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I found this out by accident and maybe it was a fluke, but since it happened to me twice now, I thought I’d share the trick.
You know when there’s a reserve on an item, but there is no one bidding against you so you end up loosing the item even though you would have been willing to pay the reserve price… Well once I was bidding on a griffin and when I placed my max bid I got the message that I was current high bidded but had not met the reserve. So I figured I would up my max bid at least until I met the reserve and then a little bit more. So I upped my bid by slices of $10.00 until I did, and Oh surprise! ebay recorded the reserve as met and listed my bid at $175.00 even though it should have listed $0.99 since I was the only bidder!
And it happened again with the white fledgling that I recently won… I bid against myself until the reserve was met and my bid was registered at $110.00.
So I don’t know if those 2 cases were flukes but it seems that when there is a reserve, you can bid against yourself to meet it!
I did that with the ruby Riser I won from dunreining. I entered my first bid as $180 – planning to snipe the thing once it went higher – and was promptly listed as high bidder with the current bid at $180. So that must belong to the program.
Once you meet the reserve, that is the minimum bid. If the reserve is $100, and you bid $125 and you are the only bidder, the current bid on the item will be $100. If you bid $180 on an item with a reserve of $180, then the current bid will be $180. Its just the minimum a seller will accept for an item.
😳 Ah! Okay! I thought I had made a big discovery 😆 Boy do I feel silly, new topic and everything!
Oh well! There’s a saying in french, I don’t know if it exists in english as well: If you’re not worth a laugh, you’re not worth much! 😆
I love that! Dont feel bad, Im sure there are more than just you who dont understand the reserve thing.
skigod377 wrote:Once you meet the reserve, that is the minimum bid. If the reserve is $100, and you bid $125 and you are the only bidder, the current bid on the item will be $100. If you bid $180 on an item with a reserve of $180, then the current bid will be $180. Its just the minimum a seller will accept for an item.
I don’t understand why the sellers do that.. why not state the reserve price,isn’t that the same thing as having an opening bid amount? What is the advantage of having it be a dark secret?? Anybody know?
Melody wrote:I don’t understand why the sellers do that.. why not state the reserve price,isn’t that the same thing as having an opening bid amount? What is the advantage of having it be a dark secret?? Anybody know?
The only advantage I can see is that more people bid when the bid starts at $.99. It shows interest in the piece, and you know how that is…no one wants it till someone else does. I never kept track, but it may be cheaper to have a reserve than to have a higher starting bid (Ebay fees.) I am not positive, but its a possibility. Its a bummer for a seller to post a piece for $200, (Or whatever) and then noone bids till the very end. I prefer to see bids on my item.
skigod377 wrote:Melody wrote:I don’t understand why the sellers do that.. why not state the reserve price,isn’t that the same thing as having an opening bid amount? What is the advantage of having it be a dark secret?? Anybody know?
The only advantage I can see is that more people bid when the bid starts at $.99. It shows interest in the piece, and you know how that is…no one wants it till someone else does. I never kept track, but it may be cheaper to have a reserve than to have a higher starting bid (Ebay fees.) I am not positive, but its a possibility. Its a bummer for a seller to post a piece for $200, (Or whatever) and then noone bids till the very end. I prefer to see bids on my item.
I do think it has to do with fees….I think a reserve is something like ten cents but they take so much percent from your starting price….and of course from your ending price….so you could save a little by starting at a lower price and having a reserve….
but I’d rather start it at what I want so I know if it sells I can get at least that…and then have a BIN a little more…and either way I’m pretty safe….
but that’s just me
Here is a link to the eBay fees page. It is well hidden, believe me. lol In addition to these fees, you can also pay for pictures of your item, a gallery picture, bold, featured, etc. It can cost quite a bit just to get your item listed the way you like it.
skigod377 wrote:I love that! Dont feel bad, Im sure there are more than just you who dont understand the reserve thing.
I didn’t know it worked that way either….but that makes sense. I’ve only gotten ~20 items on Ebay so far and all of them have had no reserve.
Ebay psychology is kind of strange, I guess…the way items will get more bids if other people are bidding, and the way people will pay way more than something’s worth because of a bidding frenzy. Personally whether something has a reserve or not doesn’t make much difference to me. I just enter my max bid and that’s it…
The thing about sniping, is that if you put in your max bid too early, then people see what they are up against, and then have time to decide that it’s a good idea to go into more debt. If you put in your max bid at the last second, then you catch those people off gaurd, and they are less likely to be able to out bid your max……=P EvilBay is addicting and a type of gambling, except that you are gambling on things that you may actualy want….ie Windstones. However, there are those people who will bid on ANYTHING (even dirt) just because they think they are getting a good deal…..
Too true! I saw some auctions for fairy dust (a.k.a., dust swept up from the garage) that people were bidding on and I thought those were really funny.
And I definitely subscribe to the max bid at the last moment strategy. 😈 But I’m always afraid that the computer will choose that moment to seize up and I’ll be like…aaaaaaaugh! Hasn’t happened yet, but then again, I haven’t bought very many things either…
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