FP - The best time to buy upgrades

[djancok]

Dears,
Based on your experience in listing your auction on flippa, when is the best time/moment to buy the upgrades for your listing ?

do you just buy the upgrades at the 1st time you list your auction ? or do you wait for the best time to do it?

Thanks

[Bryan]

Obviously, you can buy the bold, highlight and screenshot upgrades right off the bat as they'll be active throughout the auction and you still pay the same amount.

As for featuring - it depends.

Most of the sites I list I feature multiple times - usually once in the very beginning, then one in the middle of the auction and again near the end of the auction. But if I had a small budget and could afford featuring an auction only once, what I would probably do is let it run for 2 days OR until I get the first few bids (whichever comes first) and then feature it.

The reasoning behind this is that people are more tempted to bid on auctions that already have a few other bids in (no-one wants to be the first), hence it would make sense to have the auction on the front page when there's already a few bids. Obviously, there are other auctions that will get no bids unless featured - hence the "or 2 days" bit.

As for the time, we've found that ~7-10pm UK time is by far the best. There's also a cool feature that shows you how many people are currently online (right next to the Flippa logo), which should also give you a good indication re when's the best time to feature your site.

[djancok]

thanks for the suggestions!
will try it on my current auction

[Luka]

Next auction I will buy featured listing after few bids, I thought about it, but was not sure .

[iMontie]

I like to feature mine in the morning. Featured listings seem to stay on the front page for about 18 hours. If i list it early in the morning it will remain on the front page until pretty darn late at night!

[J1218]

If I were only going to Feature it once, I would do it about 24 hours before the auction ends. This way it gets the most views towards the end and people are more inclined to try and place their bids.

If it's a higher value site and you can afford multiple Features, then do as Bryan says and go for the beginning, middle, and end. Since it's now $40 to feature, you want to use them wisely and remember that it is cutting into your profit, so if the site is only going to sell for a few hundred, it may not be worth it to feature it more than once. If it's a site worth a few thousand, then you can do it a few more times.

[wheelerndealer]

good strategies here...i think i will make a 5 day listing then with 24 hours left i shall feature it

[Ryan Sorensen]

With my 7-day listing I featured it right at the beginning, then with 2 days left, and again within the last 14 hours of the auction. With each featured upgrade I made sure that there were over 1,500 people currently online. With each bump I saw at least a 500 listing views increase which may or may not have produced the winning bid.

Something that you might think about doing - that I haven't tried and don't know if it would work - is to contact experienced sellers on Flippa and offer a set amount (like $50 to $100) to have them offer your site for sale to their list. Any good seller will build a list of past and potential buyers that they can sell to over and over again. There might be someone willing to do this for you. If you have a more valuable site you could bypass the Flippa fees altogether and make a friend in the process.