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 Replies: 9 / Views: 1,592 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7375 Posts |
To me if the opening bid of an auction is 80% of the book value, it's like putting a huge reserve on it. A lot of times I'll get drawn in by a 'search' that will say "no reserve," only to find that the opening bid is reallly high. Not really a big deal, but can be a little frustrating at times. I don't say 'no reserve' in one of my auctions unless the opening bid is small.
The 'hidden' reserve is another pet peev, but that's another topic....
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
4599 Posts |
Huh?
If that's a fair price - and we all know the book sometimes overstates and sometimes lags reality - then why not? It protects the seller against having the item sell for peanuts because nobody noticed the auction. And if that IS a fair price, it will be bid up to that value anyway.
No Reserve means just that, not "No Reserve and a 0.01 or 0.99 starting price".
-----Burton 50+ year / Life / Emeritus ANA member (joined 12/1/1973) Life member: Numismatics International, CONECA Member: TNA, FtWCC, NETCC, EveryCountry (online) coin club Owned by three cats and a wife of 40+ years (joined 1983) Author: 3rd Edition of the Sample Slabs book, https://www.sampleslabs.info/ |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
7375 Posts |
OK, well, to me a high starting bid is another way to have a reserve without having a lower starting bid.....and it's a free reserve at that. No ebay fee. And in my experience a high opening bid actually scares a lot of bidders away. Nobody wants to be first at the high number. IMO a lot of times the seller is actually short changing themselves. Ironically I've seen items that start at a high bid sell for less than items starting lower because there are less people involved at the higher level. Ok, so I guess I'm one of those people who don't like placing the first bid of $500 on a $600 coin. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one  Edited by edweather
01/27/2014 12:20 pm
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Moderator
 United States
23522 Posts |
That kind of stuff has a way of self-policing; people who use large starting bids get less attention and fewer bids than 0.99 starts, and sell less. I learned that lesson years ago.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2543 Posts |
Quote:
No Reserve means just that, not "No Reserve and a 0.01 or 0.99 starting price". I totally disagree. No reserve means no set bottom price. Way too many people run retail coin stores under the guise of an auction. If you want to put a reserve on something, then fine. Start bidding with the first bid and wait until it toops your reserve, or not. This is the way an auction is done. Setting an opening bid at wholesale and enticing people to bid over retail, is running an an online coin shop. Starting at retail is not in anyway a no reserve auction. |
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Valued Member
United States
116 Posts |
If I remember reading correctly, reserves cost $ and setting a starting bid at the minimum you want to accept is free. That probably is a reason for a lot of them.
I've listed a lot of things at 99 cents and a lot at the minimum I want to take. Both get a fair number of bids, but one I feel safer on.
I've had things listed and get no bids, only to be re-listed and go into a bidding war. I sold two bicentennial mass tokens for over $20 a few weeks ago. If one of the bidders had seem the auction a week earlier, they would have got it for 1/20 the cost and I would have $19 less. That is the downside to the low start auctions.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
1751 Posts |
Low start auctions are almost a guaranteed loss if the item isn't hot. Especially if you consider the way search results are done. When I do a search for similar I get have the results as not related to what I was looking for. So it's easy to not see an auction. The funny thing I find, I can have a low price and no response, next I raise the price a lot and it sells. It's strange.
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
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Low start auctions are almost a guaranteed loss if the item isn't hot. Theres a lot of truth to that especially on common items. Why pay more when theres a 100 other listings you can try on? I got some great deals last year from no reserve auctions. |
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21788 Posts |
Opening bids' are often a technique to establish a de facto reserve price. That bid is usually place by an "independent?" third party bidder, usually by an agent of the auctioneer or seller, so that a valuable item at least goes for a minimum price, if it does in fact, actually happen to sell.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2335 Posts |
I sell a fair amount of items on ebay. There is a certain type item I refer to as "high value, low demand". If you list an item like that without either a reserve or a high start price you will get burned. I recently came across a bunch of electronic items in an estate I bought. I had no idea what they were but they looked cool so I brought them home. Anyway, ebay sales were over $100/pr. We started selling them with a $9.99 start. Things went great for the first several pairs.....& then we had a pair that sold at the start price. We ended up listing the rest of the pairs every couple months with a high start price with a lot of success. IMO there was a limited market for these & when we listed several pairs in a short time we flooded the market. Basic economics, when supply exceeds demand prices drop. |
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Replies: 9 / Views: 1,592 |
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Posted 01/27/2014 12:17 pm
