Best Ending Day on eBay Revealed!

By Sean Eyring, eBay Certified Consultant and Research Education Specialist

If you have been searching for the answer to the best ending day as if it were the fountain of youth, look no further!

It’s time to bust all those myths out there about the best ending day and just give you a straight answer.

The best day to close a listing on eBay is:

Well it really depends. Not a straight answer, but stick with me and I will reveal some secrets to help you find the straight answer for your products.

THE MYTH

There is a myth out there that Sunday is the overall best day to end on eBay. This myth came from an announcement eBay made some time ago that the highest traffic on the site was on Sunday.

Since then, the myth that Sunday is the best ending day has spread throughout the discussion boards.

But highest website traffic doesn’t mean that everyone is making a purchase on that day. Perhaps some people are browsing for items that they will purchase later in the week.

While it may be difficult to swallow, I am here to tell you that Sunday is not the best rule of thumb to follow in selecting the best ending day.

Best Ending Day Depends Upon Two Things

What even is the best ending day? Is it the best if you get the most bids? Is it the best if you sell the most items? Or is it the best if you make the highest sales price?

My point here is that best for one person’s sales may not be for another person’s. What works for you and your product may not work for another seller.

Essentially, the best ending day hinges upon two factors:

• Your selling strategy
• Your product

I’ll show you how each of these changes what you would call the best ending day, and prove that more often than not, it is NOT Sunday.

Your Selling Strategy

As I pointed out earlier, what does the best end day even mean? What is best for one seller isn’t always best for another, because each seller has a different strategy.

Essentially, all selling strategies are founded upon one of two options:

1. High Volume, Low Profit
2. Low Volume, High Profit

Your selling strategy ultimately will determine your best ending day. If you are not sure which selling strategy you are using, let me point out some characteristics of each.

1. High Volume, Low Profit

This strategy is used when you have a very large inventory of the same product. You most likely bought in bulk, which means you got a low cost for each individual item. This means you are more concerned with selling all of your products at a lower price, just to make sure you are not stuck with a left-over inventory.

A research tool like HammerTap can help you determine the best ending day for this strategy to ensure you are increasing your chances of making the sale on the first time.

I researched Garmin GPS Systems using HammerTap, and the results are shown in the figures below.

Figure 1: Sales results for Garmin GPS Systems. Copyright 2009, HammerTap

In Figure 1, we see that our average Listing Success Rate (LSR) for all Garmin GPS Systems is 75.20%.

If you are selling a high volume of DVD players, you want to select the ending day that will increase your LSR to be higher than 75%.

Figure 2: End Day according to Listing Success Rate. Copyright 2009, HammerTap

In Figure 2, your best end day to increase your sales rates is Tuesday, which increases from the average of 75% to 87.23%.

So, if you are a high-volume, low-profit seller, then you want to select the ending day that increasing your listing success rate. This allows you to sell more products and re-list fewer.

2. Low Volume, High Profit

Use this strategy when you have a smaller inventory of the same product, or a large inventory of several different products. Doing this allows you to focus on maximizing your sales price, thus increasing money in your pocket.

For example, if you only had 10 or so Garmin GPS Systems, you would want to ensure you sold each one at the highest price possible. You’re less worried about getting stuck with left-over inventory because you only have 10 of them to start with.

In this example, you want to select the end day that brings you a higher sale price than the average ASP of $276.93.

Figure 3: End Day according to Average Sales Price. Copyright 2009, HammerTap

Figure 3 indicates that Saturday is the best ending day for a low-volume, high-profit strategy. Saturday increases our sales price by $35.08. This is $35 extra in your pocket, straight profit.

So, you can see that the best ending day is determined according to your sales strategy. Now let’s look at the other factor.

Your Product

We have already proven the myth to close an auction on Sunday to be false according to your sales strategy.

Now let’s see how different products perform differently across the eBay marketplace. After we look at the cold hard facts (the research from HammerTap), I’ll explain why each product generally has different ending days.

You’ve already seen Garmin GPS Systems, so let’s look at some other examples.

Figure 4: Sales results for Coleman Double-Burner Stoves. Copyright 2009, HammerTap

Figure 4 shows the sales results for Coleman Double-burners Stoves, which have an LSR of 71.20% and ASP of $32.25.

Figure 5: End Day results for Coleman Double-Burner Stoves. Copyright 2009, HammerTap

Again, depending upon our strategy, we can select the best ending day to fit our business needs.

Selecting Monday increasing our chances of selling by 6.35% while selecting Wednesday increases our sales price by $7.00.

For this product, Sunday increases neither one of these, so why follow the eBay herd?

Figure 6: Sales results for Hoover Upright Vacuum cleaners. Copyright 2009, HammerTap

For Hoover Vacuum cleaners, your LSR is 49% and your ASP is $67.84.

Figure 7: End Day results for Hoover Vacuum cleaners. Copyright 2009, HammerTap

From the end day results in Figure 7, Thursday increase our success rate by 6.84% while Friday increase our selling price by $12.70.

And I could go on and on with other products, but I think you get my point.

The Bottom Line

When it comes to the best ending day, there is no general rule of thumb. And not just because it depends upon your selling strategy and your product.

In case you haven’t noticed, eBay is a very fluctuating market. What works one month may not work the next. When I first started selling roof racks, I found that Saturday was the best day to end to increase my sales price. A few months later, it had changed to Thursday. A month after that, it was Friday.

So, the bottom line, is to remove the guesswork and rules of thumb and rely upon the facts using a research tool like HammerTap. Keep reading to find other ways research can give your listings a boost.

Make the most of your auctions with research!