Ebay Bidders and Sellers Question

I have a question for those of you that bid on Reserve Price Auctions -
Do you ever ask the seller for the reserve price and do they tell you?

And for those of you who sell with a reserve - Do you tell the person asking what the reserve is? I've sold on Ebay for a few years and only recently have people been asking what the reserve amount is. I don't like to divulge this information since I think it may give last minute bidders an edge. Maybe I should be, what are your thoughts on this
Thanks,
Aaron

 

Hi,

I don't ask but have been told when inquiring about the item. I've never sold on Ebay.

Aaron.... why do you and others use reserve prices? Why not just start the item at the lowest price you'll accept?

Thanks,
Jeffrey

 

Aaron,

When I first started selling items on eBay, I sometimes set a reserve, and would inform the buyer of that reserve if they asked. These days, I do what Jeffrey mentions, and start the auction price at the lowest amount of money that I would accept. I now think that setting reserve prices scares a lot of eBay buyers off.




Ed Hurdle
HeavyDistortion

 

Hi Jeffrey thanks for your answer.

I think sometimes a higher starting keeps some bidders away. I get that impression from many forum members. Often times I use a reserve because there might be one person who will pay more.

For example:
Lets say you have an Aqualung DCC
You could set a reserve at $100 and there might be one person who would pay that. A $100 starting price might scare everyone off. Lets say you started it at 9.99 lots of people would be interested, but you might only have two people that would pay over $60 for it. If you didn't have a reserve you might only get $61 for it since it would be a dollar or so over the second highest bidder.

Many times if an item does meet reserve, bidders will contact me and end up working out a deal anyway


Aaron

 

As you know Aaron, I have no problem asking a seller what their reserve is because it saves me a lot heart-ache for missing an auction by some ridiculous amount, say a dollar even. Yes, it's happened and man it just made me angry. A freakin' buck! I would have paid that much if I'd only known. So from then on if the seller won't tell me, I don't waste my time.

 

From a seller's perspective, you want to get the bidding going to maximize the price. Unfortunately, setting the minimum bid at high level can often scare bidders away and result in never stimulating "auction fever".

 

Dave,
That is a fair point. It's kind of weird because when I auctioned SPCD-10 and Salo each with $450 reserves, no one asked where the reserve was. With the three DCC's I have running currently, I've received more questions about the reserve than I've had in the past year.

I guess it is somewhat impossible to determine if not knowing the reserve scares off bidders as much as actually knowing it.

Thanks again,
Aaron

 

As long as you don't mind the extra typing to answer buyers I don't see any problem, that is unless the buyer is just too lazy to ask and then it's their own problem.

Have you noticed some of the rather large price reductions on DCC's and MFSL's this year? I don't imagine that it will last for very long though and I sure hope that the MFSL Moody Blues: OTTOAD isn't any full market indicator of what's ahead.