eBay presently offers five different lengths of listings, either a 1,3,5,7 or 10 day listing.

While a 10 day listing will give you the most exposure your item will not appear within the top of the relevant category immediately. Those items which are ending soon are the first to be shown within eBays listings. Generally new items appear at the bottom of the category listings and work there way towards the first page. On a 10 day listing it will take the best part of a week before your listing is shown on the first page of search results.

Therefore anyone browsing the eBay categories will not see your item in the eBay search results. As with search engines, many users will only look in the top two pages of results.

That is why the 1 day auction format offers a few advantages. Your item will be viewable immediately to any users browsing though the eBay categories. However, 1 day may not give many bidders the opportunity to find your item before the item ends.

So, why not get the best of both sides.

There is a way to both, give your item maximum visibility on eBay while also keeping it in the top search results for the category it is listed in.

It's a very simple tactic that anyone can use. As long as your item has no bids & doesn't end within 12 hours, eBay allows you to revise your listing. This revision can be anything, from title to pictures used including Auction length.

When you first submit your listing to eBay select a three day format. This will put it within the top two pages of results in this category. Allow your listing some time, to see if it's discovered and if not after two days just revise it to a 5 day auction. Because your auction will have already been running for two days, when you revise the listing it will show three days remaining, and still be within the top listings for the category.

If it's still not discovered and has no bids, just repeat the procedure for seven and then for ten days. If your able to revise your listing four times, you'll easily gain more coverage than any other listing in the same category. And more coverage should mean more bids!