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Posted By: warshawlaw

It used to be that you could save money on ebay using a reserve, but they fixed that glitch.

I usually don't bother bidding in an ebay auction with an undisclosed reserve. I am not an an easter egg hunt here; just tell me what you want. If the reserve is reasonable, a minimum bid at the same level will draw fire; if it is unreasonable (i.e., too high a minimum bid) it won't.

I don't particularly like being used as market research for someone trying to find out what it would go for, which is how I view someone using an undisclosed very high reserve, so I generally skip the bidding process or drop out quickly after a few iterations.

I also find that a lot of people with reserves then send me 2nd chance offers, which I routinely delete unread because of the great many spoofs out there.

Overall, I have always done better selling with the price either set or with a disclosed reserve.

I could see using a reserve to preserve a BIN from a lowball bidder, but I would always disclose the reserve figure. Ebay should fix the function so that you can set a BIN perpetually on the auction until the bid tops it.