cyras21 wrote:What's the point? Why not just start the auction at the reserve price?
It's a way to keep folks bidding. Suppose I put in a bid for, say, $100, and the "Reserve not met" indicator stays around. Hmmm, maybe the guy's reserve is $150--let's see.
cyras21 wrote:still pointless in my book. i'm only gonna bid what I want regardless of the reserve
You may be one of the unusual bidders who simply say "that's all I'm going to pay". However, there are many who get caught up in the 'bidding frenzy' and just can't take being outbid.
I usually post items with a reserve.... indicating the least I will take for an item. A guy has gotta eat
Dan Schultz
"The Village Tinker" http://www.thevillagetinker.com" target="_blank
Current 'stable'... Rudolf Meinl 5/4, Marzan (by Willson) euph, King 2341, Alphorn, and other strange stuff.
bort wrote:How does "Buy it Now" work then? Is it automatically set at the reserve?
From a sellers point of view:
- The start price should be attractive enough to get the bidding started.
- The reserve is the least the seller will take for the item.
- The 'buy it now' price is the amount the seller would like to get for the item.
I like to offer a 'buy it now' price to give someone who really wants the item an opportunity to make a purchase without the hassle of riding out an auction just to get outbid in the final moments.
Dan Schultz
"The Village Tinker" http://www.thevillagetinker.com" target="_blank
Current 'stable'... Rudolf Meinl 5/4, Marzan (by Willson) euph, King 2341, Alphorn, and other strange stuff.
If it is an item I am interested in, I send an email to the seller asking what their reserve price is. Most of the time they will tell you the reserve amount. This is another way to add to the evidence that a seller is legit.
ps. I sniped a mountain bike on ebay tonight with 7 seconds to go. Woohoo!
schlepporello wrote:I still get irritated when I see an item up for auction and the seller has stated in his auction "No Reserve" and then sets a minimum allowable bid in four digits. IMO if you're gonna put an item up for auction and state "No Reserve" the bidding ought to start at "0".
That doesn't make any sense to me. "No Reserve" means that you know the minimum price the person is willing to accept. That doesn't mean that they have to give it away. As someone who has done a lot of selling and buying on ebay, I think that it is easier if they have no reserve, but isn't always a bargain.
What doesn't make any sense to me is the people who put a reserve on their sale and then tell you what the reserve is in the description. Why bother? Adding a reserve costs an additional listing fee, so why would you spend the money if you're just going to tell what it is?
I think that using a reserve can be a good way to guage the interest in an item without giving it away. If you set a reserve that is the minimum you would take for something, and it isn't met, whatever the high bid ends up at gives you an idea of the true value.
Another reason for a reserve is to simply increase the number of (meaningless??) bids. If the reserve on a tuba is $3,000, but the bidding starts at zero, a lot of people will place really low bids.
The auction will then look a little more attractive to SOME ebayers just because of the high number of bids.
Well, there are two "technical terms" on eBay that we've talked about...the reserve and the minimum bid. They pretty much serve the same function (the item can't be won unless the price is met) but it gives the seller two ways of going about it. You can set a minimum bid that is the least you'll take; you can set a reserve that is the least you'll take. And of course you can set a minimum bid AND a reserve but that seems a little silly. I'm sure some do it though. I've seen basically worthless items go way beyond the reserve price when two or more people just "had to have" that item and got in a bidding war.
When I bought my MW rotary bariton, there was one other bidder sitting there at $1000; I can't remember whether that was minimum bid or reserve price. He had the only bid, and apparently was sitting there at his computer watching the auction, ready to bid again if someone else came in and bid. I bid at the very end of the auction and he didn't have time to place another bid before the auction ended. He hadn't put in a maximum bid that would allow eBay to bid up for him, just his $1000. So when I put in my maximum, it won the horn for $25 more than he bid, which was a really good price, and considerably less than what my maximum was. The seller told me the other guy wrote him and complained he should have won the auction!! I guess he didn't understand how an online auction is different from a live one, where you get three chances to raise your hand and bid up.
There's an important difference between a minimum bid and a reserve--the minimum is out there for all to see, but the reserve is hidden.
Back before eBay had its rules, there used to be a technique of setting a ridiculously low opening bid and then having the seller or a friend of his bid the amount up at the very end if the seller didn't like the final bid. Usually called "shilling". Ebay is very intolerant of this practice, but I still see it done occasionally and it still happens frequently on Yahoo! auctions.
How do I know? Easy--the winning bid goes to someone with near-zero feedback and the item pops up again by the same seller a week or so later. Over and over again.
I just dislike listing that state "no reserve" but have a high minimum bid.
Used items that cost $150 new, and have a minimum bid of $100, but touted as "no reserve"
pick one or the other, not both. If you wnat a minimum, make it your true minimum. If you want a reserve to see if the market price is more than you wnat, find, but set the min low enough to find the market price.
