When selling, when is the best time to end an auction?

[Holymoly321]

Need to make some cash, so am going to finally go through the garage and sell all the stuff in there that we no longer use / need. Just wondering when the best time to 'end' and auction would be? Should it be a Sunday evening or something? Any tips gratefully received! Would hate to lose out because an acution ended at the wrong time.

sunday evening

Around what time Red? Also, does it matter how long an auction is? Is a 7 day auction better than a much shorter one? Esp when it comes to kiddy things?

7 days is best, ending on a sunday probably around 8pm?

If you wanted to go for a 3 days one, then put is on thurs to sun. You really need it there over the weekend as people just faff around looking up stuff on ebay then, so you would get more interest.

What sort of things were you looking at selling?

Just kids toys, some of the more expensive clothing, garden toys/slide etc. Oh and a gaggia coffee maker that DH has only used a handful of times!

Sunday evening is the most popular time that people are surfing ebay, closely followed by Monday evenings, but also the busiest time for listings ending - so your item risks getting swamped by other similar items. Also consider any sporting events that are on a Sunday evening - World cup being a good example, and ebay was only selling tumbleweed for two hours!

Think about your target market and when they are likely to be online - typically a lot of SAHPs are online during the day between school runs, so anything related to their interests like toys, nursery furniture, kids clothes etc, have a better chance of selling. Likewise Silver Surfers are daytime browsers, but if you are selling gadgets and computer games, then the target market is often online much later at night. If you are selling office stationery, then day time listings are obviously better for the corporate purchasers!

Also look at starting 10 day listings on a Thursday or Friday so that they run through two full weekends gaining watchers.