redbeard3569 Posted June 10, 2011 Report Share Posted June 10, 2011 Not having sold many things on eBay (maybe three things in 5 years) I have a question for those of you that do. Why do people use a hidden reserve? Is there an advantage to hiding the minimum you would accept for your item? I ask because I have been confused watching bids go higher and higher and the item never sells since it has a hidden reserve. Why not just start the item at the lowest you would accept and hope it goes higher? Example Item Kings Jersey In the above example the seller started at $199 and it's now almost $800 without the reserve being met. I don't understand why they would start it so low if their reserve is so high. And if the seller is a member here I am not smashing you. Just asking a question. Just curious why people do this. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orangecrush8 Posted June 10, 2011 Report Share Posted June 10, 2011 Not having sold many things on eBay (maybe three things in 5 years) I have a question for those of you that do. Why do people use a hidden reserve? Is there an advantage to hiding the minimum you would accept for your item? I ask because I have been confused watching bids go higher and higher and the item never sells since it has a hidden reserve. Why not just start the item at the lowest you would accept and hope it goes higher? Example Item Kings Jersey Just curious why people do this. Thanks. For lower reserved items, I dont understand it either. But for items that you know will sell for a ton, its cheaper to start the bidding at $9.99 or even $0.99 rather than starting it at $300. So they start the bidding very low, so its cheaper for them, and they put a reserve on it so it doesn't sell for less than they are willing to take Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gs6769 Posted June 10, 2011 Report Share Posted June 10, 2011 A reserve can also help to generate interest in an auction. An Islanders fisherman will certainly sell but if you start it at 125.00 it might only get 5 or 6 total bids even though the final price will be pretty high. Started at 10.00 it will no doubt get many more than that without risk of a low sale price. For this reason reserve auctions cost more for a seller to place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-liars Posted June 10, 2011 Report Share Posted June 10, 2011 Sometimes sellers just want to get an idea on how much their item is worth and don't want to commit to selling it yet. Or they'll try to sell to the highest bidders after the auction so they can save on the eBay commissions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HockeyMusic Posted June 10, 2011 Report Share Posted June 10, 2011 A reserve can also help to generate interest in an auction. An Islanders fisherman will certainly sell but if you start it at 125.00 it might only get 5 or 6 total bids even though the final price will be pretty high. Started at 10.00 it will no doubt get many more than that without risk of a low sale price. For this reason reserve auctions cost more for a seller to place. Actually I find the opposite, as buyers generally shy away from auctions with reserves since if you do not meet the reserve, you will not get the item. Thus people don't waste their time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brandon Posted June 10, 2011 Report Share Posted June 10, 2011 Actually I find the opposite, as buyers generally shy away from auctions with reserves since if you do not meet the reserve, you will not get the item. Thus people don't waste their time. this^ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gs6769 Posted June 10, 2011 Report Share Posted June 10, 2011 Actually I find the opposite, as buyers generally shy away from auctions with reserves since if you do not meet the reserve, you will not get the item. Thus people don't waste their time. Yeah, all such auction strategies can shoot a seller in the butt as much as pump up the bank account. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slimcutta Posted June 11, 2011 Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 Less fees if you start at 0.99 More bids and buyer interest if you start at 0.99, even if a reserve fends some people off slightly And yes, some buyers even simply want to find out what something is worth without selling it The other thing to consider is that even if your reserve isn't met, if it's close or you're happy to move it at that price, you can offer to sell the item to the highest bidder Personally, I like to place auctions with a buy-it-now that's purposely 125% of what I want for the shirt + my ebay costs, and use the best offer feature to accept a more reasonable price. If anyone wants to buy it now (it's happened), then I profit a lot more than expected. If I get any other offers at all, or if anyone asks a question about it, I can offer a discounted price outside of ebay, cancel the auction, and make the sale. Ebay collects on the listing only (a few bucks), which I consider my "advertising fee", and I get my sale. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Russian Rocket Posted June 11, 2011 Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 Actually with eBay's new policies it doesn't matter what you start the price at, it's free regardless if you start at $0.99 or $999.99. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big A HG Posted June 11, 2011 Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 I've actually seen people start the bidding low with a reserve, but then tell you what the reserve price is in the description. This situation is likely just a workaround for starting fees. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HockeyMusic Posted June 12, 2011 Report Share Posted June 12, 2011 Less fees if you start at 0.99 More bids and buyer interest if you start at 0.99, even if a reserve fends some people off slightly And yes, some buyers even simply want to find out what something is worth without selling it The other thing to consider is that even if your reserve isn't met, if it's close or you're happy to move it at that price, you can offer to sell the item to the highest bidder Personally, I like to place auctions with a buy-it-now that's purposely 125% of what I want for the shirt + my ebay costs, and use the best offer feature to accept a more reasonable price. If anyone wants to buy it now (it's happened), then I profit a lot more than expected. If I get any other offers at all, or if anyone asks a question about it, I can offer a discounted price outside of ebay, cancel the auction, and make the sale. Ebay collects on the listing only (a few bucks), which I consider my "advertising fee", and I get my sale. ^ my strategy as well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flountown Posted June 17, 2011 Report Share Posted June 17, 2011 Personally, I like to place auctions with a buy-it-now that's purposely 125% of what I want for the shirt + my ebay costs, and use the best offer feature to accept a more reasonable price. If anyone wants to buy it now (it's happened), then I profit a lot more than expected. If I get any other offers at all, or if anyone asks a question about it, I can offer a discounted price outside of ebay, cancel the auction, and make the sale. Ebay collects on the listing only (a few bucks), which I consider my "advertising fee", and I get my sale. This is what I am doing, I have some very optimistic pricing on jerseys on eBay, then if someone offers me something of interest, I try to find out if they are an IJ or JC member and work from there outside of eBay to save a few bucks. My current insertion fees to run an unlimited time BIN-OBO item is only 50 cents each which I am more than happy to sacrifice if I sell it off of eBay and save 15 bucks or so in the process... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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