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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Kasia, post: 1433949, member: 31533&quot;]Unfortunately, starting items all at 99 cents and seeing where they go to achieve the &quot;true price&quot; of the item is mostly poor marketing and planning by a seller. Saying that items on ebay should not have reserve prices is also a stupid thing to say, as some items need to have a reserve price by the seller so that the seller doesn&#039;t simply give it away or take a loss. </p><p><br /></p><p>I think you need to remember that, amid all the changes in rules from ebay and paypal, that euphemistically &quot;encourage&quot; sellers to be more friendly by shipping free, or other things, sellers still have a right to make a profit on their items. Shipping costs are not going down, and neither are the costs of supplies to ship items with. Even if you forget the item cost to the person who bought it to sell on ebay. </p><p><br /></p><p>Even though there were some items I sold that I started at a low price, to &quot;encourage&quot; bidding, and sometimes I won on it, and others I lost, there were some items I knew had the value and could not afford to have it hit ebay during a week where the potential buyers either were on vacation, not looking, or at the last minute when they wanted to bid, were experiencing a power outage or something. </p><p><br /></p><p>I will give you an example. I was at an estate sale, where I purchased some items. One of the items I purchased to resell on ebay happened to be a buffalo skin. A quirky item that I thought would get me a profit of some kind. I paid about 100.00 for it at the estate sale. </p><p><br /></p><p>After I took pictures and did my research, I found that most ones were selling for anywhere from 200 to 600 dollars, and that shipping to anywhere in the US would cost a certain amount. This was before ebay &quot;encouraged&quot; sellers to offer free shipping on near anything. It was also at a time that after listing and putting pics on and all, that ebay&#039;s commission would be somewhere around 8 percent or more. I decided that this would be a reserve item, and I put my reserve at 200.00. The first time I listed, it did not get it&#039;s reserve price. I think the highest price bid was about 120.00. If it had sold with that, I would not have recouped my cost, as I had to consider the time and money (gas, etc) I spent travelling to estate sales to find things, as well as the time I spent photoing, and storing, and all in there as well. I relisted, again with the same 200.00 reserve and the next week it sold. I think I charged 40.00 for shipping/handling (have to buy boxes and pay for the size of the box along with weight, and insurance, etc). So I made money on that one, but not too much. </p><p><br /></p><p>You may be picking up on some items that are too high priced, but the solution is not universally to say sellers should never have a reserve price, and should start their items at 99 cents. </p><p><br /></p><p>And the ultimate test is if a seller ends up not selling an item, then the seller gets to learn the lesson. Doesn&#039;t mean the seller has to &quot;give away&quot; their lesson in failure to someone who wants the coin.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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