Ebay Meeting The Reserve Question

If you do not meet the min. amount wanted by the seller, then no coin for you.

Your best bet is probably to just send them a message and ask what the reserve is.

If you dont meet the reserve and win the item you likely wont get the coin but the seller does have the option to accept that and sell anyway.

As I understand the way ebay's reserve system works, if you bid and your max bid exceeds the reserve, then the price immediately jumps up to the reserve.

So if that hasn't happened, then your max bid is still less than the reserve price.

EBay help page on the topic.

I think you are correct! I recently was the first and only bidder on a coin and was a bit shocked that my high bid was shown as the current bid even though I was the first and only bidder. I thought it would show the seller's minimum/start, which was $0.99 UNTIL someone else bid on it. But it seems when the seller designates a reserve it registers as that if you are at or above it with your offer. IMO that is BS. You should never be over the minimum UNTIL someone else bids. I ended up being outbid, but I think they are WRONG/BAD to do this.

It is a hidden gotcha to help them sell more items but isn't consistent with the way all other auctions are done and with their policies on them. I do not think a reserve should change the rules like that! They should be forced to designate the RESERVE PRICE as their minimum accepted BID instead. That way you know what you are getting into! They shouldn't "punish" higher bidders like this and effectively reward lower-than-reserve bidders by leaving their bid alone and treating it like all others!!

Actually, it's quite consistent if you think of the reserve as once cent more than the owner is bidding to KEEP his/her item.

Now the whole concept of a reserve is sort of silly - if that's the minimum price you'll take, the auction should start there. Although the 0.99 + minimum does give the seller sight of SOME level of interest.

Really though thats the sellers problem if no one else bid on it. I do have to agree that someone else should have to trigger the bid instead of the reserve price trigger it otherwise youre just bidding against yourself.

At the very least there should have to be bidding activity and it should have to get within a certain range before that activates instead of being an opening bid for someone that just bids their max the first time.




Its supposed to be an effort to drive bids basically. If you dont know what it is you have to guess and the idea is that will make people bid more. I'm not a fan of it being hidden either, even though thats the marketing strategy behind it.

I don't see using reserves as unethical or deceptive. But I do see it as redundant. An auction system needs either reserves, or a minimum/starting bid price. But it does not need both. And, given that ebay buyers seem to universally dislike "hidden" reserves, it's an option whose continued existence puzzles me.

The concept of "reserves" is inherited from real-world, brick-and-mortar auctions. In many such auctions, vendors usually give the auction house two prices: an estimate (how much they would like to get), and a reserve (the minimum amount they will settle for). Sometimes the auction house calculates these for the vendors. The estimates are printed in the sale catalogue, the reserves are not (so they are "hidden" from everyone except the auctioneer). The auction begins at some price of the auctioneer's discretion but usually begins at some price around or slightly below the estimate. If there's no interest, the price comes down and down, Dutch-auction-style, until it hits the reserve. If there's still no interest at the reserve, then it doesn't sell. But this kind of usage for reserves is unnecessary on ebay, which functions more like an old-style pen-and-paper "silent auction" rather than a traditional auction.

Way back in 2004, ebay Australia instituted a new local policy: reserves were to be abolished for all items except for motor vehicles. I understand ebay Germany has done the same. I assume ebay's overlords are still evaluating the effectiveness of this policy before deciding whether to roll it out worldwide.