eBay auctions

Recently I wanted to purchase a particular item and after investigating other avenues, decided upon using eBay. There seemed to be about one auction finishing per day for this item.

I observed that generally there are none/inconsequential bids for most of the time. In the last few hours there is some sporadic activity and then everything really happens in the dying couple of minutes. This seems reasonable behaviour, given that when I am bidding I wait till the last few minutes, as I don't want to unnecessarily drive up the price with earlier bids and want the element of surprise to increase my chances of getting what I want.

So a five day auction lasts 120 hours. The first 119 hours and 55 minutes are basically advertising that an auction is going to occur for five minutes (or less) at an appointed time.