Ebay question/rant

[vi5]

Am I the only one who assumes that if something has a "Buy It Now" option and also a reserve price, that the Buy It Now would be AT LEAST the amount of the reserve price?

Or is it my error for not making the start price the same as the reserve/buy it now prices?

Basically someone bid just the starting price rather than doing the Buy It Now option so now nobody else has the option of doing Buy It Now. And unless bidding drives the price up to the Buy It Now price anywayit not only won't seel, but if he does win the auction it would end up being the Buy It Now Price anyway if not higher.

[Kali]

1. huh?

I must need a nap because that didn't make any sense to me at all. Sorry.

[vi5]

2. No, you're right, it was confusing...

I tried cleaning it up but I'm confused myself.

[Chan790]

5. He/She posted something on Ebay

and set the reserve price the same as the BuyItNow price.

Someone came along and bid less, probably much less, than the BuyItNow price. This takes away every other Ebay users ability to use BuyItNow. It's considered to be in poor form as the bidder can be pretty sure that whatever they bid, if it's not at least near the BuyItNow, is not going to be accepted anyways.

It'd be like if you were selling your house and wanted $200K for it, some guy comes along offering $43.76 and because he offered you a ridiculous bid that you both knew that you were not going to accept, you could no longer simply sell the house to the first person who offered to buy it for $200K but had to wait for the bidding to reach (and potentially exceed) $200K, then had to wait for the auction to close.

[Dora]

3. My husband sells gear on eBay.

His "Buy It Now" price is the same as his reserve.

[AllegroRondo]

4. Its a personal choice by the seller

I'll change it depending on what kind of item I'm selling.

If its something I KNOW will sell, I set the "buy it now" higher than the reserve. Its a 'premium' the buyer pays to make sure they win the auction.
If its something I'm not sure will sell, but I want a definite price, the "buy it now" is the same as the reserve.

[vi5]

6. Thanks. Then I'm not crazy...

Since multiple people responded that it's not out of line to set them both the same. Of course now it's a moot point since the Buy It Now option is off the table due to this clown.

[YDogg]

7. But I think that's just the way the bidding works.

The alternative was to start with a much higher minimum (i.e., the least acceptable price for the item), or just stop the auction.

[vi5]

8. I agree...

I admitted as much in my initial post that I should have started with the higher minimum. But the listing fee would have cost me more doing that than it did for a reserve auction so small as it may have been, I cut my losses with the assumption that people would get that the minimum they would get it for would be the Buy It Now price. Oh well. You live, you learn.

[smoogatz]

9. I usually don't do the reserve deal; I start with my minimum acceptable price

and set the BIN price at the "in an ideal world" figure. Usually, unless I've underpriced the BIN a bit, the item will sell somewhere in between the two. I don't think I've ever sold anything at more than the BIN price, in thirty-some eBay sales to date.

[Awsi Dooger]

10. I have, many times

I'll never use Buy It Now because you never know. In auctions I've listed for myself and family members under their user names, I can think of several times I've gotten more than double the price I would have used for Buy It Now. Bidding wars can spring out of nowhere.

One memorable one was when I listed an unopened box word processor, several years old. It seemed like old technology but it turned out two people got into a bidding war and the winner wanted it because it was the exact model of the one that broke down a day earlier, the one he used for the advertising department of his car dealership. He didn't want to retrain the staff on something else. Not only did he pay about four times what I would have used for the Buy It Now, but he also insisted on more than $70 for overnight cross country shipping.

A couple of other times I have absolutely no idea what happened. A golf putter that was several years old went for significantly more than I paid for it new. I had baffled eBayers sending me emails asking if there was something special about it, something they had missed.

My preference is to either use the lowest possible opening bid level and have confidence the item will get attention and eventually earn the amount it warrants, or use a moderate reserve price along with the low opening bid. Sometimes you'll have people fish for the reserve price and once it's met the other bidders show up and push it well past. In the meantime you get plenty of bids and the item looks like the place to be.