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When Do Online Auctions End? Closing Times Across 8 Marketplaces

Updated October 11, 2026 · 8 min read · by the GhostNode team · data as of October 10, 2026

Online auctions do not end at random. Each marketplace has a rhythm, set by how its sellers schedule lots, and the rhythm decides when you need to be paying attention. This report counts 495,094 auction lots that closed on 8 marketplaces between September 13, 2026 and October 10, 2026, one count per lot, and shows when each marketplace's lots actually ended.

Key findings

• Of the big marketplaces, ShopGoodwill is the most concentrated. 79.3% of its lots closed in the 3 hours from 6 pm to 9 pm Pacific, and the single busiest hour, 6–7 pm, held 44.6% of all closes.
• HiBid peaks in the evening, Eastern time. 67.2% of HiBid lots closed between 6 pm and midnight Eastern; the busiest hour was 8–9 pm with 16.3%, and the busiest day was Sunday.
• eBay is spread out but leans late. Sellers pick their own end times, so eBay closes are the most evenly spread, yet 6–7 pm Pacific was still the busiest hour (13.4%) and Sunday the busiest day (19.0%).
• mac.bid and K-BID close almost only at night, mostly on weekdays. 85.6% of mac.bid lots closed between 7 pm and 11 pm Eastern, and only 12.8% on a weekend. K-BID's busiest hour, 7–8 pm Central, held 52.2% of its lots.
• Weekends depend on the marketplace. ShopGoodwill (19.5%), mac.bid (12.8%), K-BID (18.2%) and AllSurplus (8.4%) closed few lots on Saturday and Sunday, while Sunday was eBay's busiest day and Sunday HiBid's. An even week would put 28.6% on the weekend.

Every marketplace at a glance

Hours are in each marketplace's own time zone. "Hours holding 75% of closes" is the shortest run of consecutive hours in which at least three quarters of that marketplace's lots ended.

Marketplaces marked small sample had fewer than 5,000 closed lots in the window. Their pattern is shown, but a few busy auctions can move their percentages a lot.

ShopGoodwill: a 3-hour evening rush

ShopGoodwill sells goods donated to Goodwill stores across the United States, and it shows its closing times in Pacific time. Its lots end in a tight block every weekday evening, which is why a ShopGoodwill buyer who is not at a screen around dinner time in California misses most of the action.

eBay: spread across the day

An eBay seller chooses the auction length and the end time comes from when they list, so eBay closes run around the clock. They still bunch up: the hours before and after 6–7 pm Pacific held the most closes, and Sunday was the busiest day of the week.

HiBid: evenings, Eastern time

HiBid is a network of independent auction houses, each running its own catalog and schedule, mostly in the United States. Many of them end their lots in the evening so local bidders can take part after work, and lots in one catalog often close one after another rather than all at once.

mac.bid: mostly weeknights

mac.bid sells liquidation merchandise for local pickup from its warehouses. Most of its lots (85.6%) closed between 7 pm and 11 pm Eastern, and only 12.8% on a Saturday or Sunday.

Day of the week

The share of each marketplace's closed lots that ended on each day, in that marketplace's own time zone.

What this means when you bid

1. Know your marketplace's window. Where most lots end in one block, as on ShopGoodwill (79.3% in 3 evening hours), that block is when prices are decided. Being available then, or having something bid for you, matters more than checking in during the day.
2. Convert the time zone once. ShopGoodwill and eBay run on Pacific time and many HiBid auctions on Eastern; a bidder in Europe or the Middle East meets these evening windows in the middle of the night.
3. Busy windows mean many lots end close together. When dozens of lots you want end in the same hour, you cannot watch every one by hand. That is the case an auto-bidder is built for: you set a maximum per lot in advance and it bids while you are elsewhere.
4. Quiet hours can mean fewer rivals. A lot that ends outside its marketplace's busy window may simply have fewer people watching it. It is not a guarantee of a low price, but it is a reason to look.

How we counted

• What counts. Lots on GhostNode's public-catalog marketplaces (eBay, ShopGoodwill, HiBid, BestBid, AllSurplus, K-BID, Proxibid and mac.bid) whose closing time fell between September 13, 2026 and October 10, 2026, inclusive, in UTC. That is 28 days, a whole number of weeks, so every weekday is counted the same number of times.
• One lot, one count. When several GhostNode accounts tracked the same lot, it was counted once. When a lot's closing time was recorded more than once, the latest one was used, because a soft-close extension moves the end later.
• Local time. Each marketplace's hours are shown in the time zone it runs on: Pacific for eBay and ShopGoodwill, Eastern for HiBid, mac.bid and AllSurplus, Central for K-BID and Proxibid, Baghdad time for BestBid. HiBid and Proxibid host auctions across several time zones, so their hours are only a guide.
• What the sample is. These are the lots that matched what GhostNode's users search for, which leans toward electronics, computer parts and phones. Closing times are set by sellers and marketplaces rather than by the item, so the pattern should hold across categories, but this is not a count of each marketplace's whole catalog.
• Refreshed. The numbers come from a read-only snapshot of GhostNode's database taken the day after the window ends. This page is rebuilt whenever the snapshot is refreshed, and the "data as of" date at the top says which data it shows.
• The data. Every count behind this page, by marketplace, day of the week and local hour, is in one CSV file. Use it freely; cite "GhostNode, When Do Online Auctions End?" and link to this page.

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