In ebay, if a seller has a reserve price, why would they start the listing any less?

Question

That is just stupid... Because one person can never win the auction, because it sits at the minimum price. What's the point?

Answer 1

Reserve price auctions are nice because the low bid attracts many people. You get a ton of bids sometimes, which peaks the interest even more. If the price doesn't get where it should be, then you don't have to worry about selling it for a lower price than you wanted. Reserve is best when you want a lot of attention to an auction item. Say, you start a car at $5.00, with a reserve. Well, what the bidder sees on the listing pages is only the $5 for a car. They go to the auction page to check it out. Odds are, this person is going to watch this & possibly bid, because hey...it's cheap, and they may get a chance at it. Or, they may want to keep it on their "watch list" by bidding on it...that way, they won't forget to watch it near the end. A low price bid means a lot of hits on your auction page. The more hits, the better. It brings on a greater curiosity when people see so many people are looking at this auction. but, if you start your car out at $10,000.00, let's say, how many people will actually take the time to look?

***UPDATE*** If the reserve price isn't met, you will just have to relist the auction. It used to be that you could offer it to the highest bidder, but I don't think that is an option anymore. You can look & see, but I tried it a couple of years ago, and it wasn't letting me, so I have basically quit the reserve price. I know it's frustrating when you get a bid that's almost to your reserve, than you lose by a small amount. You can relist the auction, and if it sells, than you will get your fees (listing fees only) refunded. So, what I have done, is if someone is interested, I will list it with NO additional fancy stuff...since you already have a bidder, there's no reason to pay for more stuff....and then you're relist doesn't cost you anything in the end.
Hope I've been helpful to you & anyone who may come across your question...and feel free to ask me anytime!

Answer 2

The lower the price, the more likely a person will be to bid on it. No one knows what the reserve price is until it has been met or exceeded.

If I had a 2k diamond ring for sale on Ebay, I'd put a reserve price of about $1,000 for example. But I would put a starting bid at $ 0.01

People would start making bids on it.

Answer 3

To make it more appealing.....people are more likely to notice the item with a low starting bid. They will watch it, and if they want the item enough, they will continue to raise their bid. If they meet the reserved price, they win. If not, the seller can re-list the item, and may use a lower reserve or none at all.

Answer 4

Because the bidder usually doesn't know the reserve price...So some bidders keep going and going until they bid more than they wanted. So sellers start low, so they can et some idiots to keep bidding, past what they are willing to accept for the product

Answer 5

Yes they are interested, but many people don't bid until the very last minute. If you think it might only go for $0.99 you can always cancel the auction, until 12 hoursbefore it's due to end. Otherwise you just take the chance that bidding will escalate in the last few hours/minutes, which it often does. Good luck.

Answer 6

Because they hope that someone who doesn't know the item's value will over bid to hit the reserve.

Answer 7

i guess it works to their benefit sometimes...i don't really know except that ebay's selling tips say that the lower the starting bid, the more likely you are to get bids in the first place.

Answer 8

Darn good question, one that has bugged me ever since I started using ebay. Wish I knew what the answer was, but I'm stumped.

Answer 9

almost seems shady,kind of like a bate and swich thing