The Most Popular Day to End an eBay Auction? The Results Are In!

Polling was conducted over 4 years ago about the optimal ending time for an eBay auction, the most popular response was Sunday evening. Five surveys later, based on the results we've received, there's still nothing that would keep me from recommending Sunday evening.

If Sunday was a sports team, it would be the NY Yankees, Boston Celtics or Montreal Canadiens. In short, a dynasty.

We've heard the logic for ending auctions on other days: different items do better at different times; people like to shop from work; eBay's servers are slow on Sunday evenings because it's too busy. The last statement brings to mind the famous quote from Yankees catcher Yogi Berra, who, when asked his opinion about a popular restaurant, replied, "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

This year, nearly 1,000 people responded to the survey. I'll break out the data by category, compare it to past results and also post some of the comments you left. There were some interesting ones. So without further ado, here are the results of our latest survey:

Best Day


This year's results are almost identical to last year's in preference. You may ask, "Why do this year's results only add up to 92%?" Because we added an extra option for the question this year - "Doesn't Matter". Doesn't Matter, in fact, place third with over 8% of the responses cast.

Best Time


The most popular ending times are still between 6pm and 12midnight PST. Over 77% of all respondents selected that 6-hour block of time to be best for ending an auction. 3% didn't think it mattered what time an auction ended.