Selling on eBay around Black Friday and Cyber Monday

[kodave]

Does anyone here have any advice on selling stuff on eBay around the kick off of the holiday insanity?

I sell regularly but semi-casually for some stuff I need to get rid of and a little bit of flipping. I don't have an eBay storefront or anything like that. I've been making sales pretty consistently for a couple of months now. Normally when I sell, I do week long auction listings that end on Sunday. I could probably cut those down to 5 day listings given the number of views they get in those first couple of days, but the main thing for me is ending the auction on Sunday evening. I read some guides about selling and sure enough the Sunday plan is paying off in terms of getting more sales.

The point of telling you that is because I'm wondering how Black Friday and Cyber Monday might affect eBay sales over those few days (despite there being sales consistently from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday).

Does anyone here have any experience in regard to ending an auction on Black Friday or Cyber Monday and seeing any uptick in views and bidding because of it? Or do the auctions from regular Joe's like me get lost in the shuffle of the holiday online shopping rush as people are looking for deals from big retailers?

I wonder if some people may want X item (obviously not talking hot door busters here), see it at a retailer or online, but decide "I'll check eBay first" and then may get sucked in if the price is right on the auction. Either that, or I wonder if someone might want X item and it's not on sale at a retailer or online, so they turn to eBay and find an auction at a lower price than the retailer and they'll get sucked into that while the holiday shopping bug is at full swing for that weekend.

Just thought I'd throw this idea out there. Worst case scenario is I just stick to my Sunday sales.

 

[Vinny]

In my experience, most items sell for more during the Christmas season. I would wait a few days after BF/CM since many people spend those days in stores/online for deals. Unless you're selling something that every store has a good price and unlimited stock on, you'll be ok.

Ending on Sundays remains the best option of course. But you need to make sure you leave ample delivery time so people get it before the Christmas.

 

[Squarehard]

My experience is similar to Vinny's as many of the items that I sell on eBay tend to go up, and certain things that are more rare or considered nostalgic goes up even more. The majority of the items on sale during the holidays from retail stores doesn't really seem to have a negative affect on the prices surprisingly. The only issue of course usually during the holiday ebay time is that people will complain about the shipping speed a lot more even though it's pretty clear the USPS gets slammed during the holidays, so obviously packages will arrive slower, but that doesn't stop buyers from completely disregarding that fact and stir up trouble. But in the end the price probably won't be negatively impacted, but possibly have a better chance of getting a boost in value even.

 

[kodave]

Hmmm alright. I've been saving a few high dollar items to put on eBay over that weekend. I think I'll probably just stick to the Sunday routine and hope for a sales boost, maybe as people are done with the big stores 2 day sales but await whatever starts on Monday.

 

[theking20]

Yeah you should wait a week or a couple weeks cause most people will throw black Friday stuff on eBay/amazon right away for cheap just to get rid of it.