The Wholesale Forums

[mrsweet]

Hi All

*had to re-register as email/username not found?*

Anyway

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

What is the best timelength when listing on ebay regards day length 3/5/7/10 etc, and also the best days to end a listing, we are ok on the time part.

At the moment we have only used the BIN feature, at first we ended these on a Sunday eve using a 7 day and 10 day, started on thur/Sunday etc.

Over the last 3 weeks we have tried listing ALL our items on a 3 day BIN everyday so have items ending every evening. This has increased sales it seems this dropped of by 50% last week, for some reason ebay had become very slow, could that be it's a 5 week month and last week was mid month? no cash etc. This has cost us money.

Anyway we are wondering if running BIN's ending everyday is a bad move, and are thinking about running 5/7 day BINs every couple days mixed with some 3 day 99p auctions, this will be a new move for us as never used the auction feature so far.

There also seems to be a pattern regards slow sales mid month.

Your thoughts and methods would be most helpful as it can get complex

Cheers and thankyou

Andy - old member but had to start again :-(

[sabrads]

I think it depends on what you are selling;

Collectables, rare items, uniques - these are best sold as 7 to 10 day auctions - having the item listed for as long as possible to generate interest and then bids.

Other items - I found that I increased sales by listing on 3 day auctions, I am not sure about having things end on Sunday or whether there is a mid month tail off ( although I noticed I had less sales value this sunday than last but sold different products ). If you list an item on 3x3 day auction vs a 10 day listing then you will potentially have it end 3 times and could sell more of the product. As for buy-it-nows I would use these when you have an item that you are happy taking a fixed price for - even better are the multiple item buy it nows - that way you reduce your listing costs.

[mrsweet]

Thanks

I've a plan

We are going to list everything for 7 days, and run that everyday for 1 month, from this we can see what sells on each day/eve and adjust from there, in this case all items finish each day giving us some data to play with. End times are sorted and we have this covered.

We are going to mix in a few 99p auctions also and see how that pans out.

It does get complex tho, as we are listing 100's different items not just a few and it's hard to see a trend as some items sell 10x one day then nothing for a week then loads sell again etc etc, tricky stuff.


Andy

[greedyboy]

Stock is always better listed on ebay than sitting on shelves gathering dust (ie more listings more frequent). It all depends on the how much you want to shift and how quickly.

There is no real magic formula. What may work for you one day or week may not work the next week. That is the nature of eBay.

You have to constantly monitor sales and adjust. From more 99p auctions on flying out stock to the other end of the spectrum by either dumping slow moving items at a loss or just sticking them in your ebay shop until they sell..... eventually.

[mrsweet]

Just as i thought, it's tricky and seems to change on a reg basis, I'm thinking slow/med items run on a 7 day, fast moving sellers 3/5 day.

Dean - do you list the same item everyday in general? or is this item specific

Can't make my mind up to either try, 7 day listings everyday

or

7 day listings on tue/thur/sat/sun, missing mon/friday and saving on some none selling listings.

Thanks

Andy

[sabrads]

I am going through the process of deciding when to list things on ebay and playing about with the timings/format etc

I initially started off with the assumption that ending on Sat/Sun were the best - but for the items I am selling I have played about with the end days and really I need to look at having more things end in the week - or I have skewed my sales window to Sunday night.

I am still playing about with it but I started listing things on short ( 3 day ) listings mainly because I found that I was selling more product - I think the way ebay lists stuff can also come in to effect - do more people look at ending soonest over all products.....