ebay "reserves"

[All Torhs Team 0]

Ok Im about to set up my sell account for ebay and Im wondering about reserves.

I dont wana get screwed and sell something for like a dallar cause only one person bids on it. But also sometimes reserves tend to make people not even bid.

Would it be a good idea to tell them what the reserve is just so they can bid that amount?

[hip check 0]

Why not make your reserve the start price? If no one wants to pay that price, no one will bid.

[utvolsfan007 0]

I usually set my minium for a little less than the minimum price I want for

the item . I would never set the minimum at $0.01 like I have seen alot of sellers do .

[analog999 0]

If you set the minimum to 1 cent, it will generate a lot of interest. People will watch your item and then it will also get bid up fast by a good number of people. Once people have bid on it, they tend to track it in ebay, which is a good thing. The more eyes you have on it, the better.

If you start it at let's say $100, you immediately cut off a large portion of people who have the mindset that they can get it for $90 or something.

I say start with one cent or one dollar and set a reserve only if you have to.

The exception being: If you know the item is not going to be bid on very much anyway -- let's say a rare coin that only 2 or 3 collectors on ebay are watching for, and you know the value, then it is a good idea to set a reserve or set the minimum bid to what you want.

Also, make sure you have in your item title any possible names that it might be, like:

GI Joe Action Figure Figurine Toy Soldier G.I. Joe

And include mis-spellings in your text. Like:

Title: Pemmican Beef Jerky

Include in Description: Pemican, Jerkey, etc

I have sold a lot of stuff on ebay, and that is what works for me.

[All Torhs Team 0]

If you set the minimum to 1 cent, it will generate a lot of interest. People will watch your item and then it will also get bid up fast by a good number of people. Once people have bid on it, they tend to track it in ebay, which is a good thing. The more eyes you have on it, the better.

If you start it at let's say $100, you immediately cut off a large portion of people who have the mindset that they can get it for $90 or something.

Yea I agree with this method but the one thing Im selling is some 4 year old skates that have never been worn. So they were a really nice model then but now they are outdated.

I plan on making $40 on them. But since they are old Im not sure alot of people will bid so I would need a minimum

[Allsmokenopancake 0]

Minimum and reserve are different things though.

You can set a minimum bid of $10, but have the reserve set to $40.

If someone e-mails you a question on the reserve, you should tell them what it is.

[Langenbrunner15 0]

analog, I am trying to seel some goalie things on ebay, could I ask you for some help after my SAT's which are this week?

[jjtt99 0]

My advice is set your reserve to zero, but have a minimum price that you're comfortable with.

Sometimes I sell my Canucks tickets on eBay (scalping is legal in British Columbia). I do it honestly as the hidden reserve isn't liked by buyers. So I set my minimum price at face value, have no reserve then let the bidding begin.

Good luck.

[analog999 0]

langenbrunner, sure, I don't know how much help I can be different than what I just said, but ask away and I will answer

alltorhs... if you don't expect many people to want to buy them then do what jjtt99 is doing. You can also generate interest by putting something in your title like "LIKE VAPOR XXX ONLY OLD MODEL VAPOR XIX" ... something along those lines might help get people to look at your skates. It's all about traffic and getting people to keep looking at your listing as the time winds down to zero.

Here's another hint. Just go look at all the other skates that are selling that are similar to yours, or ones that are older models and see what they do. Also check to see if any of them have hit counters... on the ones that have high hit counts or lots of bids: if they are doing something tricky with the title (like I have above) or they have loaded the description with keywords, then do something like they are doing. [edit] - also check out the completed auctions and look to see which listings got the highest bids. That helps out tremendously.

[sc37 0]

Idk about the rules and such of selling, just make sure don't break any rules. Don't know if listing the reserve is one of them or not, tohugh I see it often.

[Jason Harris 31]

Analog pretty much covered everything, but I'll reiterate some items.

1) Higher minimum? My sister hasn't worked a "regular gig" for about six to seven years -- eBay has been her sole income -- and one of the first things she taught me is to "have faith in the proxy bidding system." What she meant is if you're confident that a lot of people will bid on your item, start it as low as possible. It will cost you less in listing fees and will attract more hits/bids.

It's pretty simple, really. Two 100-flex ABC sticks with the same curve, one at $1.00 while the other is $15.00. Which one do you click on first?

2) Research Click on Completed auctions (on the left side.) Then sort the results by price. Did a couple of the items sell for way more than others? Try to figure why. Cost of shipping? Length of auction? Better pictures? Better description? Friendlier description? Dumb luck on timing?

1) Reserve? Only do a reserve (or higher minimum) if your research taught you that the odds are low on getting a lot of bidding. Bear in mind that a lot of people HATE reserve auctions so, yes, I'd suggesting telling them clearly (and quickly) in your description that you "set the reserve at X dollars." In some ways, you got the best of both worlds -- a low opening price with a guaranteed higher ending price -- but you will definitely have people click out w/o reading your description solely because it was a reserve auction.

[lando_8 0]

I'd check out http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html to see the various fees but I'd suggest starting the auction at $0.99 (or lower) to keep the insertion fee as low as possible.

If you set a reserve price and the item doesn't sell or hit the reserve price you will get dinged for the Reserve Fee so you may want to keep that in mind.

You may want to just start the bidding low and set a Buy It Now price at or slightly above what you want your reserve to be.

Anyway, just a couple suggestions, I'm no eBay expert, yet I have only sold one thing but didn't have any trouble getting what I wanted using a BIN and starting the bidding low. Go through the seller fees and make sure you take the Paypal and eBay fees into consideration into the final price that you want to get (works out to about 8%).

[mew1838 0]

I'd check out http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html to see the various fees but I'd suggest starting the auction at $0.99 (or lower) to keep the insertion fee as low as possible.

If you set a reserve price and the item doesn't sell or hit the reserve price you will get dinged for the Reserve Fee so you may want to keep that in mind.

You may want to just start the bidding low and set a Buy It Now price at or slightly above what you want your reserve to be.

Anyway, just a couple suggestions, I'm no eBay expert, yet I have only sold one thing but didn't have any trouble getting what I wanted using a BIN and starting the bidding low. Go through the seller fees and make sure you take the Paypal and eBay fees into consideration into the final price that you want to get (works out to about 8%).

same as me