Reserve Price Auctions

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Posted By: jay behrens

I've got 8 years experience selling on eBay, and from that experieince I can tell you that if you high demand item, then starting with low minimum and letting he auction runs works fine. However, if you have a low demand or unusual item you are uncertain about, you can go do the above and hope 2 people want the item, but chances are you will loss money most of the time.

You can also do the low min with a reserve or a high min and no reserve. My experience has shown that even with a reserve, you are better off going that route. If people are iffy about bidding on an item, having a lot of bids even if it hasn't met the reserve, give the person a mental queue that this item is hot and they will take a look and possibley bid. If they see that no one is bidding, they will think that this item is not in demand or popular and look right past it.

The name of the game is getting bids and generating interest in the auction. Having a high minimum with no bids will turn away more people than running a reserve that action on it. No matter how much we all say we dislike them, we will bid on them if it something we want. And I don't buy the argument that reserve auctions wastes a bidder's time. It only takes only a minutes or less to read a description and place a bid. I doubt anyone is reading and bidding on 100s of items every night.

Jay