People asking for reserve price on ebay.

[Acanthus]

I tell them a completely retarded reserve, usually about 10x the items value.

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: jcovercash
So I have some high dollar items up on auction for ebay, been selling cars/jet-skis, 4-wheelers, etc...

And it never fails on EVERY auction a bunch of people ask me what my reserve price is. How do you typically handle this? Do you tell them, or tell them you perfer not to give it out.

Any harm in telling the people who ask? I mean it shouldn't negativly affect my auction them knowing the reserve should it? My reserve on the items isnt fair value though, its slightly below that as its the bottom dolalr that would make me happy....

I usually ask for the resrve to see if you're wasting my time or not. Whats the harm in telling 'em?

Also usually if i see a relatively cheap thing with reserve-not-met that's nearing the end, i ignore it. Odds are you can't get a good deal on reserve auction

 

[zanieladie]

The only things that I have bought from e-Bay did NOT have a reserve price set.

I guess if I were to bid on something and it told me that the reserve hadn't been met, I would simply put in my maximum price at that point and see what happened.

 

[eflat]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: funboy42

Originally posted by: Maximus96
i hate reserve-priced auctions...

QFT. I've done a reserve price and like the OP reasons that he hates being asked never done it again. I did it once and thought "why the hell do it? Just start the auction at my reserve price. I can lower it if need be but atleast I wont be houded by the masses asking me what my reserve is."

Reserve auctions are just dumb and no real reason I can think of to have it.

Its to get a bunch of people interested. People tend to watch reserve price auctions and wait to see what happens. So you set the reserve to a price that should be exceeded by the last day. Then everyone that bidded now has the auction in their "my eBay" and everyone watching it knows the reserve has been exceeded. So you have a large group of people all willing to bid on your item.

If you start the item at your reserve there won't be as much initial interest due to the high starting cost.

Reserve auctions do make sense for certain items. For instance, I sold a 2 cars on ebay. You better believe both had reserves on them. Although the reserve was set lower than what I wanted for the vehicles.

qft.

 

[mrrman]

I usually never bid with a reserve set

 

[bctbct]

I only use reserves on high dollar US currency items. I do not disclose the reserve explaining that it would be an unfair advantage to other bidders. I secretly hope that two buyers will enter high amounts at the last secs driving the price up. Dont know if it works or not.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: mugs
What's the harm in telling people what the reserve is? It won't prevent people from bidding higher. The only possible harm I can see is that people who don't want to spend that much might not bid at all. But you don't want to sell it for less than that anyway.

you underestimate impulse buying.

If someone REALLY wants something, and its selling for $50 over the price he wanted to spend. He might buy it if he's still watching it in the last few minutes. However, a person who hears the reserve price 4 days before it ends and sees its too high will not continue to watch the auction.

That's a huge stretch.

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: mugs
What's the harm in telling people what the reserve is? It won't prevent people from bidding higher. The only possible harm I can see is that people who don't want to spend that much might not bid at all. But you don't want to sell it for less than that anyway.

you underestimate impulse buying.

If someone REALLY wants something, and its selling for $50 over the price he wanted to spend. He might buy it if he's still watching it in the last few minutes. However, a person who hears the reserve price 4 days before it ends and sees its too high will not continue to watch the auction.

That's a huge stretch.

I don't think so, think about a car.

You have a car that has all the options you wanted, the right color....and so on. But the reserve price is maybe a couple hundred higher than you wanted to spend. At least a person watching the auction to see when the reserve is met is still thinking about your car. A person who sees the minimum bid start out that high is going to look elsewhere.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: mugs
What's the harm in telling people what the reserve is? It won't prevent people from bidding higher. The only possible harm I can see is that people who don't want to spend that much might not bid at all. But you don't want to sell it for less than that anyway.

you underestimate impulse buying.

If someone REALLY wants something, and its selling for $50 over the price he wanted to spend. He might buy it if he's still watching it in the last few minutes. However, a person who hears the reserve price 4 days before it ends and sees its too high will not continue to watch the auction.

That's a huge stretch.

I don't think so, think about a car.

You have a car that has all the options you wanted, the right color....and so on. But the reserve price is maybe a couple hundred higher than you wanted to spend. At least a person watching the auction to see when the reserve is met is still thinking about your car. A person who sees the minimum bid start out that high is going to look elsewhere.

I think people would still bid on auctions even if they know their bid is lower than the reserve, because the seller COULD still sell it to them even though it's lower than the reserve if he realizes that he probably won't get any more from it elsewhere.

 

[chuckywang]

Originally posted by: Accipiter22

Originally posted by: chuckywang
So what if they know the reserve price? I'm just being the devils advocate here. How can it harm the seller?

if they win the auction with exactly that price. he loses out on any bidding over the reserve

Not really, with proxy bidding, people bid their highest amount. If nobody else's highest amount was above the reserve price, it was all the seller could have gotten no matter what.

 

[badmouse]

This is an impossible discussion. We're trying to generalize about different items, different price ranges, deliberately-sought collectibles vs impulse buys, and so on. Still, it's fun to talk about.

I won't bid on a reserve priced item because my inlaws are in the antique business and they use "reserve price" as a tool to sell something to people who didn't know very much - if they thought they could get more money from some clueless person they'd start using "but there's a reserve price" and try and get more. I don't think much of that practice.

However, if it were something I really wanted, and knew the value of, I'd bid - but that's never happened yet.

When I was selling all my stuff because I was broke, I experimented with things like reserve prices. In my experience, reserve price auctions brought less money than non-reserve. And the most money came from 99 cent items. They always got bid up quickly and had more action.

Just my 2 cents :beer:

 

[Kelemvor]

Originally posted by: Dunbar

Originally posted by: Yossarian
there is no reason not to disclose the reserve price.

I can think think of one reason why. Say I know the reserve, and I'm willing to pay more than that price. I can snipe it and bid the reserve price, end result being I pay less than I might have.

But I also agree high reserve prices kill action. You want a lot of people bidding against each other. IMO, this results in the highest price for the seller.

That's not true. If you snipe it at the end and bid over the reserve, it will only set your bid to what the reserve price is, not higher. If reserver is $75 and someone has big $50 and with 1 second left ou big $100, you're bid will only really be $75 because that's the highest bid that will let you win the auction.

 

[JDrake]

Originally posted by: brxndxn
Reserve prices are stupid, imo. I always just set a minimum price and let the market decide.

:thumbsup:

 

[KK]

Is it wrong to ask for what the reserve was on an item that ended and didn't reach the reserve price?