This auction closed early on Saturday morning while most of the U.S. was asleep and ended up selling at 2/3 the value ($600 under fair market). This is one reason why auctions can be risky. There isn’t always a guarantee that your pool of buyers will be present and available in the hour of your auctions closing. Product obscurity plays into this, smaller the buyer pool the fewer the bidders present. I thought it was a nice enough example that some might be able to learn from. This knowledge is money
You bring a good point, but what would be a good ending time then? You think ending 3-4 hours later would have made a big difference? It just seems like no one bothered to snipe that one. Tough luck for the seller…
Here’s my n00b opinion. It was listed in Video Games Category and there’s no Pokemon in the title.
Edit: So I actually did my good deed of the day and informed the seller about ALL of their cards and sealed product being in the wrong category and missing keywords and such. I know I’d appreciate it if someone did the same for me. I’m also taking a bit of a beating at auction lately, but that’s probably because I don’t have much selling rep so far. lol
I believe Ebay’s search algorithm accommodates for the misplaced category. I can still find items in different categories as long as the proper search terms are in the title. At least it seems that way to me, I could be mistaken though I suppose.
The time of closing absolutely does make a difference, but to varying degrees depending on the item. Many people understand that leaving an absent bid opens the door for higher final sale (overbids) or being outbid before the timer runs out. Bidding in the last 10 seconds eliminates the chance for the competing bidder to reconsider. 3-4 hours later would have been better, yes, but still not ideal. Any time during hours of high internet traffic would be best. 12:30pm to 3:30pm and 7:30-12:00 (midnight) on regular weekdays is peak.
During the holidays especially people are less willing to stay up late hours to potentially waste time sniping auctions, because time is money and time with family &/or relaxation is more important. It was true for myself as well as I opted out for time with the fam and I rarely will leave standing bids.
In this case, I could still find the box if I’m specifically looking for 1st Edition Neo Discovery Booster Box. Though he’s still missing out on dozens of potential buyers searching through the pokemon sealed product listings all day long.
In other cases, it doesn’t show at all. I searched Mewtwo Gold Star earlier and I couldn’t find the PSA 8 he has listed when I scrolled down all the listings, as I’m taken to pokemon individuals. It’s technically there if I switch categories to video games on the left tabs but it’s obviously an issue.
Perks of working third shift lol. I have been keeping an eye on psa graded auctions that end late at night or early morning recently and they definitely tend to sell under value compared to other sold listings an auctions. I would never post an auction on eBay that didn’t end on Friday or Saturday around 9-10pm EST. Another thing I’ve noticed to keep an eye out for is a seller posting several auctions and setting them to begin at the same time. I watched a gem 10 brock’s vulpix wizards stamp sell for $15, a gem 10 dark ivysaur for $11 and a psa 9 best of game winner electabuzz sell for $1. They all ended around 3AM EST at the exact same time down to the second.
I would never have found this box if I weren’t looking for neo discovery specifically. My saved search that I subscribe to on eBay is ‘pokemon 1st box -portuguese -chinese -dutch -french -italian -japanese -deutsch -german -korean -spanish -weighed -glurak’ … I think it went cheap because he’s missing some key search terms there, ‘1st’ and ‘pokemon’ … just a rookie error. The end time may have something to do with the lower price but I’d say it’s more the listing issues.
Looking at that listing made me think of a question I have a lot when looking through ebay listings.
Do you guys prefer to use the search term “first” or “1st”. I always use the latter of the two, but I imagine I miss stuff because of that.
If I am auctioning only to Australia, which I sometimes do, I always have it ending at 6-7pm WAST. This means that people over in the Eastern States will be watching the auction end at 8-10pm, depending on daylight savings.
International I try to end a bit later on Saturday nights. It means that Australian buyers are still awake, and US buyers are already awake or just waking up.
