Brits could be pocketing an extra £133 million a week, just by putting their wasted time to better use, according to research from eBay and ICM. The average Brit wastes 7 hours per week and nationwide the most wasted day is Sunday. The post lunch lull between 2 – 3pm is the most wasted hour of the week, followed by the 10 – 11am Saturday morning lie in, and miserable Monday mornings from 9 – 10am.
Counting the Cost
eBay data has revealed the average UK household has over £325 worth of saleable items - with the credit crunch hitting, there’s never been a better time to turn
those wasted hours and unwanted goods into cash.
Top Time Wasters
The poll also shone some interesting light on what we define as wasted time, results are:
- Call centres (85%) with automated responses, annoying hold music and incompetent phone operators, it’s no surprise hanging on the telephone was cited as a total waste of time
- Transport problems (64%) signal failures, leaves on the line and road works all contributed towards this common annoyance
- Queuing (46%) as a nation we’re known for getting in line, but frustrations run high as we realised how much time we must be wasting
- Watching rubbish TV (30%) despite more channels than ever before, we still complain there’s not enough good stuff on the box
- Going on bad dates (14%) with Valentine’s Day just behind us, plenty of us are bemoaning the time wasted on dates from hell
- Staying in bed late (19%) lazy lie-ins are regarded as a major weekend time waster
Sell in minutes
eBay has launched a new Quick Sell tool which means it now takes just minutes to get your item up for sale in front of millions of potential buyers.
“We’ve all got things lying about the house we no longer need; by using wasted time to start selling on eBay we could be turning unwanted items into extra cash.” Julia Hutton-Potts, eBay.
Other Interesting Findings:
- Under 24s wasted most time with 8% claiming to waste over 21 hours whilst over 65s were the most productive bunch, with 18% believing they wasted less than one hour a week
- Books are the most hoarded item in the UK with four in five households admitting to a stash of literature they will never use again adding up to over 20 million books
- Watches closely follow with 17.5 million, then old vinyl records with 16.2 million
Top Tips for Turning Wasted Hours into £££s on eBay
Do your research
- Search for similar items and see how other people are listing them. What do you like and dislike about how they’ve listed them and what can you do better?
Detail Detail Detail
- Take a nice, clear picture and give buyers as much detail as possible - make, model, size, year, colour etc. Talk up your item – if it’s great, say so – but be sure to point out any faults too. Buyers will trust you more if you give good detail and you’re honest about the condition of items
Start low
- If you’re listing your item for auction, start low, e.g. 99p. More buyers will be attracted to it in the hope of grabbing a bargain
Start now
- A third of all bids happen in the last minutes of an auction, so having it end at 3am probably won’t attract as many bidders as ending during the day or early evening