divulging reserve prices ? Your thoughts?

[rosin*felt*music]

Hello everyone,
I'm curious to know a little bit about sellers policies regarding reserve price. What do you do if someone ask you your reserve price? Do you tell them? Is there an ebay policy against that? And if there are no rules against it, could I actually write it in my listings?
Thanks for your help on this.

Laurent

[shoplineca]

Laurent
This has been a heavily and frequently discussed item on the US Power Seller board.

Firstly there are no eBay rules against divulging your reserve price. Secondly, there is no absolute right answer and no absolute wrong answer.

The general consensus from the majority of the US PSers who use reserves is to not divulge them.

On the rarest of occassion I have divulged my reserve price and found that NONE of those people even bid on my auctions. You may also find that you are divulging your reserves to a competitor who wants to price his items to sell before yours do.

From my perspective and personal choice, I do not divulge my reserve price. It is all part of how I market my items in my listings and after trying to list them many different ways (no reserve, no BIN etc etc etc), I prefer the method I employ which gives me the maximum profit and that is what I am after.

Malcolm

[sunset_sports_cards]

Laurent;
I have from time to time let bidders know my reserve. But I check them out first, because Malcolm raised some very good points in his reply above. What I have done though is if my reserve on an item is set at say...$200, and someone wants to know my reserve I will tell them it is $400 and they might bid $200 and be the winning bid for the moment. That does two things for me...1. sells my item and 2. generates a bidding war. My 2 cents!
Kelly.

[auctiondropnship]

I think in the old days it made sense not to tell the customer . But now that you can make an offer to the seller even if the reservice is not met . Some how the Reserve lost it meaning

[phoebescollectables]

I rarely use reserve prices but when I do I always divulge them. I have only been taken advantage of once (another seller set their price below my reserve).

Michael

[shoplineca]

The biggest problem with many competitor sellers and one's ability to "check them out" is that they use a second eBay userid and a 3rd and a 4th.

Most US PSers as an example, have a 2nd userid for their purchases. However some have one they use for 'snooping' where there is no history of them making any purchases, rather they use it for making inquiries of other Sellers so they can watch auctions of their competitors without anyone knowing who they are.

It has been said that some people who see that the auction has a reserve dont bother even bidding, others ask and if refused they dont bid. My feeling is if you have something someone wants, then they will bid.

Those that wont bid because of a reserve dont truly want what you have, at least not for a fair price. They are after something that may sell for 25% of what it is worth (and that is all they were willing to spend) so that they can re-sell it.

Malcolm

[auctiondropnship]

And there are those whom give up bidding because they have no idea what to bid up too . Say I wanted to purchase an item . I am willing to pay $100 for it . But at $98 I stop and give up bidding ...in my mind wondering how high do I have to go before I hit the reserve

[shoplineca]

As you know you could bid $200 on that auction and if the reserve was $100, unless there were other bidders, you will get it for $100 not $200.

The idea behind eBay, as they strongly promote, is to bid what you are willing to pay, not the minimum you think that you can get the item for. You bid will only go up, incrementally by the $1 or $2 set up to your maximum.

The problem is some Buyers bid their maximum which is great, some, especially newbies, bit by $1 or $2.50 at a time and place 30 or 40 bids.

As I said earlier, there is no right or wrong way to listing and deciding whether to divulge your reserve any more than there is a right or wrong way to proceed in bidding.

Whatever method works best for selling your items to your client base is the best method for you. Same with bidding, whatever method gets you the the items you want for the least amount of money is what works best for those buyers.

Its all a matter of experimenting and being ready to change as conditions or clients change.

Malcolm

[shooger]

The whole idea of reserve prices is silly to me. It's like, "go ahead and bid on my item... I might end up selling it to you, or I might not!" It adds a very random feeling to a purchase, which is not how auctions should be to me. I imagine bidding 7c less than a reserve price and not being allowed to buy the item because I guessed $23.52 instead of $23.59 - silly.

[vesivus]

It is not against eBay's policies to tell anybody the reserve price. It's quite common, actually, to state the reserve in the listing.

The mentality? A low current bid attracts somebody into look at your listing, gets hooked, and reads that there is a reserve of $X. They then will bid.

Get more traffic, protect your item.

I, too, think that reserve is a crazy idea on eBay anyways. It has its place in Real-Life auctions, but not on eBay. Just another money-maker for eBay. 🙂

John

[shoplineca]

Again, different products different customer base. For me using a reserve and a BIN with a low $2.50 to start gets lots of bidding activity on my items and gives me maximum return.

I am not here to sell quantity, I am here to make money.

My choice in selling as I do is to sell 10 items for $100 profit each rather than 1,000 items for $1 profit each. The end result is the same, we just get there differently and I chose the road I take.

I looked at the other route, selling items such as collector comics but the volume of work compared to the return didnt fit into my schedule, nor what I wanted out of eBay.

It doesnt mean it is not right for others, it just isnt the way I wanted to be set up to do eBay business.

I agree with you that reserves dont work for comics, but to suggest that they dont have a place for other products on eBay is totally infounded.

Buying on spec such as at a garage sale or from an auction or selling items when the maximum loss is a couple of dollars, well it becomes easy for people to say reserves are stupid or crazy, but you are only looking at what you sell.

When you have to lay out several hundred dollars EACH for new items to list for $1 on eBay without a reserve, tell me how long you expect to be selling on eBay before you have to mortgage your house to pay for food for the family.

PS John, I have access to over 500,000 comics if you are interested in some more inventory to sell.

I could put you in touch with the owner.

Malcolm

[shoplineca]

Typing error should read UNfounded

Malcolm

[vesivus]

Heh heh. I noticed your typing error.

Thanks for the offer, but I don't sell comics for my business. I sell plastic miniatures. The comics are my own personal stash I'm cleaning out slowly.

I think if you DO use a reserve price, you should state it. I believe that would maximize return. Maybe not... but that's what my gut tells me.

I also think that the MAJORITY of items will find their "true" price if there is enough interest in the item on eBay. It seems your items have enough interest. How many have you NOT sold because of the reserve price not being met? I would suspect very few.

So... use a reserve if $X is worth it to you to keep your item. I personally think that, over the long run, a reserve actually lowers your overall profit from the people not bidding because of a reserve. I believe that is what the "stats" I've seen have stated. No proof though. Heh heh.

John

[shoplineca]

John
As I pointed out this has been hotly debated on the US PS board and the consensus of US Power Sellers with far more sales than yours and mine put together and multiplied by 10, is as I pointed out in my 1st post.

I have tried all methods and for my customers purchasing my musical instruments, this is the most profitable method to sell, at this time. Could change and that is why I always have an open mind.

No rocket science, no personal opinion, just what my monthly P & L reports.

Malcolm