Best time to finish auction on Ebay if selling a guitar?

Hootsmon

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robgilmo

sixstringsupplies said:

Try to end it Sunday approx 6:30-7pm. Early enough so it’s after Sunday roast, not too late so everyone is in bed prepping for the week ahead.

Being a Sunday evening, most people are at home.

I can’t find the link/source but there was a study done on this (albeit not guitar related) but the best time to end any general eBay auction is Wednesday evening or Sunday evening. 

FWIW I reckon Friday night is the worst possible time, unless you strike it lucky with a drunk

Its always worked for me, Sunday maybe if you are selling a lawn mower or walking aid.

sixstringsupplies

robgilmo said:

sixstringsupplies said:

Try to end it Sunday approx 6:30-7pm. Early enough so it’s after Sunday roast, not too late so everyone is in bed prepping for the week ahead.

Being a Sunday evening, most people are at home.

I can’t find the link/source but there was a study done on this (albeit not guitar related) but the best time to end any general eBay auction is Wednesday evening or Sunday evening. 

FWIW I reckon Friday night is the worst possible time, unless you strike it lucky with a drunk

Its always worked for me, Sunday maybe if you are selling a lawn mower or walking aid.

And I don’t doubt that. Reality is any evening is a good bet. Just don’t end your auction at 9am. 

RandallFlagg

John_P said:

Advertise them here if you need to sell them.  

If you decide to use eBay then I prefer a buy it now with offers but if I do an auction I set it to finish mid evening when people will find it easy to be online - sun or mid week evenings are usually good - plenty of pics and description and you’ll usually find a decent piece.  

In my experience high end gear isn't easy to sell on here at all.

TheMarlin

List Thursday, around 8pm for 10 days.  Potential buyers have two weekends to see the auction.  
Should get you the best buying price.  

But....then.... there is PayPal and auction fees, plus dodgy buyers out to scam sellers...and get something for nothing. People who will
destroy an item to get their money back. Rare, but it happens....

Personally, I think it’s a crazy risk to sell on EBay these days. 

ICBM

Cut out the middleman - box the guitar up, drive your car over it a few times, then draw the equivalent amount of money out of the bank and set fire to it. That covers most of the possible outcomes.

DB1

TheMarlin said:

List Thursday, around 8pm for 10 days.  Potential buyers have two weekends to see the auction.  
Should get you the best buying price.  

But....then.... there is PayPal and auction fees, plus dodgy buyers out to scam sellers...and get something for nothing. People who will
destroy an item to get their money back. Rare, but it happens....

Personally, I think it’s a crazy risk to sell on EBay these days. 

I have to say, with certain caveats, eBay seems to be by far the most effective place to sell. I'd go along with all the above though, so I just take advantage of the £1 offers, and only sell face to face, and don't do PayPal. It sometimes means travelling, but if you get to speak with, or message, the buyer/seller first, then you tend to get a 'feel' for the person that you're selling to. It obviously depends on the value of the stuff you're selling, as to whether all of the above is worth it, but I tend to buy and sell a lot, having only lately got into playing with any seriousness and trying to make up for lost time!

The other 'plus' in doing that is that you get to meet a nice bunch of like-minded idiots. 

Modellista

Ending on Friday at pub time is the best time! People are merry, have their phone on them, aren’t being distracted by wife and kids... perfect. 

Modellista

Have those that don’t like eBay actually had the bad experiences they talk about or is it just hearsay?

paddyb

Time the end just after pay day for most people and wait for one of £1 max fee offers which seem to be pretty frequent these days

Phil_aka_Pip

Agreed all of the above, but think about when you most like to be around to snipe the object of your desire. If you are typical (and I can't say whether you are or not), then if you are keen to sell to a sniper, time the sale to end when a sniper is likely to be watching. And if you don't want to sell to a sniper, time it to end when all but the most dedicated snipers are tucked up in bed.

Modellista

A “sniper” is just someone who knows how to use eBay properly.  There’s no way of knowing who is or isn’t a “sniper”, and the whole point of eBay timing is to maximise the selling price. If you want to vet your buyers, selling face-to-face is the only way. 

hollywoodrox

mixolyd said:

This has been studied and written about you can just google it, the answer is Sunday evening.  You get hammered by eBay fees pus PayPal fees though.  If you do sell on eBay rather than here then look out for a £1 final value fee promotion there come along every few weeks of late.

I too list when I get the special email for £1 final value fee. I may be selling my neon pink jackson shortly and am awaiting ebay to mail me the offer. I love it but am still not happy with Floyd Rose bridges and end up playing my epiphone les paul’s . Finding the right guitar is like finding a wife 

Funkfingers

mark123 said:
Item must sell within the first listing period.

This is how they get ya!

If your item fails to sell first time, eBay automatically relists it for you without asking permission. When your item is eventually bought, fees are deducted in an manner to which you may not have consciously agreed at the outset.

It is a common practice to Watch an item of interest in the specific hope that it fails to sell first time around and is then relisted at a lower price. From the seller’s perspective, this is a double blow. 

I concur with those who take the Buy-It-Now and Best Offer approach. Take it or leave it. No bid sniping. No tyre kickers.

Ultimately, for several reasons, eBay is not the best place to sell pre-owned, quality music gear.

DB1

I've found eBay to be the best place to sell, to be honest. I don't particularly like it, and you have to wade through the rude people, the low-ballers, and the potential scammers, but I've sold many things through there - around the £500-£2000 mark. I do always insist on selling face-to-face though, which has the disadvantage of minimising the chance of a sale, but maximising the chance of selling to someone nice and getting cash/transfer and not having to run the risk of being done via PayPal. It helps if you're not in too much of a hurry to sell, and so can set your own rules to a large extent.

One thing that they've done recently is to test the water with allowing you to legitimately make your contact number available, and if you can get into a conversation with a prospective buyer (or seller) that makes the process pretty good - I've met some good people in that way.

Higher than £2000-ish, and I'm not as sure - I recently listed an L-5 Signature before I decided to withdraw it. Plenty of watchers, but no enquiries, although it a) was over £5k and b) around Christmas. I certainly wouldn't do an auction with the higher-priced stuff, and would wait for their £1 commission offer and go for a 'buy it now' with 'best offer' and pitch the price at about 10% more than you'd hope to get. In fairness, I did sell a 1959 ES-225 at £4000, after it was listed on eBay though. 

I'd still say that it was the best outlet for sales though (with some caveats, as above) - Gumtree used to be OK (apart from the scammers), but I haven't had anything from Gumtree for ages and have virtually given up on it. I've bought and sold an amp and sold a guitar on tFB recently and, although there aren't too many sniffs (my stuff tends to be semi acoustic/jazzbox stuff) I've met three very nice people and had lots of good conversations with some people that I'm now in regular contact with.

Another option, which has been mentioned, is to sell through a reputable dealer and pay them commission.