eBay charges a "Reserve Fee"??

Ebay has always charged for reserves, this is nothing new. Many of them don't sell since people generally don't bid on items with a reserve since the reserve can be too high. Why not just set your starting bid higher? At least then, people know your minimum you will sell for. If it is too high, it simply won't sell.

 

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eBay does appear a bit silly at times. Charging the "fee" is tantamount to increasing the Final Value Fee's.

 

the problem is .. the most you can get is the least , you would accept .. better to set higher sale price and accept best offers .

 

I thought the same. It's been years for me but they charged for it.

 

I just recently stopped selling on ebay. I'm not a high volume seller, just some coins and other stuff here or there. But I couldn't take their fees. I'd rather keep my extra coins than see all that money eaten up. Last time they took 14% plus paypal fees.

 

Not only the fees, you have to deal with other loses like USPS losing your packages. If you have inexpensive coins you can't sell them by themselves. You don't want to deal with that and the fees will eat them away not to mention how cheap some of the people are in that market. They will expect you to lose money and pay $3 to ship it but won't want to pay for it. They will also claim they didn't get it when they did and ask if you provided tracking. I have read of someone opening a case and when the seller provided tracking, they dropped it.

I recently stopped myself even though I only have had one case open. Ebay "protected my account" by not letting them open it after a couple days. They just waited to the day they could. Another one then sent me a message "did you sent the coin? tracking?". I told him I should have provided tracking and charge an additional $3. Heard nothing since.

 

I don't use reserves. So I completely avoid that charge. I see no point in them as a seller. Just do a Buy It Now (and maybe Best Offer).

From a buyer standpoint, I also don't like bidding on items that have reserves. The sellers always set them higher than the realized final bids. I have been disappointed countless times thinking I win something and it just gets relisted.
Ebay should just do away with reserves.

 

I agree, why have a reserve? They deter people from bidding since the reserve price is often set close to the Buy It Now price. If the Buy It Now is too high, so is the reserve. Mine as well just have a higher starting bid, if it is not to high, people will still bid.