I have never understood, and this is not just confined to razors, why Ebay sellers place high reserves and low starting prices. if a seller wants to make $400 (as might be the case with this razor), why does the seller not just start the bidding at the reserve price or put a BIN?
I understand that Ebay sellers want to get higher numbers of bids because it (1) increases interest and (2) might help it show up higher in search results (such as sort by number of bids). But at the end of the day, doesn't it put a damper on bidding once bidders see that there have been 41 bids, and a $365 price with reserve not met?
Even worse, it seems that reserves could prevent a bidder from actually paying a higher price to buy the razor. Let's assume that the highest bidder right now has his max bid entered at $500 (with the reserve at $400). Now, the problem here is that this bidder could not win the auction until a second buyer bid him up to the reserve threshold. At the same time, the reserve not met could discourage a second bidder from even trying to outbid the first one.