And Here is a perfect example of that, on this auction page click "0 bids" and see what the seller did because the bidding didn't go high enough:
Alex
That's good enough thinking about it, I think an RP should only be used for fine things that are "must haves" and of a high value.
Alex
I disagree. You probably get more early action, but the early people never end up buying it. Personally I ignore auctions with reserve prices because you frequently can't ever buy it because the reserve price is too high. I set a minimum bid that is the minimum I will sell for. I usually get much more, and have not been disappointed. Occasionally I don't get any bids until the last couple hours, but it usually works out.
I put in my maximum bid and then forget about it. If I win, I win. Other people think that if they put in low bids, then maybe they can get it for that price. When they are outbid, they put in a slightly higher bid, and so on. I can't image what is going on in their heads.
Right on, Kevin.
Does anyone beside me do this....If I've decided to bid on an item, I first look to see what the shipping costs are and subtract it from the highest I want to pay. Example: If the shipping is $8, and I want to pay a max of $20, my max bid will be $12.
I bid on ebay to buy things CHEAP. I hate it when I see people bidding an item up to retail (or beyond). Idiots ! Cheers! Joe kb8qlr (291 ebay feedbacks)
The other reason some use reserve pricing is to test a market. Set the reserve high and see how high the item get's bid up. Then since it didn't sell re-list it starting about where the last auction ended. The re-listing is free. It's a way to let the world do your market research for you.
hex
-30-
That is what I do, also. However, I will wait until the last few minutes to do so. Why wait? Because there seem to be a bunch of people out there that think an auction is some kind of contest which you can win or lose. They are the ones (or some of the ones) who do the multiple rebidding. It's as if they can't accept "losing" and keep inching the bid up until they "win".
Does that make me a "sniper"? Perhaps. But I've learned that putting in a reasonable bid early in the bidding is an almost sure way to be outbid by one of the "nibblers".
Tom Veatch Wichita, KS USA
-snip-
Alex, that might be arguable. I would argue the point this way:
Let's assume you are selling with an undisclosed reserve. I, as a bidder, request that you disclose the reserve to me. You do so. I can then either choose to place a bid at or above the reserve price, or I can decide the price is too high and go away.
If I decide the price is too high and go away, there has been no effect on the auction or the other bidders. No effect means that no harm has been inflicted therefore no unfair/unethical activity has occurred. (This assumes that an unfair/unethical action always results in harm to some party.)
If I decide to place a bid at the reserve price or higher, the effect is the same whether or not I had advance knowledge of the reserve price. The bid is entered at the reserve price (even if my maximum bid was higher) and the amount of the reserve price is immediately revealed for all to see. At that point, the existence of a reserve is moot. My knowing the amount of the reserve has not given me any advantage over any of the other bidders, so again, no harm inflicted, no unfair/unethical activity.
Just my (possibly weird) view of the situation.
Tom Veatch Wichita, KS USA
thats the way i feel too. i choose my price not the other bidders. if i get outbid, so be it. ebays proxy system makes sure you only pay enough to beat the next highest bidder anyway. it doesnt matter if that bidder is bidding 10 days or 10 seconds before the end of the auction. if they dont beat my price, they dont get it. if they do, they can have it.
randy
the problem with this thinking is that it keeps the power in the hands of the seller. if you ignore the reserve, and the other bidders, and simply bid what you want to pay you will either get it or you wont. same as if you knew what the reserve was. if knowing the reserve would change how much you might bid i think you need to rethink your bidding process.
it just takes enough discipline to ignore what you cannot control. the only thing you can control is how much you want to pay and imho you should decide this before bidding. if you allow external factors such as the sellers reserve to change how much you are willing to pay you are playing into the sellers hands.
by ignoring the reserve, the worst thing that can happen is you lose the auction either by being outbid or by not meeting the reserve. by playing into the reserve the worst thing you can do is pay too much. id rather lose the auction than pay too much.
randy
i think lots of people lose out on auctions because of the perception that shipping costs are too high. which works out for me because i can add and subtract.
im with you. i take my maximum price im willing to pay, subtract the shipping whether its 10 cents or 100 dollars, and make that my highest bid.
too many people think they have to win by getting the item no matter what instead of winning by not getting the item and not paying too much.
randy
personally.
True, they bid and bid like dorks one time after the next as if it were literaly a race to "win", they're only raising the price for zero reasons.
Alex
Marketing is just strange and you go with what works. F'r example: some years ago I was selling floppy disk overruns for a guy at electronics flea markets. He got diskettes with labels and current market programs on them by the pickup load, all thrown in to large boxes. There might be five disk in a set but there would be dozens of sets in those boxes, some where. All disk were sold for one dollar. I would sort out sets and lay them on one end of the table and I would make a heaping pile on the other. I'ld sell a thousand dollars worth of disk from the pile and maybe a hundred dollars worth from where I sorted them out.
Not any more.
eBay now charges a percentage of the reserve up front. This fee is not refunded if you relist the item, only credited against the final value fees. The listing fee is free the second time around.
I recently sold a $2000 item via reserve auction, paying about $40 up front.
Barry
I've sold maybe 500 items on eBay and I think I only used a reserve once (an original Dali painting), but I think I understand why the seller wouldn't want you to know the reserve. If you know the reserve you might not bid. No problem, right? As you said it's an auction and if you aren't going to meet the reserve then why even bid. However, from the seller's point-of-view an auction is a competition and even if YOU aren't willing to meet the reserve your bid might cause someone else to increase their bid. This wouldn't be true if everyone just set their top price and forgot about the auction, but people get competitive.
For what it's worth, I just set a low starting price (under $10) with no reserve and let the market drive the price up. In almost all cases it does. All it takes is two people to get the price up to a reasonable amount. The only time you get burned in this situation is if only one person wants to bid. If that's the case then the item being auctioned probably isn't worth anything anyway. YMMV
The problem with this is that the buyer has to waste his time researching what he thinks is a fair price for the item and may, ultimately, find that that price is lower than the reserve price. Knowing the reserve would affect the decision of whether to spend time determining, with greater accuracy, what to bid.
Mitch Berkson
EBay is an auction. I think its quite customary practice in an auction where a reserve is set to not disclose the reserve price until it has been met. This gives the seller somewhat of an advantage in that bidders, who might not otherwise have made a bid if they had known the reserve, get caught up in the excitement of a bidding competition, and pay more than what they would may have otherwise paid.
Gary
Is this the "moral" reason Aardvark was talking about?
UA100
sheesh ... can't you figure out what I wrote ??
"sometimes SELLERS have MORALS and will not reveal to single BUYERS because it would UNFAIR to other buyers to whom the reserve was NOT revealed to. That's all it is. SIMPLE.
Alex
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