii time. That way I can process the Billpoint payments during the day and pack them up to ship out on Monday evening. The mailed in payments usually arrive on Saturday morning and I pack and ship those on Saturday afternoon. It's a nice routine. BIN throws me off sometimes, but I'm not complaining!
posted on April 17, 2001 05:57:15 PM new
Eventer ....... I agree 100% with your post.
My best days are the ones where 2-5 people are all shopping for the exact same item, and it's one that I'm selling.
posted on April 18, 2001 07:10:56 AM new
I have tried and tried and tried to pin down "best starting days and times" and "best ending days and times".
I give up! Ebay outages, slowages and other factors -- such as holidays and weather -- make this virtually impossible.
What *does* work?
SCATTERING . I started listing my auctions in groups of about ten in a variety of timeslots. Some in the afternoon, some in the evening (after dinner hours). Almost any day of the week .
I get maximum exposure and overlap (= combined, multi-item wins) by doing 10-day auctions. More bang for the buck since Ebay is extremely slow with indexing. (At this time, I do usually make up for the surcharges in sell-through, but Ebay still needs to get their indexing act together.)
Again, SCATTERING seems to work best because there is no magical time or day when Ebay decides to takes a dump or the sun decides to come out .
By SCATTERING, you pique the interest of a larger pool of bidders who participate on Ebay in different time slots and -- with luck -- will click on your "view more auctions" or "gallery" link.
posted on April 18, 2001 07:28:42 AM new
I still find Sunday evenings very successful so I tend to stick with them as auction ending days. One thing that was interesting, in talking to the major auction sites (except Amazon, who doesn't like to release any kind of data) was that Sunday evenings were, in fact, their busiest traffic times.
It may or may not follow that these are the days that you receive the most eyeballs for your auctions. Sunday nights are also busy with people POSTING auctions, so the traffic may not be all buyers.
Also, as people have mentioned, there have been frequent eBay outages on Sunday evenings, and that does have to be considered when choosing an auction end time.
Personally, I would love to see an eight-day auction on eBay. If you posted on Saturday, that would give the auction the 24 hours it needs to be indexed by the search engine, giving you 2 full Sundays. It would take some of the burden off of eBay's servers by splitting up the traffic over 2 days. Also there would be less need for a 10-day auction, giving eBay what it wants in the long-run: shorter auction lengths.
posted on April 18, 2001 12:52:53 PM new
It depends on who your market is.
I like Friday afternoon's and Sunday night
after the Sopranos. My market is young
professionals and college students.
. I started listing my auctions in groups of about ten in a variety of timeslots. Some in the afternoon, some in the evening (after dinner hours). Almost any day of the week