eBay will soon introduce 1-day auction listings. Currently eBay allows sellers to list auctions for a duration of 3, 5, 7, and 10 days. eBay has encouraged shorter listing cycles for several years as a way to "accelerate the velocity of trade" on the site. It added fixed-price options, including a "Buy-It-Now" feature for auctions, and instituted a premium fee for 10-day auctions.

The duration of auctions affects sellers differently, depending on what they are selling. A rare collectible might do better over a 10-day period, getting greater exposure from potential bidders. A ticket to a sporting event might do better with a "Buy It Now" option or shorter duration, since the ticket has a limited shelf life.

One reason for eBay's delay in introducing a 1-day auction option may have to do with the time it takes the eBay system to include a listing in its index. Several times every day, eBay cycles through the auctions listed and gets information on new listings, high bid, current number of bids, etc., and adds this information to the database that users use to search the marketplace. eBay spokesperson Kevin Pursglove said Wednesday it now takes about 2 to 2.5 hours for a listing to show up in search or browse results. Until the listing is included in the index, a potential bidder has no way of knowing of the auction's existence.

According to Pursglove, sellers requested 1-day auctions citing three issues: holiday sales; the nature of some time-sensitive merchandise (such as event tickets); and to help sellers get around the 10-item listing limit. (eBay sellers may post up to 10 identical items; they must go to a multi-item listing, also known as Dutch auctions, if they want to sell more than 10 identical items at once.)

The fee structure will be the same for 1-day listings. In order to list auctions for 1-day, sellers are required to have either a minimum feedback rating of 10 or be ID Verified.

An announcement on eBay's boards Wednesday reported that eBay would add a new "Pay" link to the eBay Header that appears at the top of every page. When buyers click on the "Pay" link, they will be taken to a new "Pay for Items You've Won" page to find all the items they have purchased within the last 30 days that are still awaiting payment. Sellers have been hounding eBay to do something about the problem of "deadbeat bidders," bidders who win an auction but then don't pay. http://pages.ebay.com/sell/pay_header.html

Kevin Pursglove said eBay will have additional announcements over the next several weeks as they "unveil a total holiday package, so stay tuned."

Join a discussion about eBay's forthcoming 1-day auctions on the AuctionBytes discussion boards:

http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=6385725#6385725