10 Day Auctions

[stampingpaws]

So, I took advantage of Free Listings and listed some Chinese Stamps for 10 days with a reasonable start price of $10 the minimum I would accept as Chinese stamps are "HOT" at the moment.

Thee first bid has just been made less than 24 hours to go. There are 56 views and 10 watchers. I know items usually get bids in the last few minutes and I hope this happens to my auction.

But I have always wondered why is this the case? Why do Ebay auctions run this course?

[cq_tech]

Who can say, but I suspect most people don't like to reveal their hands too early which I presume is why they bid in the last hours as opposed to the first few days. I like longer auctions to give the exposure they require, and the fact that you have 10 watchers tells me that possibly half of those may convert to bids towards the end.

Really though, I'm only guessing but what I've said makes the most sense to me, despite the fact that I could just as easily be barking up the wrong tree. The only way to find out for sure would be to run a number of auctions over different time periods and see which ones give the best results.

[cherry*135]

Mostly only newbies bid early in an auction. If there are more than one of them they will keep bidding and put the price up.

Seasoned buyers know not to bid early which might start a bidding war.

[phorum_junkie*]

I find 5 or 7 day auctions work far better than 10 day ones, for one thing you are going to be higher up the list for ending soonest searches and it gives buyers less time to find a comparable listing that may be cheaper, ending sooner or more appealing for some other reason.

[chameleon54]

      I've experimented a lot with auction time lengths. For the products I sell, it seems that under normal conditions five days ( with a weekend included ) works best. Most views and watches come in the first three days, but you do pick up a few straglers with five days. Five days also gives a full weekend plus the people who browse ebay at work. ( Fridays & Mondays seem to be good ebay browsing days for people at work ).The five day auctions still have an element of "zing" to them which fades if people have the item in their watch list for a week to ten days. 

       If ebay is particularly slow, I do go to ten day auctions to allow a reasonable number of buyers to find my items, as people seem to browse ebay less frequently during the slow periods. As mentioned people do seem to become bored or find something else with ten day auctions and they just dont seem to create the same "buzz" as a shorter time frame.

       Like everything on ebay this is just my experience with my products. ( mainly "shed stuff" & collectables for middle age blokes ) Other buyer demographics and products may react differently.