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The Best Ending Day on eBay Revealed!By Amy Kendall, Research Education Specialist
If you have been searching for 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. So that’s not a straight answer, but stick with me and I’ll reveal some secrets to help you find the straight answer for your products. The MythThere 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 their site gets the highest amount of traffic 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 necessarily mean that everyone is actually making a purchase on that day. Some people might just be browsing for items they’ll purchase later in the week. While it may be difficult to swallow, I’m 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 on Two ThingsWhat 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 what is “best” for one person’s sales may not be for another’s. What works for you and your product may not work for another seller. Essentially, the best ending day hinges upon two factors:
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. 1. Your Selling StrategyAs I pointed out earlier, what does the best ending day even mean? What is best for one seller isn’t always best for another, because each seller has a different measure of success, or strategy. Essentially, all selling strategies are founded upon one of two options:
Your selling strategy will ultimately determine your best ending day. But in case you’re not sure which selling strategy you’re using, let me point out some characteristics of each. 1. High Volume, Low Price 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. Because you have a lot of items you bought at a low price, you are more concerned with selling all of your products, and you’re willing to take a lower price just to make sure you’re not stuck with any left-over inventory. A research tool like HammerTap can help you determine the best ending day for this strategy, which will be the day that gives you the highest chance of making the sale the first time. I researched the Amazon Kindle e-book reader using HammerTap, and the results are shown in the figures below.
In Figure 1, we see that our average Listing Success Rate (LSR) for all Amazon Kindles is 89.13%. So, if you are selling a high volume of Kindles, you want to select the ending day that will increase your LSR over 89%.
In Figure 2, we can see that Monday is the best day to end for this strategy because it increases listing success rate (LSR) from the average of 89% to 93.55%. So, if you are a high-volume, low-price seller then you want to select the ending day that increases your listing success rate. This allows you to sell more products without relisting. 2. Low Volume, High Price When you have a smaller inventory of the same product, or a large inventory of several different products this is the strategy to use. It allows you to focus on maximizing your sales price, thus increasing the money in your pocket. For example, if you only had 10 or so Amazon Kindles, you would want to ensure you sold each one at the highest price possible. You would be less worried about getting stuck with left-over inventory because you would only have 10 of them to start with. If we refer back to Figure 1, we can see that we will want to select the end day that brings a sales price higher than the average price (ASP) of $311.23.
Figure 3 indicates that Saturday is the best ending day for a low-volume, high-price strategy. Saturday increases our sales price by $24.56. That’s an extra $24 of straight profit just by ending on the right day! So, you can see that the best ending day is determined according to your sales strategy. Now, let’s look at the other factor. 2. Your ProductWe’ve already “busted” the myth that it’s always best to close your auction on Sunday because your best ending day depends on your sales strategy; but now let’s also look at how differently various products perform across the eBay marketplace. We’ve already seen Amazon Kindles, so let’s look at some other examples. First we’ll look at Coleman tents, which are just about as different as you can get from an e-book reader, and then we’ll check out Hoover vacuum cleaners.
Figure 4 shows the sales results for Coleman tents, which have an LSR of 75.32% and ASP of $44.54.
Again, depending upon our strategy, we can select the best ending day to fit our business needs. Thursday increases our chances of selling by 8.01% while Tuesday increases our sales price by $19.14. For this product, Sunday increases neither our success rate nor our sales price, so why follow the eBay herd?
For Hoover Vacuum cleaners, our LSR is 43.65% and our ASP is $50.17.
From the end day results in Figure 7 we can see that Monday increases our success rate by 8.35% while Tuesday increases our selling price by $12.60. And I could go on and on with other products, but I think you get my point. The Bottom LineWhen it comes to the “best” ending day, there is no general rule of thumb, as we’ve shown by looking at the different selling strategies and various products, but there’s one other contributing factor. In case you haven’t noticed, eBay is a very fluid market. What works one month may not work the next. When I first started researching a specific product, 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 the general “rule of thumb” and rely upon facts using a research tool like HammerTap. By defining your sales strategy, understanding that different products are going to have different success requirements, and staying up on your research you’re going to be way ahead of your competitors as you grow and maintain your eBay business. Stay tuned for our next issue that will teach you about how to build the listing titles that will attract the highest-paying buyers!
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