When Should I Create & Submit My Listing?

In the real estate business, the old saying "Location, location, location" is paramount. On ebay, it's "Timing, timing, timing."

If you are creating ebay store listings, as I generally do, timing doesn't matter much in most cases. I have my listings set up such that my listings run in 30-day long cycles, and if it doesn't sell in any given 30-day cycle, the listing simply re-cycles, or repeats for another 30-day cycle, forever, or until the item sells. I never have to worry about re-listing things after one cycle has ended. These are called "Good till Cancelled" listings because the listings will run indefinitely, or until they end up in a sale, or end up being cancelled by the seller.

Auction listings are another story. Here, timing is crucial.

Each time you are getting ready to post an auction on ebay, you'd better have one critical question in mind: Where will the bidders and buyers be when this listing is about to expire? Here is why timing is so critical: You want your listings to end when a majority of the ebay population (your potential bidders) are going to be awake, focused, at home, and on their computers. Why? Because you want them to be sitting there, at home, at their computers, watching the listing expiration countdown timer, all the while with their fingers on the "Bid Now" button, or, even better, "Increase Your Maximum Bid". 

It's pretty hard for them to be at their computers bidding on your auction item if they're asleep, at work, at church or for any other reason away from their computers.

Sure, there are programs and applications that will allow savvy bidders to place bids on items hours or even days before an item is to expire, and then to have those bids cast out onto ebay ONLY at the last possible second before the listing is to end. 

If you sit and watch your items' bid history as the 7-day long listing cycle progresses (I mention a 7-day as that is the most frequently-used auction format cycle, but there are longer as well as shorter durations. The whole concept of timing remains the same no matter which cycle you use), you'll notice that you may get one bid the first day, no bids on days two - four, another bid on day five, two more on day six, and seventeen on day seven, the end date. And of those 17, 15 will have been placed within the last 15 minutes of the listing. 

This is especially true of really hot, in-demand items.

So, let's get back to timing.

While there is no clear-cut answer as to just when you should start a listing, let's ask ourselves a couple basic questions. Where are your buyers an bidders most likely to live? When are they most likely to be at home?

The answer to the first is likely going to be a resident of the US, right? And, while I am not trying to exclude Hawaii or Alaska or any of the territories, the majority of the population lives in the lower 48 states, which gives us a four-hour window (as there are four time zones covering the lower 48). And most of your buyers and potential bidders will be home after 6 pm. 

I know, I know.... I am going to catch some flak from the night-shifters and graveyard-shifters. That's why I said most buyers and bidders. When you go fishing, you want to cast your net where most of the fish are. It's impossible to catch all of them.

So, that said, it's a safe bet about 60 - 70% of your potential bidders are going to be home after 6 pm in your time zone. I live in Cincinnati, in the eastern time zone, so I would want a listing to end somewhere around 10 pm on a weeknight. This is important, because you want to give your west coast bidders a chance to get home from work, and in front of their computers, and hopefully they, too, will not have forgotten that tonight is the night your listing ends.

I wouldn't want to time one of my own listings such that it ends at 6 pm my time, because that means it will end at 3 pm Pacific time. You also don't want to list your item past 11 pm, because then your Eastern time zone bidding pool will start to doze off. 

So, it's important to list your item at around 10 pm, because it is going to end seven days later, right at 10 pm, or at the same exact time you listed it seven days prior.

Now, the actual ending day is just as important as the ending time. I'd recommend a Monday - Thursday as decent ending days, which means, for a 7-day listing, you are going to start them on a Monday - Thursday. Why not a Friday or Saturday evening? It's pretty obvious: those are many people's times to go out drinking, dancing and partying. Those people likely won't spend the evening at home waiting for your listing to end to see if they've won it or not, and miss a night out of boozing and partying with their friends. 

Also equally as important is if any major holiday or event is going on a week from now. For example, I likely wouldn't list an item an exact week before Thanksgiving Day or the day after Thanksgiving Day , or July 4th, or Christmas Day or New Years. I always keep a calendar handy on the wall behind my computer desk. I've actually gone through it and placed green "L" (for Listing) on every day throughout the year when I can submit an auction listing. If there is not a green "L" on any particular date, it means that for some reason (either the ending date is a Friday or Saturday night, or ends on a major holiday, for example) those are not good days to start up a 7-day auction listing. 

That's not to say that I couldn't run a 3-day listing or a 10-day listing, because those are alternatives as well. It just seems that I get the most bang for my buck with a 7-day listing, and that seems to be what most people use as well.

So, to summarize, I've found the best days and times to start a 7-day listing are Monday - Thursdays at about 10 pm, assuming there isn't a major holiday or some other event on the same ending date a week later.