What is the theory on setting reserves on eBay? I just bid on a nice 3 cent piece that had a $49.99 starting price, though no one had bid on it and it stated zero bids, RESERVE NOT MET. I bid $62 dollars in the last seconds of bidding and it registered a $49.99 bid (the one and only bid) and said RESERVE NOT MET. Seems if you are going to set the bidding so it will start with a high number like $49.99 rather than .01, then why not just start at the reserve so people have a fair chance of actually buying your coin? I mean, if the reserve was $70, then maybe I would have bid that number, but as played, no one wins. :goofer:
I know, that's why I don't waste my time with those type of bids unless it's something I really have to have.
The seller is probably naive and/or greedy. He should just set it out for buy it now at the reserve price. If it's an item you want keep watching and see if he relists. Once in a while if the seller really needs cash you might get contacted and offerred a second chance at the price you bid (49 is all he knows about, he never sees the higher bid limit).
What do you think the coin was worth? If the reserve was $70 and start bid $49.99, that would be a strange way to do it on eBay. Agreed, that if there is a $70 reserve, and you're set on listing it that way, you might as well start at $0.01. Perhaps the reserve was $500 or something?
Agreed. Strange way of doing the listing. The Reserve is your protection from being sold lower than you want. Why not start it at $0.01. No danger of losing it cheaply. AND it saves on the insertion fee. And it is generally felt that putting the Reserve price in the listing is good business. Or at a minimum if someone asks, give them the answer.
When I want a coin that has a reserve, I always send a friendly email and ask them what it is, or a ballpark figure if they don't want to give away the exact reserve (because people would then bid a penny higher than that). I find that about 75% of the time i get an idea of what the reserve is, which helps out my strategy. It also positions me to make an offer at the end of the auction if i really want it.
I don't snipe. My style is to calculate my max bid, then place it with a day or two remaining on the auction. If my bid doesn't reach the Reserve then IMO the seller is asking too much. And although this doesn't really apply to auctions with Reserves, I never take a Second Chance offer. If there's shilling involved, a Second Chance offer is their way out of being stuck with their own item.
An auction should be an auction, not a maybe auction. If you want a reserve, then you should list the reserve as the amount you would be willing to accept and it should be the starting bid. Reserves above the minimum starting bid are devious to me.
Not only does no one win, the seller LOSES. If he sets a reserve he has to pay a percentage of the reserve as a fee to ebay (flat fee of $2 up to $200, 1% of reserve above that). If you want to have a reserve it is better to just set the starting bid at that price. If it doesn't sell the insertion fee is usually less than the insertion fee for a lower price plus the reserve bid fee. Assume they wanted $70 for the coin in question. If they had started the bidding at $70 the insertion fee would be $1 and if it didn't sell that would be their total fee. If they started it at $49.95 with a reserve of $70 and it didn't sell the insertion fee would be $0.75 and the reserve fee would be $2. Total fee $2.75 So by setting a reserve they actually almost tripled their fees.
i agree i think the starting bid should just be their reserve there is no real point in setting one if you truely want to sell it if you wont settle for anything less than $70 then set the starting bid at $70 if it is truely worth that someone will bid and like stated above it would cost the seller less
IMO, you should have emailed the seller and politely asked "what" the reserve amount was so that you could bid accordingly. eBay generally counsels sellers to NOT give out this information due to an "unfair" advantage but if the seller doesn't give it out or publish it in the actual auction, he/she will be selling at a distinct "disadvantage" in which case, eBay WINS and all other parties Lose.
Finally - someone that does it my way. Even though I occasion I do try to get my max bid in with about 8 seconds to go. The other thing to keep in mind. If you bid 49.99 and that is as high as you want to go - you might(but not often) get a second chance offer on the coin. There was one large cent I wanted - put my max bid in, saw the reserve was not met, said oh well and just moved on. It was like nobody else wanted to bid. It was one of those ones starting at like $275 and my max bid was 305. The reserve was 350(something like that per seller). The seller let me have it at $275 - I could not pay him quick enough. Won a couple of coins this way. By the way the prices I mention are not exact. So even with reserves I still enter my max bid and let it go. I have rejected a couple of second chance offers where the reserver was higher than I was willing to pay.
